Anthony Marc

Thanks everyone.

Cristobal, I use a glass jar with a fermentation lid. I've been adding some liquid black tea to my ferments for tannins. Haven't tried bay leaf yet, might give that a go.

@Cristobal: Do you add anything else to your pickles to make them not go mushy so quickly? I use baby lebanese cucumbers from the supermarket (that's the best available) and they go mushy within a week.

@Michael Cox: When you say 2% by weight, do you mean 2% per litre of water, or 2% by weight of water + cucumbers?

Thanks everyone!

And yes, I'm in Australia, very warm here right now!

What's the shelf life of pickles @ 1.5%? Will 2 week ferment + 1 month refrigerator be okay?

Thanks Cristobal,

So it sounds like less salt = more sour at 2 weeks? Would you describe them as having a very sharp sourness?

The reason why I'm confused is because I've seen people say salt "slows fermentation", but then also call 5% "full sour" and 3.5% "half-sour".

Hi all,

I've been trying to make lacto pickles at 4.5% salt to 1L brine, and at the 2 week mark I feel as through they're still very mild and raw tasting. I know that I can let them ferment longer, but I'm just wondering, if I wanted them to be ready (very sharp & sour) in 2 weeks, would I have to increase or decrease the salt? How much salt would be ideal?

I'd like a 2 week ferment to taste like a 3 week ferment @ 4.5%.

Thanks in advance.

Just thought I'd post an update. 35g of sugar was probably too much. Getting a lot of white sediment after 9 days. Probably a quarter this amount would have been better for a 2 week ferment, or half the amount for a 1 week ferment. They are very sour, but they're also sour in an acetic-acid kind of way.

Next time I will drop sugar by half for a 1 week ferment and leave out the lemon juice and see what happens. Cucumbers are crunchy, but also somewhat hollowed out. Definitely if I had left them for 2 weeks they'd likely become empty balloons.

Jan White wrote:I stick mainly to yoghurt, kefir and ginger bugs for my raw ferments.

First time I ever heard of 'ginger bugs', had to look it up to see what it was. What does it taste like? Do you have any good recipes? Any molding issues? I'm assuming that this is a bacteria ferment, not yeast based?

Awesome, thanks everyone for your kind help. I have just made a new batch of cucumbers (1.5L jar, holding 750g baby cucumbers), this time, I used 1.5% salt to total weight (equivalent to 3.4% salt to water weight) + 35g sugar + 1 Tbsp lemon juice (per litre) + 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (per litre).

I have boiled the water and allowed to cool in the refrigerator until cold before pouring the brine in. Regarding the salt amount, I am well aware that 5% salt to water weight (equivalent to 2.23% salt to total weight) is typical, however, my mum is very sensitive to salt, and so it was important for me to keep it at the same level that is in sauerkraut.

Let's see what happens in 2 weeks time!

If I get mold again, I'm buying a vacuum fermenting lid.

Thanks See Hes, that's very interesting. Do you think the 1 tablespoon of lemon juice will help prevent mold? Or is it just for the crunch?

Any other tricks to prevent mold other than Cucumber Doctor?

See Hes, when you say "pickling", do you mean pickling in salt-water? Or vinegar?