Methods
How the brine gets there
The FAO bulletin divides lactic vegetable fermentation into three: dry-salted, brined and non-salted. Two more appear in the record often enough to name, and one category exists for the traditions no source assigns.
| Method | What happens | Pickles |
|---|---|---|
| Dry-salted | Salt is applied to the vegetable directly. It draws the juice out by osmosis and the vegetable ferments in the brine it made itself. | 8 |
| Brined | The vegetable is covered with a salt solution made separately. Used where the vegetable holds too little water to make its own brine. | 11 |
| Non-salted | No salt is added at all. Safety rests entirely on how fast the lactic acid bacteria take the pH down, and on excluding air. | 3 |
| Pit-buried | The food is sealed in a leaf-lined pit. Carbon dioxide builds up and the mass ferments anaerobically, for weeks or for years. | 1 |
| Rice-bran bed | Vegetables are buried in a live bed of salted rice bran that is fed and turned, and that carries its own culture between batches. | 0 |
| Not stated | No source consulted here states which method this tradition uses. | 186 |