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Lacto-fermented pickles turn a handful of fresh cucumbers into crisp, tangy, probiotic-rich sour pickles using nothing more than salt, water, and time. There’s no vinegar, no canner, and no special equipment required, which makes them one of the simplest ways to preserve a small cucumber harvest right on the counter.
Table of Contents
- Notes from My Homestead
- What Are Lacto-Fermented Pickles?
- Choosing the Right Cucumbers for Fermenting
- Ingredients for Lacto-Fermented Pickles
- How to Make Lacto-Fermented Pickles
- Keeping Everything Submerged
- Half-Sour vs. Full-Sour Pickles
- Storing Fermented Pickles
- Recipe Tips & Variations
- Ways to Use Lacto-Fermented Pickles
- Lacto-Fermented Pickle FAQs
- Ways to Preserve Cucumbers
- Lacto-Fermented Dill Pickles Recipe
- More Fermentation Recipes
Unlike the canned dill pickles most of us grew up eating, fermented pickles are never heated, so they hold onto all the living bacteria that make fermented foods so good for your gut.
They’re the same kind of naturally soured pickle that came out of barrels at the general store long before refrigeration, and they belong to the same family of easy ferments as homemade sauerkraut and preserved lemons.
Notes from My Homestead
We have always made a lot of canned dill pickles around here. Cucumbers are one of those crops the garden hands us all at once, and for years the answer was to spend a hot afternoon at the stove filling jars of vinegar pickles for the pantry. I still do that every summer, because a shelf lined with dill pickles is one of the best feelings there is.
Once we started lacto-fermenting, though, I obviously had to perfect these classic cukes too. Fermented pickles are a completely different animal from the canned ones, tangy and alive and crisp in a way heat processing can’t give you, and they scratch the same self-reliance itch without ever turning on the canner. Now a crock or two of sour pickles going on the counter is just part of the rhythm of our summer, right alongside the canning.
What Are Lacto-Fermented Pickles?
Also called real pickles or sour pickles, lacto-fermented pickles rely on the naturally occurring Lactobacillus bacteria that live on the surface of fresh cucumbers to do the pickling. Submerge the cucumbers in a simple salt brine, keep them out of the air, and those bacteria go to work converting the natural sugars into lactic acid. That acid is what gives the pickles their signature sour tang, and it’s also what preserves them.
Fermented pickles are not the same as vinegar or refrigerator pickles. Vinegar pickles, including the ones you’d be canning in a water bath, use vinegar for their sour flavor, and the heat of processing sterilizes the jar and kills off any bacteria. Those are tasty, but they don’t have the probiotic benefits of a live ferment.
The benefits of eating fermented foods are well documented. They nourish your digestive system with living cultures that help break down food and absorb nutrients, the same reason people reach for fermented turmeric or a glass of water kefir.
Fermentation was also one of the most important forms of food preservation for our ancestors, capturing nutrient-rich vegetables at their seasonal peak to eat through the winter. If you’re new to the whole process, my beginner’s guide to lacto-fermentation walks through the basics.
Ferment Any Size Batch
One of the things I love about fermenting is how flexible it is on batch size. Canning really wants a big pile of cucumbers all at once to make firing up the canner worthwhile, but you can ferment a single jar of a half dozen pickles whenever the garden gives you a handful.
The steps are exactly the same whether you’re working with six cucumbers or two dozen, so it fits whatever the harvest looks like on any given day, right up until you’ve got enough for a full canning run.
Choosing the Right Cucumbers for Fermenting
Not all cucumbers ferment equally. You want varieties bred specifically for pickling, which have thicker skins, fewer seeds, and firmer flesh that holds up to a few days in brine. Skip the long English hothouse cucumbers and the big waxed slicers at the grocery store, and steer clear of thin-skinned types like lemon cucumbers, which turn to mush.
Instead, look for the smaller Kirby-type pickling cucumbers at the farmers market, or grow your own from any of the dozens of pickling varieties available. Whatever you choose, use them as fresh as possible. Cucumbers that have been sitting around for days are already softening, and no amount of good technique will make a crisp pickle out of a limp cucumber.
If you find yourself with more cucumbers than you can ferment, my roundup of ways to preserve cucumbers covers canning, freezing, and everything in between.
Ingredients for Lacto-Fermented Pickles
One of the best parts of this recipe is how few ingredients it takes. Here’s what each one does and what to look for.
- Pickling cucumbers: Use small, firm pickling cucumbers about 4 to 6 inches long, harvested the same day if you can manage it. Their thick skin and dense flesh are what keep fermented pickles crisp.
- Salt (pure, no additives): The salt creates the brine that keeps harmful bacteria out while the good bacteria do their work. Use a pure salt with no anti-caking agents or iodine, such as canning and pickling salt or a mineral salt like Redmond Real Salt. Table salt with additives can cloud the brine or interfere with the ferment.
- Water (unchlorinated): Chlorine can slow or stall fermentation, so use filtered, spring, or well water. If all you have is city water, let it sit out uncovered overnight so the chlorine can dissipate.
- Fresh dill: Dill flower heads or dill seed give these pickles their classic flavor. Two flower heads or a couple tablespoons of seed is plenty for a half-gallon jar.
- Garlic: Whole peeled cloves, gently smashed, add depth and a little mellow heat as they ferment.
- Whole spices (peppercorns, mustard seed, bay leaf): The standard players beyond dill and garlic. Peppercorns and mustard seed are the most common, and a bay leaf adds both flavor and a bit of tannin. All of these are optional and easy to adjust to taste.
- Tannin source (grape, oak, horseradish, or currant leaves): This one looks odd on the list, but the tannins in these leaves help keep pickles crunchy. A handful of unsprayed grape leaves is traditional, though oak leaves, horseradish leaves, blackcurrant leaves, or even a tablespoon of loose black tea all work.
I have successfully used horseradish leaves for tannin in my lacto pickles. In a half gallon jar I add 5 garlic cloves, 3 allspice balls, a good pinch of red pepper flakes, 2 tablespoons of dill seed, a teaspoon of whole mustard, and 2 banana peppers sliced in half, then the rest whole pickles that I slice a tad down the middle so they ferment faster. Always comes out AMAZING!
How to Make Lacto-Fermented Pickles
The whole process comes down to packing cucumbers and seasonings into a jar, covering them with salt brine, and keeping everything submerged while the bacteria do their thing. Pickles have a reputation for being one of the trickier vegetables to ferment, but if you follow these steps you’ll get crisp, sour pickles with no trouble.
Prep the Cucumbers
Rinse the cucumbers well, but don’t peel them. The skin is where a lot of the good bacteria live, and it helps hold the shape of the finished pickle. Trim about a quarter inch off the blossom end of each cucumber. That end contains an enzyme that softens pickles as they ferment, and cutting it away is the single most important step for a crisp result. If you can’t tell which end is the blossom end (the one opposite the stem), just trim a thin slice off both ends to be safe.
For extra-crisp pickles, drop the trimmed cucumbers into a bowl of ice water while you get everything else ready. This step is optional, and I’ll admit I skip it as often as I do it, but a cold soak does seem to firm them up.
Mix the Salt Brine
The brine is just salt dissolved in water, and getting the concentration right is what keeps the ferment safe. For a half-sour dill pickle, you want roughly a 3.5% salt brine, which works out to about 2 tablespoons of salt per quart (4 cups) of water. Stir the salt into the water until it’s fully dissolved, then let the brine cool completely before using it. I usually stick mine in the fridge while I prep everything else, because pouring warm brine over your cucumbers can partially cook them and lead to soft pickles.
Make enough brine to completely submerge your cucumbers with room to spare. For eight or so pickles in a half-gallon jar, 4 cups is usually about right. It’s better to have a little extra than to come up short.
Pack and Season the Jar
Lay your tannin leaves in the bottom of a clean jar or crock, then add the garlic and whatever spices you’re using. Pack the cucumbers in on top, standing them upright and fitting them in snugly so they’ll stay put once the brine goes in.
A mason jar works well here because the shoulders help hold the pickles down below the surface. Pour the cooled brine over everything until the cucumbers are fully covered.
Keeping Everything Submerged
Anything that floats above the brine and touches air is where mold gets a foothold, so keeping the cucumbers submerged is the whole game. As they ferment, the bacteria produce carbon dioxide, and given enough time everything wants to float, so plan on some kind of weight from the start.
- Fermentation weights: A set of glass fermentation weights sits right on top of the cucumbers and holds them under the brine. This is the tidiest option.
- Improvised weights: A smaller jar filled with water, or a clean zip-top bag filled with a little extra brine, both work in a pinch to press the cucumbers down.
- A cabbage or grape leaf: Tucking a large leaf over the top before you add a weight helps corral any loose spices and keeps small pieces from floating up.
- Loose spices will float, and that’s fine. Don’t worry about stray peppercorns or dill on the surface. It’s the cucumbers themselves that need to stay under.
Let Them Ferment
Cover the jar loosely, or fit it with an airlock fermentation lid that lets carbon dioxide escape without letting air back in. If you’re using an open crock, add the crock’s weights and cover. Then set the jar somewhere out of direct sunlight and let it ferment.
Temperature drives everything from here. In a warm kitchen above 77°F, pickles are usually done in just 3 to 5 days. At a cooler room temperature they’ll take more like 7 to 10 days, and slower is generally better for flavor and crunch. As they ferment, you’ll watch the skins shift from bright green to a duller olive green and the interiors turn from opaque white to translucent. The brine going cloudy and a little fizzy is completely normal, and it means things are working.
Start tasting around day three. When the pickles are as sour as you like them, they’re done. A thin white film on the surface is usually kahm yeast, which is harmless and can simply be skimmed off. If you ever see fuzzy mold that’s green, black, pink, or blue, or if the ferment smells rotten rather than pleasantly sour, that’s your cue to throw the batch out and start fresh. When in doubt, trust your nose.
Half-Sour vs. Full-Sour Pickles
The recipe above makes a quick half-sour pickle, the kind that’s still bright green in the middle with a fresh, lightly tangy crunch. If you’d rather have a deep, punchy full-sour pickle that’s cured all the way through and translucent from edge to center, adjust three things:
- Use a stronger brine. Bump the salt up to about 1/4 cup (4 tablespoons) per quart of water instead of the 2 tablespoons used for half-sours. The higher salt keeps a slow, weeks-long ferment safe.
- Ferment longer and cooler. Hold the crock at 70 to 75°F and let it go for 3 to 4 weeks. At a cooler 55 to 65°F it’ll take more like 5 to 6 weeks. Slower fermentation gives the best texture, so don’t rush it.
- Keep it below 80°F. A long ferment that runs too warm is the fastest way to soft, mushy pickles. If your kitchen runs hot in summer, find the coolest corner of the house or a basement.
- Tend it regularly. Over several weeks you’ll get more surface scum than you do in a few days. Skim it off several times a week, and keep everything submerged. Discard the batch if the pickles ever turn soft, slimy, or smell off.
Storing Fermented Pickles
Once the pickles taste right, move them to the refrigerator or another spot that stays below 60°F. Keep them in their brine, which continues to protect them, and the cold slows fermentation to a crawl so they stop getting more sour. In the fridge, lacto-fermented pickles keep for several months, and many people find the flavor keeps improving for the first few weeks. Give a pickle a quick rinse before eating if you like, though that’s purely personal preference.
Recipe Tips & Variations
- Make them spicy: Add a dried chili pepper, a pinch of red pepper flakes, or a couple of sliced banana peppers to the jar. If you love heat, a batch of fermented hot sauce is a natural next project.
- Ferment faster: Slice cucumbers into spears or coins, or cut a shallow slit down whole cucumbers, and they’ll sour more quickly since the brine reaches the center sooner.
- Play with the tannins: Grape leaves are classic, but oak, horseradish, and blackcurrant leaves all work, as does a tablespoon of loose black tea. If you’d rather not chase down leaves, a little Ball Pickle Crisp keeps them firm too.
- Adjust the flavor: Everything except the salt, water, and cucumbers is negotiable. Add more or less dill, swap in different spices, or toss in a piece of horseradish root or a few slices of onion. This is a very forgiving recipe.
- Save the leftover brine: The tangy leftover brine is great in salad dressings, or as a starter splash to kick-start your next batch.
Ways to Use Lacto-Fermented Pickles
The simplest way to enjoy these is straight from the jar, cold and crisp, as a snack or alongside a sandwich. They’re wonderful chopped into potato salad or egg salad, sliced onto burgers, or served next to rich foods where their acidity cuts through beautifully. Aim for around a quarter cup of fermented pickles a day if you’re eating them for the probiotic benefit, the same way you might work in a spoonful of sauerkraut.
Once the fermenting bug bites, it’s hard to stop at pickles. The same salt-brine method works for all sorts of vegetables, and it’s worth branching out into sauerkraut in a crock, lacto-fermented strawberries, and fermented garlic honey. And if you end up with soft cucumbers that won’t crisp up, don’t waste them. Chop them into a batch of sweet dill pickle relish or turn to a canned bread and butter pickle instead.
Lacto-Fermented Pickle FAQs
Use a pure salt with no additives, meaning no iodine and no anti-caking agents, since those can cloud the brine or interfere with fermentation. Canning and pickling salt is the standard choice, and a mineral salt like Redmond Real Salt works well too. Avoid iodized table salt. As a rough guide, aim for about a 3.5% brine, which is roughly 2 tablespoons of salt per quart of water.
You can, but you probably don’t want to. The heat of water bath canning kills the live bacteria that make fermented pickles beneficial in the first place, turning them into an ordinary shelf-stable pickle. Fermented pickles are meant to be stored cold in their brine, where they’ll keep for months in the refrigerator. If you want a canned pickle, start with a recipe designed for canning instead.
Once they’ve fermented to your taste and moved to the refrigerator, lacto-fermented pickles keep for several months as long as they stay submerged in their brine. The cold slows fermentation to a crawl, so they hold their texture and flavor for a long time. Always keep them in the brine, and toss any batch that develops fuzzy mold or an off, rotten smell.
Soft pickles usually come down to a few fixable causes. The most common is skipping the blossom-end trim, since that end contains a softening enzyme, so always cut a quarter inch off. Using cucumbers that weren’t perfectly fresh, pouring warm brine over them, or fermenting too warm for too long can all soften them as well. Adding a tannin source like grape, oak, or horseradish leaves helps keep them crisp.
Yes, once they’ve reached the sourness you want, move them to the refrigerator or a cold spot below 60°F to stop the active fermentation. Left at room temperature they’ll keep souring and eventually soften. While pickles were traditionally kept in cool cellars before refrigeration, the fridge is the reliable, food-safe choice for keeping a finished ferment.
Ways to Preserve Cucumbers
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Lacto-Fermented Dill Pickles
Equipment
- Half Gallon Mason Jar
Ingredients
- 1.5 to 2 lbs pickling cucumbers, about 8, 4 to 6 inches long
- 4 cups water, unchlorinated
- 2 Tbsp pickling salt, or other pure, additive-free salt
- 2 whole dill flower heads, or 2 tablespoons dill seed
- 4 to 6 cloves garlic, peeled and gently smashed
- 2 tsp black peppercorns
- 1 tsp mustard seed, optional
- 1 whole bay leaf, optional
- 1 handful grape leaves, or oak, horseradish, or blackcurrant leaves, for crispness
Instructions
- Rinse the cucumbers but don't peel them. Trim about a quarter inch off the blossom end of each cucumber to remove the softening enzyme there. If you can't tell which end is the blossom end, trim a thin slice off both ends.
- For extra crispness, soak the trimmed cucumbers in a bowl of ice water while you prepare everything else. This step is optional.
- Make the brine by stirring the salt into the water until fully dissolved. Let the brine cool completely before using it. Warm brine can partly cook the cucumbers and lead to soft pickles.
- Lay the tannin leaves in the bottom of a clean jar or crock, then add the garlic and spices.
- Pack the cucumbers in snugly, standing them upright so they hold their place once the brine is added.
- Pour the cooled brine over the cucumbers until they’re fully submerged, leaving some headspace at the top of the jar.
- Add a fermentation weight to keep the cucumbers below the surface of the brine. Anything exposed to air can mold. Loose spices floating on top are fine.
- Cover with an airlock lid or loosely with a regular lid, and set the jar out of direct sunlight to ferment. In a warm kitchen above 77°F, the pickles are usually done in 3 to 5 days. In a cooler room they’ll take 7 to 10 days.
- Start tasting around day three. The pickles are ready when they’re as sour as you like and the interiors have turned from opaque white to translucent. A thin white film (kahm yeast) is harmless and can be skimmed off. Discard the batch if you see fuzzy colored mold or it smells rotten.
- Once they taste right, move the jar to the refrigerator or a spot below 60°F, keeping the pickles in their brine. They’ll keep for several months.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Can a cabbage leaf be used to keep the pickles submerged?
Yes, that would work just fine.
I have successfully used horseradish leaves for tanin in my lacto pickles. In a half gallon jar I add 5 garlic cloves (sliced in half) 3 allspice balls, a good pinch of red pepper flakes, 2 tablespoons of dill seed (or two big heads fresh) a teaspoon of whole mustard, and 2 banana peppers sliced in half, then the rest whole pickles that I slice a tad down the middle (ferments faster) , always comes out AMAZING!
That’s great. Thanks for sharing.
In the old days jugs of pickles were kept on the counter at the General Store. Before that, barrels of pickles were stored in folks’ cold rooms or basements. So, clearly, not refrigerated in either case. Which implies pickles can be kept on the (cool) shelf. And if we’re thinking in terms of self-reliance and self-reliance includes potentially being without power for an extended period, that’s what we need to be able to do to preserve a harvest.
I just made my first batch of pickles following the guidance here. I filled a 5 Liter fermenting crock with whole cucumbers, and a half gallon jar with spears (quartered cucumbers). Kept them submerged during pickling. Both pickled beautifully, although the spears are mushier, the whole pickles almost not at all. I used tea leaves for the tannin; I think I’ll try more net time, and also experiment with grape and currant leaves, having both on property.
My fermenting crock has a water lip to serve as a barrier to exchange of air and gas. The jar does not have the fermenting cap with N-shaped water trap. The spices and herbs that floated to the top of the brine in the jar molded, but not in the crock. However, that mold is not harmful to humans (according to the teaching of my mother, raised during the Depression); I believe it is the same mold from which penicillin was derived (or a cousin to it). If any pickle has picked up brine while I am extracting it, I’ve just rinsed it off, although I’m not convinced it’s necessary, and I haven’t been thorough about it.
I have been eating pickles from both containers, kept on the shelf, for over 3 weeks now. The jar of spears developed quite a bit of surface mold, and it began to look like some was forming submerged within the brine, so I just today decided to rinse the remaining spears and store them in a jar in the refrigerator. I thought about making a new brine for them but I’m curious to see how they hold up refrigerated with no brine. It’s an experiment.
From repeatedly opening the fermenting crock to extract whole cucumbers – which I prefer because they are overall more crispy, and it’s just luscious to bite into a big, juicy, flavorful pickle – finally some mold has begun to form. I’m sure that’s partly because I stick my fingers in to fish out a pickle, but I expect some mold would form in any event from the periodic opening to the air.
I’m wondering what they used to do in the old days. Did they have mold forming in the barrels that they just didn’t worry about? I think they would have had to take that route. And the jars of pickles on General Store counters: did they also just put up with the mold? Or did they refresh the brine periodically to make a mold-free visual?
So far, I don’t have an answer. But I have had no ill effects from the mold, which argues my mother was correct to not worry. I suspect that the old ways of storing food, including the beneficial molds that formed, fortify our guts rather than harm them, given that our species developed while eating such things.
Hi – Thanks for the recipe. I have my cucumbers busy fermenting away at the moment, question is that once they are “ready”, do I just leave them fermenting (in the crock) or should we removed and refrigerate? If we do this I would assume we keep them in the brine in the fridge.
Thanks in advance!
Greg
Once they are ready, you definitely want to move them to the refrigerator or cold storage. If you don’t they will continue to ferment. You will want to keep them in the brine.
Thanks so much for the reply. Have moved them crockpot and all to the fridge. They look great but I won’t try one until they are cold. Cheers.
Fantastic. Let us know how they turn out.
I took a zoom class that also was about this topic, and they suggested currant leaves for the tannins. i’m going to try it since I just happened to buy a black currant bush this year!
That sounds like a great idea. Thanks for sharing.
What kind of salt do you use?
You can use any good quality salt that is pure salt with no additives. I personally like to use a mineral salt like Redmond’s Real Salt for all of my ferments.
Hi Ashley!
Can you can these after the fermentation process?? And if not how long do they last in the refrigerator?? Most fermented pickle recipes I have seen take up to six weeks? Thanks so much, Jennifer
Canning would kill the good bacteria in the ferment, unfortunately. However, lacto-fermented veggies can be stored safely for months refrigerated.
Why do you say give the pickle a rinse before eating?
personal preference
Hi, what if one of my cucumber is floating on the surface? Will it go bad? I guess I’ll see soong enough, I’ll open the jar in 2 days 😛
They’ll all float given enough time, the lacto fermentation bacteria are creating CO2 in there. That’s one reason it’s important to have some kind of fermentation weight to keep everything submerged. Anything exposed to the air is likely to mold.
Nice article. I just fermented 6 pints today, I halved then quartered them, since they were so big. Some with granulated garlic, home dried sili hot peppers. I Always use bay leaf for tannins. Throw in a piece or 2 of white radish if you like horseradish flavor. Fermentation is done in 4 days in the Philippines homey🤙
Sounds wonderful!
The middle of the pickle spears were very mushy after 4 days. The rind was still crunchy. Any ideas on what I can do to fix this issue? Am I using improper cucs? They were fresh and hard to start. So disappointed🙄
How big were they?