RECOVERED RECIPE (Fermented Dill Pickles, originally posted September 11, 2024) –
As many of you know, I lost the prior eleven months of melinmac cooks posts in September 2024, and I’m now trying to rebuild what I’ve lost. This is one of those posts. Luckily I saved all of the pictures on my hard drive, but the content of the lost posts, including recipes, are not recoverable. At this point I’m not trying to recreate anything more than the recipes with pictures. Hopefully I’ll build it all back over time. Thanks for being here!
This recipe makes one quart of Fermented Dill Pickles, but why just make one quart? If you find yourself with an abundance of cucumbers you can fill a much bigger jar and just multiply the ingredient quantities accordingly.
Fermented Dill Pickles
Equipment
- quart-sized Mason jar
- Fermentation weight
- Fermentation air-lock
Ingredients
- 2 cups water
- 1 T pickling salt or fine sea salt
- 1½ pounds cucumbers
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1 t dill seed (or a dried flower head)
- 1 t black peppercorns
Instructions
- Make the brine – Bring the water and the salt to a boil, stirring to dissolve the salt. Take off of the heat and let the brine come to room temperature.
- Prep cucumbers and garlic – Wash the cucumbers and trim the ends. Soak in a large bowl of cold water for at least 20 minutes (up to one hour). Peel and smash the garlic.
- Pack the jar – Drain the cucumbers and add them to the jar. Drop in the garlic and the dill and pour in the brine, to cover. Add a fermentation weight to keep the cucumbers submerged during fermentation. Cover with the airlock (adding water as a seal, if that's the type of lock you're using.)
- Ferment – Place the jar in a place that's out of direct sun and leave to ferment for at least two weeks. Check on the pickles from time to time. They're ready when they taste pleasantly sour. They will have lost their vivid green color, but they'll remain incredibly crunchy.
