Polish fermented dill pickles for winter, in jars: salt, water, dill, garlic and patience
Real fermented pickles, not half-sours: fermented all the way, sour, olive-green, the kind for bigos, pickle soup and a pâté sandwich. No vinegar and no cooking. Lactic acid bacteria do the preserving, turning the cucumbers' own sugar into acid, provided they get salt, no air and a few warm days. Six litre jars from three kilos, ready after a month, kept in the cellar until spring.
Your own work in that: 30 min.
- Cucumbers soaking 60 min
- Packing and brine 30 min
- Warm fermentation 5760 min
- Maturing in the cold 30240 min
Step by step
0 / 7 doneSoak and scrub the cucumbers
Cover the cucumbers with cold water for an hour, then scrub with a brush and trim any remains of the blossom end: that is where the enzymes that soften a pickle sit. Choose only firm ones without blemishes. Set the soft ones aside for a cucumber salad.
Ingredients: 3000 g pickling cucumbers · 8 pcs flowering dill heads · 12 cloves garlic · 1 pcs horseradish root
TipCucumbers that have lost water (a day after picking) ferment soft. An hour's soak improves their firmness and is the simplest route to crunchy pickles.
An hour in cold water, then a brushPrepare the aromatics and jars
Peel the garlic, cut the horseradish into 5 mm batons, cut the dill into pieces that fit the jar, rinse the horseradish leaves. Scald six litre jars and their lids with boiling water. They don't need to be dry.
TipHorseradish and horseradish leaves (or oak, cherry or blackcurrant leaves) contain tannins that keep the pickles firm. Without them the pickles are fine, only softer.
Garlic, horseradish, dill, rock saltDissolve the salt in water
Dissolve the salt in lukewarm water: a heaped tablespoon (about 30 g) per litre. The brine should taste distinctly salty, like a well over-salted soup — the cucumbers absorb some salt and dilute it with their own juice. For winter pickles the brine is stronger than for half-sours, because it has to keep the cucumbers firm for half a year.
Ingredients: 3000 ml water · 3 tbsp non-iodised rock salt
Thirty grams of salt per litrePack the jars
In the bottom of each jar: a piece of dill, 2 garlic cloves, 2 horseradish batons. Pack the cucumbers upright and very tightly, one against the next; tightly packed ones don't float. Dill on top and a horseradish leaf folded so it holds the cucumbers under the brine.
Upright, tight, a horseradish leaf on topFill to the brim
Pour the brine over the cucumbers right to the brim so everything is covered. Put the lids on and screw them only loosely, so the fermentation gas can escape. Stand the jars on a tray or in a bowl: for the first days the brine will overflow.
TipA cucumber sticking out of the brine goes mouldy. Tight packing and the leaf on top are the two ways to keep every one under.
To the brim, lid loose, a tray underneathWarm fermentation: 3–5 days
Leave the jars at room temperature, 18–22 °C, for 3–5 days. After a day the brine clouds, after two there are bubbles and a sour smell: the lactic acid bacteria are at work. Cloudy brine and white sediment at the bottom are normal. When the bubbling slows (day 3–5), top up with brine if it has dropped and tighten the lids firmly.
TipA flat white film on top is kahm yeast: harmless, skim it off with a spoon. Fuzzy, green, black or pink growth is mould: throw the jar away. Mould most often appears when a cucumber was above the brine.
Cloudy brine, bubbles, then tightenCold and patience: a month
Move the tightened jars somewhere cool, 4–12 °C: a cellar, a cool pantry, at a pinch the bottom shelf of the fridge. In the cold, fermentation slows and the pickles mature gently. Ready after 3–4 weeks: olive-green all through, sour, no white centre. In the cold they keep until spring; the longer, the sourer.
In the cold, ready after a month, good until spring
Before you start
Pickles too soft
Too warm during fermentation (above 24 °C), too weak a brine, or old, limp cucumbers. Ferment in the shade, buy fresh and add horseradish leaves.
The brine went slimy
Too little salt or too high a temperature. If the pickles are firm and smell pleasantly sour, rinse them and cover with fresh brine; throw away any that are soft, slippery or smell off. Ferment the next batch cooler.
No cellar
Smaller 500 ml jars fit in the fridge: after the warm fermentation move them there instead of a cellar — they mature more slowly and are ready after about six weeks. You can also pasteurise after fermentation, 10 minutes at 80 °C: longer-keeping pickles, but without live bacteria.