Fermented Cucumbers – Old-Fashioned Pickles
Crisp with a salty sour flavor and full of gut balancing probiotics, these fermented cucumbers add an ancestral element to your kitchen.
Pickles, love ’em or hate ’em, there is no between. I dislike pickles, sorry to offend you die hard pickle lovers but I do not care for them. However, last year I fermented a small harvest of cucumbers and became a fan instantly. My family and I love to do as many things in the kitchen as God intended. We slow rise our sourdough, drink raw milk and live a waste not want not lifestyle. Fermented veggies fit right in.
Fermented vs. Vinegar Pickles
You might be asking yourself the difference between fermented and vinegar pickles and I am here to tell you flavor is only the half of it.
A lacto-fermented cucumber is full of probiotics. While the fermentation process occurs, good bacteria break down the sugar content in a food and turn it into lactic acid. The probiotics in your ferment come from the multiplication of bacteria, lactobacillus, hence the name lacto-ferment. These bacteria are not only working wonders on your food but they are pre-digesting it for you, making it easier for you to eat. Plus whenever you intake a fermented food you are adding beneficial bacteria to your gut microbiome. Here in the US of A, we rarely eat fermented foods. Sauerkraut possibly, and the new craze for kombucha but that is about it.
A vinegar pickle will either be a quick refrigerator pickle or will need to be canned. I love canning to create a shelf stable food, however cooking vegetables at a high heat for an extended amount of time reduces the nutrient profile considerably. Whereas a ferment can be stored in a cool dark place for months at a time. This retains all those beneficial nutrients are bodies so desperately need.
There is no easier way to add a ferment to your diet than switching out vinegar pickles for ferments.
How to Ferment Cucumbers
Cucumbers, Salt, Water and time…that’s it!
Fermented cucumbers are one of the quickest ways to preserve your harvest.
Add four teaspoons of salt to each quart jar with any additional seasonings you may like. A clove of garlic, fresh dill from the garden and a few black peppercorns or coriander seeds are placed in each of my jars. Mix in and stir about 1/4 cup of water to dissolve your salt before adding the cucumbers.
I love spears, but you can easily cut them into slices for a pickle chip.
Stuff your jars, but leave space to place three to four spears wedged sideways on top to use as a weight. You will need some form of a weight to keep your ferment fully submerged in the brine and prevent mold and spoilage. My favorite method is creating a wedge with the item you’re fermenting, but a cabbage leaf or a glass weight or a smaller regular mouth mason jar floating inside a wide mouth all work well. Always remember when fermenting “If it’s below, it’s good to go!”
Fill with water leaving about a one inch headspace and screw on a lid lightly. This will allow for the gasses to release during fermentation. Leave the jar on the counter for 3 days to a week. Bubbles will appear in the jar giving your jar a carbonated look.
Fermentation times vary based off the item and temperature. During the summer my cucumbers only take three days to ferment, but in the fall sometimes 5 or 6 days. You’re working with nature and processes that were designed perfectly. Trust the process.
Fermented Cucumbers – Old Fashioned Pickles
Ingredients
- Cucumbers
- Salt 4 Tsp per quart jar
- Water
- Optional Seasonings
- Garlic Cloves
- Dill
- Peppercorns
- Coriander Seeds
Instructions
- Wash jars clean.
- Wash and slice cucumbers into spears.
- Add salt and optional seasonings to jars and mix with 1/4 cup of water until salt dissolves.
- Layer in cucumber spears leaving headspace for three cucumber spears to wedge sideways on top.
- After wedging the spears tightly top with water, leaving one inch headspace. Alternatively you can use a fermenting weight to keep cucumbers under the brine.
- Loosely screw on a lid and leave on the counter for 3-7 days. Check twice a day to see if the ferment needs burped and to insure cucumbers are below the brine.
- Once fermented, place in the refridgerator or a cool dark place.
