I’ve written an easy salt brine pickle recipe for living, lacto-fermented dilly beans, which are traditionally a vinegar preserve. Now that green bean season is in full swing, here it is.
Ingredients to fill a one-quart mason jar:
-1/4 jalapeno pepper. Use more if you like it spicy.
-1/2 bunch of fresh dill
-3 cloves of garlic
-about 1 tsp celery seed
-enough green beans to fill up your jar
-2 cups water mixed with 1.5 tbsp sea salt (non-iodized)
Directions:
Chop off the tough bits at the end of the beans and the rough ends of the stalks of dill. Throw the garlic into the bottom of the jar. Jam in half the beans, standing upright. Stick the bunch of dill and the pepper into the middle of the jar, then fill in the outside edges with the rest of the beans. Pour in the celery seeds and shake them around the jar. Add enough brine to cover the veggies. Keep the veggies submerged and away from the mold-carrying air by placing a smaller jar full of water as a weight as in this post.
Leave them in a dark place for one to three weeks with the smaller jar holding the beans under the brine and a towel draped over the top to protect them from bugs and dust. When they taste the way you like, put a lid on them and stick them in the fridge.
For a traditional vinegar pickle recipe for dilly beans, see the one here in Katz’s book Wild Fermentation.
Tags: celery root, dill, fermented food, green beans, jalapeno, salt pickles, spicy, summer, traditional
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These beans look fantastic! Great photos and yum that recipe sounds good too. I love your recipes.
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I am on day 7 of fermenting, and they taste awesome. I randomly came across your website, and I’d really like to thank you for introducing me to the fascinating world of salt brine pickling. I finally have something to do with the veggies my neighbor is always giving us from her garden!
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Glad to hear it, Joe!
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So, I made these. After a couple of weeks I pulled them out of the cupboard. There was mold around the upper edge of the jar. The weighted glass jar plan isn’t air tight, and I’ve heard that a little mold growth can happen with fermentation, so I wiped it off. I sampled a bean – not bad! Then I looked down and saw little wormy things crawling around the edge of the jar.
I had the jar with the weight covered with a cloth and they were situated in a dark cupboard. I suspect the wormies were maggots – maybe fruit fly? (I’m in the tropics, and they are a problem here.)
Is there a reason that I can’t use a lid? Expansion? Explosions? I’d love to try this again, but don’t want bug in the beans!
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@Kris Some mold on the surface of the brine is common. The important thing is to keep the veggies under the brine—so in that sense the veggies should be airtight, or sealed from the air. Air will always touch the top of the brine, even if you put a lid on the jar, so it’s possible that mold would grow even if you used a lid on top of the jar after weighting the veggies to keep them under the brine. Using a lid would probably help keep the flies away, though. If you use a lid, I recommend screwing the lid on loosely so that carbon dioxide can escape rather than building up. Or you could screw the lid on tight and then loosen it every few days to release gas trapped inside. As for the worm/fly, was it also in the veggies or only on the lip of the jar? If the veggies were under the brine, they should be safe from bugs and worms. Also, if you’re in the tropics I bet you could get away with a shorter fermentation time, which would give mold less of a chance to build up on the surface of the water. I’m in the San Francisco area and I usually let my pickles go a week to 10 days in the summer and two weeks in the winter. Taste them as you go to get them just right (which also gives you a chance to clear any mold as it starts on the surface).
Another option for sealing the veggies from the air is to ferment them in a jar or crockpot that has straight sides and to find a plate or cut a disk of (untreated) wood that is just a little smaller than the diameter of the pot. To see a picture of this technique, check out my post on making sauerkraut. You put the veggies in the pot, add the brine, place the plate or wooden disk on top of them, and then put a weight on top of the plate/disk. That way you get a very even pressure on your veggies and can worry less about one or two popping up out of the brine and touching the air where they might grow mold.
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WOW!!! OMG, these were amazing! They completely blew my mind. I’ve never made dilly beans before and never even heard of them before seeing them online, but I thought I would try them. I had no idea what to expect when I checked them after a week, but they were so delicious that I ate ten right in a row while standing at the jar. The first jar went so fast, I can’t wait to make more! Thank you so much for this recipe!
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Eric, thanks for the recipie. I fermented mine for 3 weeks but NOT in the dark… the top has a little white floating (mold?) but I’m more worried about the garlic! It’s starting to turn green. The beans taste great but I’m wondering if I should be eating them or not! Any suggestions? Thanks again! -paul
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@Paul, the blue color is a normal reaction. Depending on where you read, the acidity of the pickle brine either releases sulfur that’s normal in the garlic, which combines with traces of copper to make greenish blue copper sulfate in small amounts, or the acidity causes naturally present pigments called anthocyanins to change color. On that second explanation, see the second page of this UC Davis fact sheet. As for the floaters, just spoon them off and enjoy the beans!
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@Eric: Exactly the response I was hoping for. You, sir, are the man. Thanks, again!
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