Description
Cucumbers, naturally fermented in a flavorful brine
Ingredients
Scale
- wide mouth 1 quart jar
- 8 to 10 pickling cucumbers (4–6 inches long), washed and dried
- 2 tablespoons pickling salt or sea salt
- 1 quart water
- 2 teaspoons mustard seeds
- 2 cloves peeled garlic
- 1 stem dill, preferably flowering
- fresh horseradish root, about 1 inch long
- bay leaf
- Cherry, grape, blackcurrant, or oak leaf
Instructions
- Tightly pack the cucumbers into the sterile jar, you want to squeeze them in, so they’ll stay submerged and not float to the top of the liquid
- Add the salt to the water and bring to a boil, cool
- Add the mustard seeds, garlic, dill (fold to fit), horseradish, bay leaf, and other leaf if you have one
- Fill the jar with the salt water to within 1/4 from the top, all of your ingredients should be covered
- Loosely cap the jar with a sterile lid, the lid must be loose to allow the gases produced during fermentation to escape, some brine may seep out, so store where this won’t be a problem
- As it ferments, the brine will become cloudy
- Depending on your taste, the cucumbers will be ready to eat in 1 to 3 weeks
- Fermentation will end after 5-6 weeks, if you have any left at this point, the lids should be tightened to prevent spoilage