Pickling vs Fermenting: 3 Ways to Make Pickles, and Only One Needs a Canner

There are three ways to turn a cucumber into a pickle, and they are not the same thing at all. Refrigerator pickles get their sour from vinegar you pour on. Fermented pickles grow their own sour from salt, water, and time. Canned pickles get vinegar AND a heat process that makes the jar shelf-stable. Only that third one needs a canner. So if you landed here mid-season because the canners have sold out again and your counter is buried in cucumbers, take a breath. Two of the three methods need nothing but a jar!

Pickling vs fermenting: one adds the sour, the other grows it

Here's the cleanest way we've found to keep it straight. Pickling is something you do TO a vegetable. Fermenting is something a vegetable does for itself (with a little help from salt).

When you pickle, you pour acid on. Vinegar, usually 5 percent, and that acid is what makes the food safe and sour. When you ferment, you add no acid at all. You add salt water, keep the vegetables submerged, and wait while Lactobacillus bacteria that were already living on the cucumber eat the sugars and make lactic acid. Same destination, wildly different route. One takes twenty minutes. The other takes three weeks.

Which means every fermented pickle is a pickle, but not every pickle is fermented. Those shelf-stable dills at the grocery store? Almost always vinegar, never fermented. That's why they don't count as a probiotic food no matter what the label art is hinting at.

Refrigerator pickles: ready tomorrow, gone in a month

Start here if you have never made a pickle in your life. Slice cucumbers, pack a clean jar, pour over a tested vinegar brine, lid on, into the fridge. Tomorrow you have pickles! It's stupidly simple, and there's no gear to buy.

The trade is shelf life. A refrigerator pickle isn't preserved in the pantry sense; it's a cucumber having a very good time in some vinegar in a cold box. You get weeks, not a year. So eat them.

Two small habits make refrigerator pickles noticeably better. Trim a 1/16-inch slice off the blossom end of every cucumber and throw it out. Blossoms carry an enzyme that turns pickles to mush, and this one move fixes more soft-pickle complaints than anything else on this page. Second, use a real funnel so the brine lands in the jar instead of on the counter. The Stainless Steel Funnel Set by Norpro ($15.49) covers three sizes, so it also handles the salad dressing and whatever funnel job you invent next Tuesday.

Fermented pickles: keep the vegetables under the brine and you've won

Fermenting sounds like the advanced move. It really isn't! The whole method is one sentence: submerge vegetables in salt water, keep air out, wait.

The catch is that word submerge. Anything floating above the brine line is sitting in oxygen, and oxygen is where mold and kahm yeast throw their party. That's the entire reason fermentation gear exists. It isn't fancy. It's two jobs: hold the vegetables down, and let carbon dioxide out without letting oxygen in.

Related reading: Fermentation Weights: Why Your Vegetables Float, and What It Actually Costs You →
Why vegetables float, kahm yeast vs mold, and the one cabbage-leaf trick that keeps the whole surface covered.

Four batches going at once, each under a different color airlock. The color coding isn't decoration, it's how you remember which jar is the garlic one.

The Complete Wide Mouth Fermentation Kit by Masontops ($54.99) is nine pieces that do exactly those two jobs, and it's what we hand people who ask where on earth to start:

• 4 Pickle Pebbles, clear soda-lime glass weights - they sit on your vegetables and hold them under the brine. Glass, so nothing leaches into a jar that's going to sit on your counter for a month. Each is 2.75 inches across and 0.75 inches thick, with a little finger grip molded right on top so you can lift it out without going fishing in the brine with a fork!
• 4 Pickle Pipes, one-way silicone airlocks - a fermenting jar builds real pressure, and traditionally you "burp" it by hand every day or two. These vent it for you. No burping, no babysitting, no three-piece water airlock towering over your counter! BPA-free and phthalate-free silicone, and they go straight in the dishwasher.
• 1 acacia wood Pickle Packer - the 10-inch tamper that squishes the cabbage down. It's 2.5 inches at the wide end and 2 inches at the narrow end, which is a polite way of saying it fits wide-mouth AND regular-mouth jars. (It also makes a very respectable cocktail muddler in the off season!)
• An illustrated Fermenting Guide and Recipe Book by Sarah Miller of KillerPickles.com. Actual instructions, actual recipes, in full color! Nobody wants their first ferment to be a guessing game.
• Enough parts to run four jars at once, which matters more than it sounds! Fermentation is a three-week wait, so doing one jar at a time means your first taste test lands in September.
• Honest catch, printed right on the box: jars and screw bands are NOT included. The kit is wide-mouth only, and a Pickle Pipe still needs a metal band to hold it down. If your band collection has gone rusty (whose hasn't?), a Set of 12 Canning Jar Lids & Bands by Superb ($8.97) sorts that out.

The numbers that decide whether it fits your jars. That 2.75-inch pebble is sized for a wide mouth; regular-mouth jars take the smaller version.

Already have jars and just need parts? Pickle Pebbles ($21.99) and Pickle Pipes ($21.99) both sell separately in regular and wide mouth, and the Acacia Wood Pickle Packer ($17.99) stands on its own too.

The two numbers that decide whether your ferment works

Salt and temperature. That's the list, and neither one is a suggestion.

The National Center for Home Food Preservation's fermented dill pickle recipe calls for 1/2 cup of canning salt, 1/4 cup of 5 percent vinegar, and 8 cups of water for every 4 pounds of cucumbers, per gallon of container. Don't cut the salt to make them less salty. In a fermented pickle, salt isn't seasoning, it's the referee: it lets the good bacteria grow and keeps the bad ones from getting a word in. NCHFP is unusually blunt about that one.

Temperature is the other lever. 70 to 75°F ferments in about 3 to 4 weeks. Cooler, 55 to 65°F, still works but stretches to 5 or 6. Above 80°F your pickles go soft, which makes a west-facing Michigan kitchen counter in August roughly the worst spot in the house and the basement stairs the best. Skim any surface scum a few times a week. And if a batch goes soft, slimy, or smells wrong, throw it out. That rule isn't up for negotiation.

Canned pickles: the only method that actually needs a canner

Want pickles on a pantry shelf next February? Now you need the canner, and specifically a water bath canner, not a pressure canner. Pickles are acidified below pH 4.6, and everything below 4.6 is water-bath territory.

Related reading: Pressure Canner vs Water Bath: One Rule Decides What You Can Safely Can →
Why 4.6 is the only number that matters, and which foods land on which side of it.

Good news for August: a water bath canner is a big pot with a rack in it. No gauge, no gasket, no $500 price tag, no annual sellout drama! NCHFP processes raw-pack dill pickles for 10 minutes for pints and 15 minutes for quarts at up to 1,000 feet of elevation. There's also a low-temperature pasteurization option: hold the water between 180 and 185°F for 30 minutes and you get a noticeably crisper pickle. Watch it with a thermometer though. Let the water slip below 180°F and you've bought a spoilage risk instead of a crunchier pickle.

Already own a pressure canner? Then you already own a water bath canner.

This is the part that saves people sixty bucks, so we'll say it plainly: a pressure canner is a big pot with a lid. Take the pressure out of the equation and that's all it is! Clemson Extension says about the same thing, and their guidance traces back to So Easy to Preserve out of the University of Georgia:

"A deep pressure canner can be used as a boiling water bath canner. Just be sure there is enough space above the jars to allow for 1 inch of briskly boiling water. Place the lid loosely on the canner, don't fasten it. Leave the vent wide open, so that steam escapes and pressure does not build up inside."

So you're not pressure canning your pickles. You're using the pot as a pot. Three things to get right:

• Check your depth first, before the cucumbers are cut. You need the jars covered by a full inch of briskly boiling water, plus a little headroom so it isn't slopping over the rim. Stand a jar in the empty canner and eyeball it. Most full-size canners clear this easily; the little 10-quart models can be tight with quarts.
• Lid on loose, never fastened, vent wide open. The lid is there to hold the boil, not to seal. Latch it down and even a couple of pounds of pressure will creep in, and at that point you are no longer running the tested boiling-water process you looked up. Different method, different results.
• Use the rack it came with. Jars sitting flat on the bottom of a pot can crack, and water needs to circulate underneath them. Your pressure canner already has the right rack in it, which is more than you can say for the average stockpot!

Then you just run the normal boiling-water time. 10 minutes for pints, 15 for quarts, same as any other water bath, timed from a full rolling boil. If the boil stops at any point, bring it back and start the timing over from zero.

Six tools, and you'll reach for the jar lifter every single time. Boiling water and wet glass are a bad combination for oven mitts.

Gear-wise this part is cheap. The Canning Set by Norpro ($23.99) bundles the funnel, jar lifter, lid lifter, and bubble tool in one box. Buying piecemeal? The Jar Lifter by Norpro ($7.99) is the one tool we'd call genuinely non-optional, and the Bubble Popper / Measurer by Norpro ($2.99) pulls double duty: it releases trapped air pockets and measures headspace, the number that decides whether the lid seals at all. Then you need lids, and ours are Regular Mouth Canning Jar Lids by Superb (12 for $4.97), stamped in Sugarcreek, Ohio. Made in the USA, and we're happy about it!

Related reading: When to Buy a Pressure Canner, and Why August Is the Worst Time →
Our own shelves prove the point every summer. The sellout order, and the months to actually buy in.

You don't have to pick just one (ferment first, can second)

Here's the part most people may not realize: these three methods aren't rivals. NCHFP's own fermented dill instructions end by saying that canning fully fermented pickles is a better way to store them than leaving them in the crock. Ferment for three weeks, heat the brine, pack it into jars, process it like any other pickle. You trade the live cultures for a pantry shelf and a year of storage.

So the real question was never fermented or canned. It's whether the batch is headed for your belly this fall or a shelf for winter. Eating it within a few months? Skip the canner entirely. Storing it past spring? Can it. Cucumbers going soft on the counter tonight with no plan whatsoever? Refrigerator pickles, tomorrow, done!

So which one should you make this weekend?

• You have four cucumbers and no equipment. Refrigerator pickles, tonight. You already own everything you need except the vinegar!
• You want that funky, gut-friendly, real-deli sour. Ferment. Get weights and an airlock, hold it near 70°F, give it three weeks.
• You want jars in the pantry for Christmas. Water bath canning. Lids, a rack, a big pot, 10 minutes for pints.
• Your canner is sold out and the garden is not waiting. Two of these three don't care one bit. Ferment or refrigerate now, can in winter when the shelves are full again.
• You're doing this with kids. Ferment, honestly. Watching bubbles climb a jar of cabbage for three weeks beats any science fair volcano we've ever seen!

FAQ: the pickle questions we get at the counter every August

Do fermented pickles need a canner?

No. Fermented pickles need salt, water, a jar, something to hold the vegetables under the brine, and time. Nothing gets heat-processed. You only need a water bath canner if you want to make the finished pickles shelf-stable afterward, which NCHFP recommends for storage beyond a few months.

What is the difference between pickling and fermenting?

Pickling adds acid from the outside, almost always vinegar at 5 percent, and that acid does the preserving. Fermenting adds no acid at all; salt water lets the bacteria already on the vegetable make lactic acid on their own over about three weeks. Fermented pickles are pickles. Most pickles are not fermented.

Can you use a pressure canner as a water bath canner?

Yes. Clemson Extension states that a deep pressure canner can be used as a boiling water bath canner. Do not pressurize it: place the lid loosely on the canner without fastening it, leave the vent wide open so steam escapes and no pressure builds, and make sure there is enough space above the jars for 1 inch of briskly boiling water. Use the rack the canner came with, and process for the standard boiling-water time, which for dill pickles is 10 minutes for pints and 15 for quarts at up to 1,000 feet of elevation.

How long do refrigerator pickles last?

Weeks, not months, and they have to stay cold the whole time. They are not shelf-stable and should never live in the pantry. Fully fermented pickles keep about 4 to 6 months refrigerated if you skim off any surface scum, and properly canned pickles hold about a year on the shelf.

Can you can fermented pickles?

Yes, and NCHFP says it's the better way to store them. Pour the brine into a pan, bring it to a boil, simmer 5 minutes, strain it through a coffee filter if you want it clear, then pack the pickles with the hot brine leaving 1/2 inch of headspace and process. The heat ends the live cultures, so it's a straight trade of probiotics for shelf life.

Why did my pickles turn out soft?

Usually one of three things. You left the blossom end on, and it carries an enzyme that softens pickles, so trim a 1/16-inch slice off it every time. Or the ferment ran warmer than 80°F. Or the vegetables floated above the brine line and got oxygen, which is exactly what fermentation weights exist to prevent. If a batch is soft, slimy, or smells off, discard it rather than tasting your way to a decision.

More from our pickling and fermentation series

• How to Make Sauerkraut in a Mason Jar (No Crock, No Grandma Required) - the fermenting method, start to finish, on the classic ferment.
• How to Keep Pickles Crunchy: 7 Methods, Ranked by What Actually Works - four things soften a pickle and only four. Fix them and skip the additives.
• Fermentation Weights: Why Your Vegetables Float, and What It Actually Costs You - the deep dive on keeping a ferment submerged.

Ready to get yourself in a pickle?

Shop Pickling and Fermentation supplies →
Fermentation kits, glass weights, airlock lids, tampers, and jar accessories. Current availability shown on each product.

Shop Canning Accessories →
Jar lifters, funnels, bubble tools, racks, and Superb lids for the batches headed to a pantry shelf.

Still not sure which method fits your kitchen? Email us at support@kooihousewares.com and tell us what you're working with. We're a real kitchen store in Muskegon, Michigan, and somebody here has definitely made the mistake already so you don't have to!