Fermented pickle cucumbers are a great way to preserve your cucumbers and provides you with the many health benefits that come from lacto-fermenting. You can use any small cucumber to pickle but some of our favourite varieties to grow for pickling are kirby, national pickling and boston pickling.
Fermenting jar used 3 litre Kilner Fermenting Jar
Ingredients
50 small pickling cucumbers
6 Dill or Fennel fronds
1 tablespoon of dill or fennel
12 cloves of Garlic
1 tablespoon of Peppercorn
1 tablespoon Mustard seeds
4 Bay leaf or a grape leaf
Brine
2 tablespoons of pickling salt
2 litres filtered water
Method
Wash the cucumber and cut the end off the cucumbers. If the cucumbers are large in diameter, we would cut them in half as well.
Place in the bottom of the fermenting jar the dill, peeled garlic, peppercorns and mustard seeds.
Fill the fermenting jar with cucumbers
Make the brine. A general rule of thumb for pickling cucumbers is a minimum of 3.0 percent of salt in the water is considered safe. We find the 3.5 percent of salt to water (a tablespoon of salt per litre of water) give us a great flavour.
Cover with brine and place weights on top of cucumbers
Start tasting your cucumber after 5 days to find the correct taste for you we found 7 days to be perfect for us.
Remove and strain the brine and pack cucumber into jars. These can be either refrigerated or canned.