The last two years, I have fermented just a few jars of pickles. This year we grew our own cukes and I have been making pickles endlessly, the plants being much more prolific that I could've imagined. One big batch was fermented in an open ceramic crock, weighted and covered with a towel. I skimmed off the kahm yeast every few days although it probably should've been every day. They took longer to reach the desired stage than those fermented in jars, having gone through a long bitter phase. Once they tasted ok, I put them in a plastic tub with all its brine and into the fridge.
Now, ten days later, I checked on it and it's still getting kahm. Plus, not all pickles were fully submerged. My questions are:
- Once the room temp ferment is done and pickles are in fridge, do they still need to be completely submerged?
- Is it normal to keep getting kahm once refrigerated? There's not a ton of it, just a light layer on top, with brine being very cloudy (I read cloudy ok).
- Ideally I would have more fermented brine around from previous batches, but I don't (I gave some jars to friends). Can I make new 4% brine for this batch for this batch (and other batches)? How best to increase brine?
- It was not my plan to store in plastic tub (food grade, of course) but I ran out of options. Is it ok to store in plastic?
I clearly have a storage problem, not having anticipated so many cukes!
Thank you.