Comments on: Sour Pickles – Fermented Goodness!

By: Naina

Naina — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:02:04 +0000

Just mixed up my sreattr; will see what happens over time. How long does it typically take before it’ll start bubbling?

By: mary

mary — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 23:00:33 +0000

Nourishing Traditions has many recipes for fermenting vegetables and fruits…you can use whey or double the salt, keep at room temperature for 3-6 days then transfer to 40 degree temperature. I make them in a gallon, quart, or pint jar. Doubling the salt, 2 tbls./quart, seems to give the crispier pickle. Otherwise, 4 tbls. whey to 1 tbls mineral salt, like Redmonds realsalt or celtic sea salt.

By: Janet ousley

Janet ousley — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 20:08:31 +0000

Hi Charlie sorry about your pickles, this is what i do . wash pickles put a dill on the bottom of gal jug and 1 clove garlic,then add your pickles at top of jar put another stalk of dill and another garlic clove peeled of course. then take a court jar and add 2 tablespoons of kosher salt and a pinch of powder alum, then fill jar with warm soft no chemicals water.and stir till salt desolves pour over your gal jug of pickles repeat this process till your gal jug is full of the brine soulution. cover with lid but not tight as needs room for fermation.you may have to take spoon and scum off the scum as it accumilates, i did about every other day, about 1 1/2 weeks they were done and oh so good.then i just took the dill from the top of jar and refrigerated them.

By: Luke

Luke — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 13:57:23 +0000

For traditional sour pickles, you don’t have to add sugar. That is because a bacteria converts the sugar in the pickles into an acid, making the brine acidic. Recipes that call for adding vinegar generally don’t involve fermentation and give you a different flavor.

By: Ira Silverstein

Ira Silverstein — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 12:56:01 +0000

i am confused with all the info on FULL SOUR pickles. do you use vinegar ? Or just salt brine solution? Why do a lot
of recipes call for 5 % vinegar. We like the traditional full sour garlic variety that you get in the kosher delis

By: Lori

Lori — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 18:56:46 +0000

I make sour dills and never had a problem with them going soft but have heard and read that if you put a grape leaf on the botton of your crock pot the pickels have less of a chance of going soft…….It’s been under a years since I used up that season sours and am going to start a new crock pot full in a week as my cucumbers will be ready then!! I can’t wait!!! :0)

By: Luke

Luke — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:46:30 +0000

Bummer! So I have a theory, but I haven’t had a chance to test it out. In order to make a good pickle, you want to maintain a constant level of salinity. However, as the brine pulls some of the water out of the pickles it gets less salty. It might be worth trying to put less cucumbers in the crock so that there is lot of extra brine. That way as the cucumbers pickle, less water will come out proportional to the brine, and it will become less watered down. Ideally there would be some formula that takes the weight of the cucumbers, the weight of the water and tells you how much salt to add.

Either way, try a batch with less cucumbers and a lot of brine. It should help keep the salt levels stable.

By: Charles

Charles — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 23:42:19 +0000

Well first batch gone to mush…Had to throw them away. Too mushy… Second batch gone too….Not pickled enough.. well the taste wasnt sour. Had a great crunch and these were whole not sliced like the first batch….
When I started out the sliced ones were quiet tasty on the 3rd day but their taste diminished rather quickly. They became slimy.Ugh…! The second batch were whole and really crisp but had the flavor of stump water…Ugh you know kinda like gatorade…the peel was kinda soft and the inside was that of a great picle but the taste was horriable. The room where kept was a 80 to 95.
The brine was a milky color and had scum floating on top.
Where did I go wrong….Didnt mind wasting the first couple of gallons but the 4 gallon crock was dishearting..
OK!! back to the kitchen to try my luck again…
Going to add just a little more salt in the next batch perhaps that will help. I used 1 table spoon per two cups of water. Non iodionized salt. Going to increase it to 3 table spoons to 4 cups of water
I guess tweaking your mix is part of it..
Once again any help would be appriciated…

By: Charles

Charles — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 19:37:50 +0000

Well 3 days have gone by and I have sampled the pickles.. Not sour enough yet, but they seem to be getting somewhat slimy…UGH! Maybe just me! I will give it a few more days. The skin seems to be real bitter though.. Is this normal? The brine is really milky and lots of bubbles! I think this is normal. Dont have the taste of the peppers in them yet. Does it take longer for the hot peppers to ferment and leven?
Any comments will be appriciated….

By: Luke

Luke — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 15:15:02 +0000

I think it should still work. Sliced pickles ferment a little bit faster so you might want to check on them more often. They will still be tasty!

By: Charles

Charles — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 17:54:09 +0000

Oh!!!!….I may have made a mistake…After following one of the recipies here for sour pickles I didnt forsee the DO NOT SLICE! It was stated that sliceing would interfer with the fermenting process. Well it was only a couple of gallons. Glad I grow my own cuckes. Now that there coming in I gather about 2 gallons every day. In the next week or so I will be getting a couple of bushels everyother day. Yeah!! I love cucumbers so I plant, plant, plant. I love my dills with hot peppers pickled together and green tommytoes, no such thig as too much garlic! A salt/vinegar brine.

By: Recipe: Pickled Peppers, Perhaps a Peck

Recipe: Pickled Peppers, Perhaps a Peck — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 14:53:38 +0000

[...] just cucumbers, like refrigerator pickles, and then moves on to more complicated techniques, like fermented sour pickles. Eventually you start pickling other vegetables like radishes and zucchini. I am know unable to [...]

By: Luke

Luke — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 18:57:43 +0000

There probably isn’t too much you can do. I haven’t found too many jars of pickles that measure up to the taste of real fermented pickles. also check the ingredients. If it lists vinegar, they probably aren’t the real deal. The best I have found are Bubbi’s pickles. They are not cheap though, but they are nice and sour!

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 15:23:53 +0000

I just bought an EXPENSIVE container of half-sour pickles from a local producer, only to find that they taste like nothing but salt water. None of the acidity that normally gives half sours the taste I love them for (none of that nice “fizzy” effect either, for that matter). They are inedible. I just can’t enjoy “salt pickles”. Any pickle fans out there know what I might be able to do to salvage these little guys? Maybe anything I can add to the pickle water and leave them like that for awhile? Thanks in advance.

By: dickens

dickens — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 19:37:34 +0000

What you are talking about are marinated pickles, not brined. Because vinegar kills off all bacteria, the taste is very different from brined sours that are sour-tangy rather than sweet-tangy. Search for a “marinated pickle” recipe.

By: tristan

tristan — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 15:06:04 +0000

I am looking for a recipe for what I know to be sour pickles but the one I am looking for does not incluse dill, all it uses is vinegar, mustard, salt and one or two other ingredients. if anyone can help that would be cool

By: Richard Lavimoniere

Richard Lavimoniere — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 20:20:26 +0000

I have a question, This is my first time trying to make full sour pickles. I’ve put them in a gallon jar and weighted them down as instructed. My question is this: is it normal for the brine to turn a cloudy milky color? And if so, does it stay this way through the whole brining process ? They’ve been brining for the past 5 days now. I put garlic, dill, coriander seeds and hot peppers in the jar with the cucumbers? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

By: Luke

Luke — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 23:49:06 +0000

Definitely! That should work out really well. Glass or ceramic containers are the best because they non-reactive and won’t be effected by the acid and saltiness of the brine.

By: bob congel

bob congel — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 19:06:27 +0000

Hi,

Can you use a one gallon glass jar, made by “Ball” to do the sour pickles in?

Thank you,

Bob

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 17:27:51 +0000

Two questions..I am in the process of making my first batch of these pickles, – so far so good! I was wondering tho, if I put a little alum in the crock if that would help the pickles stay firmer? Or would that mess up the chemical reactions of the bacteria? Also, once the pickles are done and I want to can them to store them, should I pack them in the same brine they are in, or make up a new one for canning? I have searched everywhere for these questions online and cant find any answers. thanks