Mild Fermented Pickles Recipe

If you don't like fermented foods because they're too tart or sour, you might like these pickles. There's no vinegar or sharp taste. Even the onions are mild. They're not sweet, either, even though the recipe calls for brown sugar: the bacteria consume most or all of the sugar. They're just mild, savory pickles.

There's no need to add culture because cucumbers naturally have L. plantarum bacteria on their surface.

Equipment needed

1 quart canning jar* with ring and lid (or fermenting lid)

1 fermentation weight or small, clean stones in a Ziploc baggie

Ingredients

1 pound pickling cucumbers** (not salad cucumbers), preferably unwashed

1/4 sweet onion (like Vidalia)

1 teaspoon juniper berries

1 teaspoon turmeric

1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns

1/2 teaspoon anise seed

1 tablespoon brown sugar

3 tablespoons pickling salt or other salt without iodine

1/4 teaspoon pickle crisp

Filtered water free of chlorine

Instructions

Rinse the cucumbers in the filtered water just enough to get the dirt and spines off. Cut off and discard the ends and cut into 1/4" slices.

Cut the onion into thin slices. Cut the larger rings in half if desired.

Put the salt, sugar and spices in the jar along with a cup of water. Put the lid on tightly and shake well until the salt and sugar are dissolved.

Put the onion and cucumbers in the jar, alternating them so they are mixed. Fill the jar with filtered water, leaving about an inch of head space. Sprinkle in the pickle crisp.

Place the weight or bagged stones in the jar and put the ring and lid on loosely (or use a fermentation lid). Place the jar away from drafts and direct sunlight where it can ferment at about 70 degrees F. Let ferment for three days--the liquid will be cloudy and the pickles ready to eat. Refrigerate.

*Vintage crocks may contain lead.

** This year I started growing a variety called Pick-a-Bushel Hybrid, and I'm impressed. Burpee says, "2014 All-America Selections Regional Award Winner for Heartland and Great Lakes! A semi-bush variety that yields 10-20 white spined pickles per plant. Best harvested when 3-6" long Pick-a-Bushel is resistant to Cucumber Mosaic Virus, Scab, and MMV yielding bushels of bountiful harvest in any growing season." Even the cucumbers that get large are firm and not too seedy.

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