Hi there,
I was wondering if you can help with a question I have. I have lacto fermented cucumbers once and I think the ferment went well however the pickles were so fizzy I couldn't eat them. This has also happened to me when I bought some fermented pickles from a shop. Again, I couldn't stomach the fizzyness. I am on day 3 of a batch of lacto fermented cucumbers and all is looking well with bubbles present but I just dont like the extreme fizzyness.
I have done some research but have found some conflicting information. Firstly, is the fizzyness safe? Secondly, is there any way to stop this from happening? Will there be a stage where the fizzyness settles down?
Thanks so much!
Jessica
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Hi Jessica,
I am assuming the fizziness is dissolved carbon dioxide in the brine, which were likely created by bacteria and maybe yeasts. In either case the fizziness is likely safe, though its making the pickles unpalatable for you which isn’t so good. I looked at some research on CO2 and brined cucumbers and they found that the amount of salt and the cucumber varieties both affected the amount of CO2 produced. The early CO2 (before the brine turns cloudy after a couple of days) seems to mostly come from the process of the brine saturating the cucumbers. After that it looks like the rest of the CO2 comes from the microbes. The researchers also found that the higher the salt concentration (they measured 4, 5.4 and 7%) the lower the total CO2 produced.
Taking this into account, perhaps you could lower the amount of fizz by either raising the salt in the brine or trying a different variety of pickling cucumber or both.
Christopher