Mold on top of liquid after ten days curing

My pickles are about ten days and are starting to sink. I opened the top of the ball jar to find thick mold. Is this normal? I removed the mold. Are the pickles OK or is the batch ruined?

Jeff Oberdorfer
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'Sichuan PaoCai'   Sichuan Pickles
Recipe question for: 'Sichuan PaoCai' Sichuan Pickles

1 Comment

Lori T. December 31, 2020
It depends on whether what you have or had was true mold, or a thing called Kahm yeast. Kahm yeast is a wild sort, and although it's unsightly and can smell weird, it's not harmful to you or the pickles. On the other hand, if it's really mold it's not worth risking it. Since I can't see what you have, I can't say which you had. I suggest you look up sites on the internet that discuss fermentation to see a few examples so you can decide for yourself. Either way, it suggests that something was contaminated- either the veggies or the jar, or the salt content of your brine was off. It happens to all of us who ferment foods, so don't take it personally. I swapped over to doing fermentation in a closed jar with a fermentation lock just to avoid having it happen as much as possible. https://www.culturedfoodlife.com/
or https://www.fermentedfoodlab.com/ are two sites with good info that you might find helpful.
 
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