Updated October 2026

How to Pickle Vegetables Safely in Australia

Fridge pickles, cupboard pickles and fermented pickles each have their own rules. Start with the vinegar label.

A pickle is safe because it is acidic enough to stop botulism, so the vinegar does the safety work. For jars you keep in the cupboard, follow a tested recipe exactly, including its vinegar to water ratio, and process the jars in boiling water. Tested recipes are written for vinegar of 5% acidity. The Food Standards Code only requires vinegar sold in Australia to contain 4% acetic acid, so read the label and buy one that says 5% or more. If all you have is 4% vinegar, CSIRO's advice is to use 1.25 times the vinegar the recipe gives (60 ml becomes 75 ml) and never to add water. Fridge pickles can be made more freely, and the calculator below is for those.

Three kinds of pickle

• Fridge pickles: vegetables covered in hot vinegar brine and kept in the fridge. Ready in a day or two. No processing.
• Cupboard pickles: a tested recipe, processed in a boiling water bath so the jars keep at room temperature.
• Fermented pickles: a salt brine in which lactic acid bacteria sour the vegetables over 3 weeks or more. See also our sauerkraut and fermenting guide.

Fridge pickle brine calculator

Enter the size of your jar in millilitres. It assumes the brine fills about 60% of the jar and works out a 1:1 vinegar and water brine with salt and sugar.

Tested cupboard pickles: three examples

These are USDA recipes, given in US cups (a US cup is 237 ml, smaller than the 250 ml Australian cup) and 5% vinegar. Times are for up to 300 m above sea level; add 5 minutes from 301 to 1,800 m (10 minutes for beetroot above 900 m).

Notice that the cucumber brine uses less vinegar than water and the beetroot brine much more. Each ratio was tested with that vegetable, which is why you cannot move a brine from one recipe to another, or water one down because it tastes sharp. Sweeten it with sugar instead.

Salt

Use pickling salt or plain non-iodised cooking salt. Iodised table salt is safe but its anti-caking agent clouds the brine. Avoid sea salt flakes: flaked salt varies so much in density that a spoonful is not a reliable measure. In fermented pickles the salt is part of the safety, so never cut it, and do not use reduced-sodium salt.

Fermented dill cucumbers

USDA's recipe, for every 3.8 litres of crock: 1.8 kg of pickling cucumbers, 1/2 cup salt, 1/4 cup 5% vinegar and 8 cups water, plus dill and spices. Keep the cucumbers 2.5 to 5 cm under the brine with a plate and a water-filled jar or a sealed bag of brine. Ferment at 21 to 24°C for 3 to 4 weeks, or at 13 to 18°C for 5 to 6 weeks. Above 27°C they go soft, which in Brisbane, Darwin or a Perth summer means fermenting in the coolest room of the house or waiting for the cooler months. Skim any scum several times a week, and throw the batch out if the pickles turn soft, slimy or smell bad.

Crisp pickles

Pickle cucumbers within 24 hours of picking and slice 1.5 mm off the blossom end, which carries a softening enzyme. Pickling lime does firm cucumbers, but the excess must be washed out: soak, rinse, then resoak in fresh water for an hour, three times over. Alum is not needed. For cucumber pickles, USDA also allows a gentler heat treatment that keeps them crisper: 30 minutes in water held between 82 and 85°C, checked with a thermometer the whole time, used only when the recipe says so.

When to pickle

Cucumbers and beans peak in summer in Melbourne, Adelaide and Hobart. In South East Queensland they can be sown from August to March, so the pickling window runs from late spring into autumn. In Darwin they are a dry season crop that peaks around September. Grow your own with our cucumber guide.

Storage

Fridge pickles keep a few weeks. Processed, sealed jars keep about a year in a cool, dark cupboard. Fully fermented pickles keep 4 to 6 months in the fridge if you skim off any surface growth. Throw out any jar with a bulging lid, an off smell or mould.

Sources we checked (October 2026): Food Standards Australia New Zealand, Food Standards Code Standard 2.10.1 Vinegar and related products; CSIRO, Preservation of vegetables and herbs in oil; Food Safety Information Council, Home bottling and canning; USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning (2015) through the National Center for Home Food Preservation: General Information on Pickling, Salts Used in Pickling, Quick Fresh-Pack Dill Pickles, Dilled Beans, Pickled Beets, Dill Pickles (fermented), Low-Temperature Pasteurization Treatment.

Common questions