A final loop around the El Cerrito Plaza Farmer’s Market on a recent Tuesday morning had me running into a small mountain of perfectly ripe, dark green pickling cucumbers — which I snapped up.

Pickling cucumbers are squat with thin skin and lots of bumps, or “burps.”

I’ve made all kinds of pickles over the years, but particularly enjoy crafting two varieties: the naturally fermented, sour, salty, zesty and often garlicky Kosher-style dills of my New York City childhood, and tart, sweet, savory, onion-laced refrigerator bread & butter pickles. The former is a bit maverick and taps into food science big time through a lengthy battle between good and bad bacteria, and the latter is conventional, quick and easy.

Naturally Fermented Pickles

Lacto-fermented pickles get their sour flavor from lactic acid fermentation, not vinegar.

I make them in an old crock or food-safe plastic container in my garage, where temperatures during summer generally fall within the ideal range of 60°-75°F.

Freshly-harvested pickling cucumbers are added to brine — water and salt — with flavorings, like dill and garlic, and nothing else, and allowed to ferment at cool room temperature for a number of weeks. Brine is hostile to bad bacteria, allowing good lactic acid bacteria — like Lactobacillus — to thrive, digest sugars in the cucumbers and produce lactic acid. Lactic acid helps fends off spoilage-causing bacteria and turns the cucumbers into pickles.

The brine has to be salty enough to give lactic acid bacteria an edge, but not so salty it doesn’t allow them to survive. Cucumbers are weighted down under the brine, often with a plate and
water-filled jar, to keep them away from spoiler microbes that thrive on oxygen, and the brine’s surface is monitored daily and skimmed of scum, mold and yeast using a slotted spoon or skimmer.

Keeping oxygen away from the brine cuts down on surface attacks, but carbon dioxide must escape, so the set-up can’t be airtight.

I use a clean, heavy beach towel. It’s not an air lock, which some pickling jars have, but it works.

When the pickles are ready according to personal taste, pickles and brine are transferred to smaller containers and refrigerated.

This ancient dance involving salt content, pH, weather and air has made a comeback in recent years as part of real and raw food movements, so if you’re interested there’s a thriving natural fermentation community in the Bay Area. I suggest a hands-on workshop at a place like Happy Girl Kitchen, and some quality time with food revivalist Sandor Ellix Katz’s site, Wild Fermentation, which includes a wealth of information about fermenting, including crocks, brine strength and upkeep.

Mainstream home food-preservation experts generally advise adding vinegar to the brine and, after fermenation, canning to prevent food-borne illness, like botulism and listeriosis. Check out The National Center for Food Preservation, which includes the USDA guidelines, and the 2009 Ball Blue Book, often considered the bible of home food preservation, to begin to understand what drives these methods.

Home fermenters were happy to see this 2009 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, where USDA microbiologist Fred Breidt was quoted as saying, “With fermented products there is no safety concern. I can flat-out say that. The reason is the lactic acid bacteria that carry out the fermentation are the world's best killers of other bacteria.”

Jeffrey Wilson, manager of Bubbies of San Francisco, a small Stockton company that’s been making naturally fermented dill pickles for over 20 years, believes in the safety of a properly fermented cucumber. “The properties of the brine and lactic acid bacteria are the key,” he said.

I asked why the company doesn’t add vinegar to their dill pickle brine. “It’s the authentic, old-fashioned way,” said Wilson.

To see my current garage batch, visit the attached images.

Bread & Butter Refrigerator Pickles

This quick-process, pickle chip-and-onion mix gets its tartness from vinegar, and is a great option if you’re looking for simplicity and near-immediate gratification. Plus, it’s delicious — I can’t keep up with demand.

Water bath canned, shelf-stable bread & butter pickles cure in their jars to a kind of mellowness, but the refrigerator version retains brightness and snap, and you can fiddle with the formula since you don’t have to worry about canning requirements.

The attached recipe is a tart variation of the Ball Blue Book’s version.

For pretty chips, use a crinkle cutter — or run a citrus zester down the length of the cucumbers, as I demonstrate in the images.

Pastime Ace Hardware can hook you up with a case of pint-sized, wide-mouth mason jars, an optional funnel and labels so you’ll be ready to make this treat when you come upon pickling cucumbers.

Make lots — you’ll need it.