Dill Pickles in a Crock or Just a Jar

Easy Fermentation

After five days, these pickles were fully sour; fermentation made the brine slightly cloudy.

I WAS MAKING REFRIGERATOR PICKLES, slicing cucumbers and pouring on vinegar, thinking it was the simplest possible way to make pickles and I was avoiding the trouble of fermenting, when I realized that wasn’t clear thinking at all. Sauerkraut involves slicing cabbage and massaging it with salt, but cucumbers don’t need either, and I have an excellent fermenting crock (described here), whose lid sits in a little trough that you fill with water and acts as a one-way seal. When the crock is in use, an occasional but purposeful bubble of carbon dioxide appears and, in a quiet room, audibly pops. You just put in whole cucumbers along with salt and water (to make a brine), garlic, and whatever you want in the way of dill and spice. There’s hardly any effort. So, without quite enough information, I started a batch of kosher-style dills, quartering the cucumbers to make spears, and half filling my seven-liter crock, not waiting until the next day when I’d have enough cukes to fill it. I submerged them beneath ceramic weights in a 3½ percent brine. Only then, for guidance, did I email Mitchell Davis, a friend and a prolific home cook and author of cookbooks including about Jewish food.