How to Make Classic Fermented Half-Sour Pickles

Learn how to make crisp, tangy, half-sour pickles using a simple salt brine—no vinegar, no canning, no boiling, just old-school fermentation. 🥒 Peasant food for gut health, my friends!

Great for your microbiome, your gut health, brain health, and immune system.

A Google Doc with the method: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ySB575-tk5StLejYIT_tsYJIi-yapw45d4LhHQGgrEM/edit?usp=sharing

Feel free to comment on the Doc.

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gut health, fermentation, pickles, microbiome, GI health, digestive health, half sour, kosher pickles

Hi friends, it’s Dr. Russ. It’s height of summer. It’s a gorgeous summer here in Portland and it’s Kirby cucumber season. That’s these little guys. These are the ones you can make pickles out of. And I’m going to teach you how to make traditional half sour fermented pickles. These are so good. No vinegar. It’s fully fermented, which means it’s great for your gut. It’s great for your microbiome, which means it’s great for your skin, your gut health, and your brain. Just really, really delicious, too. Very traditional recipe. Kirby cucumbers. Each quart mason jar will probably hold eight, maybe 10, depending on the size. I made four jars today. I’m going to tell you how to do it. Here we go. Pick out your Kirby cucumbers. You need them to be firm. No mushy spots. You’re going to wash them real good and trim off anything on the end. You want the ends to be free of any stems, especially if those stems are brown, but free of any stems. You want some whole pepperc corns. You want a nice big bulb of garlic. You want some fresh dill. Everything needs to be clean. It doesn’t need to be sterile, but it needs to be clean. And your jars should be clean like right out of the dishwasher. You don’t need anything fancy. But if you have a fermentation kit or you want to get one, these uh glass pickling pebbles are good. They hold everything under the brine. And these silicone air lock lids are good. They keep it so that air doesn’t get in, but the carbon dioxide that is created by the fermentation gets out. That’s a really good time to talk about fermentation and how this works. We’re going to make a brine. And the brine will inhibit the growth of all the bacteria other than the lactobacilli. The lactobacilli are really good for your gut. They help you by living in your body and they make lactic acid which acidifies the brine which means we don’t need to use any vinegar. It’s like it’s going to make its own vinegar and it’s going to pickle itself. It’s amazing how it works. Two tablespoons of salt per quart of water. Or if you want to be really super precise about it, 35 grams of salt per liter. You got to use noniodized salt. That’s why I use kosher salt. You can also use sea salt as long as it’s not has as long as it doesn’t have any iodine added. The iodine will inhibit the bacterial growth a little too much. And it’s the same if you have chlorine in your tap water. So, either filter the chlorine out of your tap water or get distilled or spring water from the grocery store. It won’t be chlorinated. Once you’ve got your pickles, uh once you got your cucumbers cleaned and all the ends trimmed, you put about a tablespoon of pepperc corns into the jar. You put two, three, four, maybe five cloves of garlic into the jar. I like my pickles really garlicky, so I tend more toward five, but also I like other people to eat my pickles and so sometimes I only do three. These are kind of small today, so I did four cloves of garlic and four maybe five stems of dill. The dill just gives a really nice flavor. If you don’t have fresh dill, you can use dried. It’s okay. It just is a little bit harder to get the dill out. Okay, you got your clean jar that’s got peppercorns, garlic, and dill in it. Now, you put your cucumbers in there. Don’t pack them in tight. Pack them in loose because every cucumber needs to be completely bathed on all sides by the brine. So, if they’re packed in real tight, there’s going to be some part of the cucumber that’s not touching the brine and it’s not going to ferment right. So, better to put a little bit fewer and use more jars. Now, you’ve got your cucumbers, dill, peppercorns, and garlic in the jar. It’s time to make the brine. Like I said before, 2 tablespoons of salt for every quart of water. Put the salt in the water. The water should be cold. And shake it up. You need to shake it in order to dissolve all the salt. Your brine will be cloudy, but you don’t want to see any salt crystals at the bottom. Okay? Cloudy brine is great. Um, salt crystals at the bottom, not good. Carefully pour the brine over the stuff in the jar. Cover it completely. Leave a little bit at the top. Leave a little bit of space at the top, but make sure everything is covered completely. Once you’ve got that done, it’s time to put something in there to hold the cucumbers and everything under the water because they’re going to tend to float. And remember, you want them completely covered. So, grandma used to use a piece of rye bread. You can use these uh speciallymade glass pickling pebbles to hold it down. I have a grape vine in my backyard, and I use grape leaves. The grape leaves folded over are perfect. They hold everything down. Plus the tannins in the grape leaf keeps everything a little bit crispier. Now you put the lid on. If you have one of these fancy silicone airlock lids, you can use that. Otherwise, just a regular jar lid will be good. Put it on there. Not too tight, not too loose, just normal amount of tightness. And put it on your counter. I like to put mine in like a pan with a a lip um because sometimes the brine will spill over during the fermentation process and that just keeps it cleaner. Once a day, open the lid. You got to let the gas escape. You’ll see bubbles forming. That’s great. That means fermentation is happening. Depending on how hot or cold your kitchen is, it’s going to take two, three, four, maybe 5 days on the countertop. If your kitchen tends to be warmer, two or three days. If your ti kitchen tends to be cooler, four or five days, I would say if you’re not sure, just after three or four days, put them in the refrigerator. They’re not quite ready, but now once the fermentation has gotten going, we’re going to use the refrigerator to slow it down. That keeps everything crispy. In about a week after you put them in the fridge, they’re going to be ready and they’re going to be good in the fridge for about a month. They I think they peak at about two weeks where you get that perfect balance between crispiness and tartness. It’s just so good and it’s so good for you. If you have any questions, drop them in the comments. I’ll keep an eye on this video thread. Um, I’d be happy to help you do this. Let me know how it goes and uh when I’m ready to put mine in the fridge. I just put them on the counter this morning. I will let you know. And then when I take them out and ready to test them, I’ll let you know again. Okay. This is Dr. Russ. Thanks for watching. Happy pickling. [Music]