You need yeast to promote fermentation. What is the texture of the pickles? If they are mushy or have a distinctive foul odor toss them. Did your pickling solution have little or no vinegar in it? Taste one if the texture seems to be okay.

Fermentation is a dual process with pickles and sauerkraut and the like.

Yeast and Lactobacillus are both present on the pickles and cabbage and you're encouraging them to grow.

The salt helps keep out unwanted bacteria until the yeast and lactobacillus get started doing their magic.

In addition to the texture and the odor of the pickles, they should NEVER have a slimy feeling to them. If they do, you've got something else cooking in there and it needs to go.

Thanks for your responses first of all. Let's see here, the pickles do not seem to be slimy. We had cut up this batch into thick chunks because we used different kinds of cucumbers, lemon cucs, Armenian yard long cucs, and a sugar crunch hybrid. So to me, they feel slick--like I would think a wet, cut, cucumber that has been sitting in brine would feel--but not like ooh, yuck this is slippery slimy.

For paddy--we did not use any vinegar for the brine. Just a 10% salinity solution.

I guess I am going to soak them to get the salt out and then taste them and see how they are and go from there.

Thanks so much for your help. I welcome any advice or information that you think may be helpful!

Amanda

I almost hate to suggest this to you, but are you familiar with the harvest forum? You can read about many confusing things over there. They deal with pickles, canning, and safety issues a lot. I would advise you not to post right off the bat, though. Some people there become very upset if people do not research the issue first... you can search at the bottom of the harvest forum page and find a ton of info. I'm listing two threads which may help you. And I'm NOT trying to discourage you away from this original thread! Just wanted to tell you about all the good info over there, as well as here.

Here's one on brined pickles:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/harvest/msg0717035821193.html?3

Here is the current 1st page of the Harvest Forum. If you scroll to the bottom you'll see a search box that you can use.

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/harvest/

Hope they turn out!!

Here is a link that might be useful: Ken's Half Sours

A properly fermented cucumber will smell "good." As mentioned, yeast is a natural element of the process and not a problem. A lot of what is called scum on the surface is just yeast, and some Europeans actually encourage it by putting a slice of rye bread on top of their fermenting cucumbers. Of course the standard qualifiers apply. Cucumbers must be fermented within a fairly narrow temperature range and the brine must be "maintained" with regular skimming and monitoring.

As long as you don't see mold and the cucumbers don't smell nasty (You'll know it when you have the misfortune to encounter spoilage.) just leave them to do what they do.

You can taste-test any time. A finished pickle ideally will be crisp enough to break in half (though fermented pickles are softer than the jarred quick pickles or commercial ones) and will be translucent inside.

As trsinc mentioned, the Harvest Forum is a treasure-trove of information. While a very few members (one in particular) resent repeating what's already been posted, the majority don't as they realize the shortcomings of the GardenWeb search engine.

A few of us cross over to Cooking on occasion but invest most of our energy for long posts on canning and preservation issues for Harvest.

I've posted a link to an excellent document on pickles. It tells you what you need to know and provides some good troubleshooting information.

Carol

Here is a link that might be useful: Homemade Pickles and Relishes

Thanks for the help and links, I will check them out!