Jason Sandeman

Category: Fermentation

  • The Great Lacto-Fermented Pickle Experiment Begins

    The Great Lacto-Fermented Pickle Experiment Begins

    Every year it’s the same—I buy a bag of Mucci mini cucumbers from Costco (when they’re under $3, always a good idea in theory) and every year they go soft and sad on the counter before I actually do anything with them. They always end up like this:

    A closeup of a bag of Mucci mini cucumbers from Costco that have started to yellow and rot
    Unfortunately gone rotten despite Mrs Sandemano’s persistent inquiries on what I’m going to do with them.

    This time, no more excuses. Fermented pickles, finally, and a real question to answer while I’m at it: does a fancy Pickle Pipe airlock actually make a difference, or is daily burping just as good?

    So I set up two jars side by side. Same cucumbers, same brine, same everything — except one is a real canning jar that has a proper self-venting Pickle Pipe lid, and the other is a repurposed Putter’s jar with a plain lid that I’ll have to burp by hand. Whichever one wins, I want to actually know. (Also, it has absolutely nothing to do with the ongoing debate with Mrs Sandemano whether we ought to keep my collection of empty jars.)

    The setup (Day 0) :

    • Mucci mini cucumbers, ends trimmed about 1/8”
    Blossom ends of mini cukes?
    • One clove of garlic per jar, and not just any garlic — the first of the season from my own garden.
    A snap of a double bulb of garlic and the scape out of my garden on a black flat electric stovetop
    This is my first ever garlic I grew
    • A big pinch of pickling spice in each jar (scientific measurement: thumb and two fingers, roughly 1 tsp).
    Pickling spice I use this year
    • A few fresh dill fronds.
    A picture of dill from the refrigerator in front of the east facing window showing some are definitely going rotten
    Rescued from a bunch that was on its last legs, after diligently awaiting in the refrigerator for me to finally follow through on this project.
    • Two 1L jars: one repurposed pickle jar with a solid lid, one wide-mouth jar from Walmart that happens to fit a Pickle Pipe perfectly.
    One pickle pipe jar and a repurposed pickle jar

    The brine (and a small math incident) :

    Target was a 2.5% salt brine. I weighed the water from both jars combined: 744g. Then I did the percentage math and got 1.8g—a number so small it looked wrong. I consulted Gemini, and found out it was because I’d added an extra decimal place. No sweat, multiplied the result by 10, landed on 18.6g of pickling salt, rounded up to 19g.

    “Ah yes, precision.”

    —Papa Sandemano


    I dissolved the 19g into the full 744g of water in one bowl, whisking until it went clear, then split it back evenly between the two jars, leaving about 1cm of headspace in each.

    Lids on, jars tucked onto the counter out of direct sun.

    Day 1:

    Curiosity got the better of me, and even now the smell promises something amazing to come.

    Nothing to report yet — no cloudiness, no bubbles, nothing dramatic. Just me, checking on two silent jars like they owe me an update. Stoked. Almost impatient. This is apparently just what fermentation day 1 is: waiting for something to happen while a garlic clove sits there doing absolutely nothing to prove it either.

    Next check-in whenever the brine starts doing something interesting. Which — fingers crossed — should be soon.