Live-fermented dill pickles with tea

I started some cucumber dill pickles this weekend, and I added two bags of tea. Why? It’s said that fresh grape, cherry, oak, or horseradish leaves can add tannins that keep cucumber pickles crunchy. I didn’t have any of those, so I threw in two tea bags instead. I’m excited to find out what happens! Will fermenting dill pickles with tea keep them crunchy? Time will tell.

[Update: See how the pickles turned out in this post.]

Meanwhile, here’s what I did.

I washed and cleaned three pounds of smallish cucumbers.

I got a bunch of dill.

The best dill to pickle with has passed the flowering stage and started to develop seeds. The bunch I found was only starting to flower but it smelled great.

I peeled about two heads of garlic.

Got some whole black pepper.

And two bags of black tea.

I laid the dill stalks into the bottom of a crock and threw in the garlic, pepper, and tea bags. Then I laid the cucumbers on top. For more ideas on pickling vessels, check out this post on storing pickles.

Then I laid down some weights to keep everything submerged and added a brine of three quarts water mixed with 9 tablespoons of salt.

This crock comes with its own lid that forms a water seal to help keep mold-carrying air away from the surface of the brine. You can see more about air-sealing your pickles here.

Three days later, my kitchen started to smell like dill and the surface of the brine showed these bubbles, a sure sign that fermentation was happening. If you look carefully at the picture you can also see two white islands of mold on the upper left between the two pepper kernels and another up at the top, at 12 o’clock. The next day those had gotten even bigger, with little blue spots at their center, and I scooped them out with a spoon.

The cucumbers still have a few more days of fermentation to go. I’m curious to know if the tea kept the dill pickles crunchy, and whether it gave them an interesting flavor, too.