Quick-Brine Fermented Carrots
This is the perfect gateway ferment - fast, lightly soured, and genuinely enjoyable even for hesitant eaters. The carrots stay brilliantly bright orange and hold their crunch beautifully. I've found they actually help keep other foods fresh when packed alongside them in lunch boxes.
For yourself, slice them into rounds with whatever spices you fancy - ginger, curry powder, chilli. For kids or fussy eaters, cut them into sticks or planks for dipping. Even a single 350ml jar is worthwhile - perfect for snacking throughout the week.
Pro tip: If you're introducing fermented foods to reluctant eaters, ferment for just 2-3 days until barely sour, then gradually work up to the full 5-7 day ferment as their palate adjusts.
Equipment
- 1 litre jar (or larger)
- Knives and chopping board
- Fermentation weight (ceramic weights, clean river stone, or pie weights in a small zip-lock bag)
- Lid with airlock ideal, or standard lid for daily burping
Ingredients
- 600-800g fresh carrots (any variety - rainbow carrots are stunning)
- 30g fine sea salt (approximately 2 tablespoons)
- 1 litre filtered or spring water (rainwater works beautifully, tap water is fine)
- Aromatics: choose from black peppercorns, mustard seeds, fresh thyme, dill fronds, celery seeds, coriander seeds, sliced ginger, or bird's eye chilli
Method
- Make your brine: Dissolve 30g salt into 1 litre of water. I mix this in a measuring jug since you won't need the full litre once the jar is packed with carrots.
- Prepare carrots: Peel and cut to your preferred shape - keep pieces roughly the same size for even fermentation. Rounds for snacking, sticks for dipping, or planks for serving.
- Pack the jar: Fill with carrots, adding your chosen aromatics. Keep it subtle - a sprig of thyme, a teaspoon of peppercorns, a few slices of ginger. Less is more here.
- Add brine: Pour brine over vegetables to cover completely.
- Weight down: Place your weight on top to keep everything submerged.
- Seal and ferment: Close the jar. If using a standard lid, release pressure daily by briefly opening and resealing. Taste from day 2 onwards.
- Ready to eat: Carrots are typically perfect at 4-7 days depending on temperature and your taste preference. Transfer to the fridge when they reach your ideal sourness level.
Storage notes: Refrigeration halts fermentation. If white film (harmless kahm yeast) appears on the surface, simply refrigerate immediately. Top up with fresh brine if the level drops as you eat them. Once you're confident, you can continuously ferment by adding fresh carrots to existing brine.
Shelf life: 2-3 months refrigerated
Ingredients and Equipment
Equipment
- 1 litre jar (or larger of course)
- Knives and chopping boards etc.
- Weight of some kind - a clean non porous rock or baking weights could do
- Lid - an air lock is great but this is a short ferment and doesn't need long, just a burp a day.
Ingredients
- Carrots - all colours and shapes but as fresh and natural as possible. Don't buy those bags of mini snacking style 'baby carrots' as they are usually just beaten up large carrots..! you could also do this with beans and cauliflower or onions - broad beans, whole corn.. more in my book
- approx. 3 Tablespoons of fine sea salt - you'll want to use a ratio of 3% of salt to the water you have depending on the size of the jar and the brine you'll need.
- 1 litre plus (depending on the size of your jar) of good clean water - rain water is great, spring is good, filtered is next - tap will do.
- herbs and spices you have at hand - for carrots we like: black peppercorns, mustard seeds, thyme but you can make up your own combinations of flavours depending on the vegies you are brining.
How to
- Make a brine of 1 litre of water and 3 Tablespoons of salt by simply stirring until dissolved. I like to do this in a measuring jug as you don't use a litre of water when the jar is full, but it's easier to measure like this. After a while you'll get used to the flavour of salt to water/amounts and just start adding straight to the jar.
- Peel and cut carrots depending on how you imagine eating them - try and keep them all around the same size so they ferment at the same speed.
- Fill your jar with carrots and then a few extra things for flavour. eg. You could put a twig of thyme or dill, some celery seeds or coriander seeds, some ginger or a birds eye chilli too. Not too much -subtle is best IMO.
- Pour brine over the top to cover the vegetables.
- Weigh them down to keep them under the brine with fermentation weights, or even pie weights in a zip-lock bag, or fill a ziplock bag with the remaining brine and use that as a weight too - works really well.
- Seal your jar. It's good if air can escape though an airlock, but otherwise just burp the jar by opening and closing the lid as needed, probably daily.
- Taste as you go, maybe after the second day depending on the temperature. They should be ready in 4-7 days. When you think they taste perfectly sour and flavourful, pop them in the fridge.
- We usually start eating them on day 4 and finish the jar off before fridge time anyway.
Just in case...
Sometimes a white film can form on the top of the brine... it's quite pretty really. That's just Kahm yeast.... it forms when exposed to oxygen.. it's not poison but it can make things a bit slimy and no-one wants that. So get them in the fridge lickety split, and if the brine goes down as you eat them, you might need to pour some more in. Just make a bit more up in another jar. Once you get into it, you can just eat them all and add more carrots to the existing brine. True. x
Hi Matt,
Cucumbers are a bit more finicky due to high water content. Watching cucumbers lacto brine ferment is like waiting for an avocado to ripen to perfection. One minute its good, the next its mush. It’ll be perfectly edible, but the crunch disappears very quickly. Flavours often add mustard seed, dill, coriander seed, pepper, garlic whatever. The thing I do to cheat a little with pickled cucumber is a little Calcium Chloride, known to some as Pickle Crisp but the brand doesn’t matter. 1/4 teaspoon per litre jar. If your spring water is already hard, then you may not need it.
Hi there,
Just wondering if this recipe would work for cucumbers?
Thanks so much
Hi there,
Just wondering if this recipe would work for cucumbers? Thanks so much for your help
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