My favorite gear for getting started with fermentation—what you actually need, what’s optional, and one heirloom-worthy upgrade.
You don’t need much to start pickling at home. A jar, some salt, vegetables, time—people have been fermenting food with basically nothing for thousands of years. But having the right pickling supplies for beginners makes the difference between a frustrating first attempt and a jar of pickles you’re genuinely proud of. I’ve been fermenting for a while now, and I’ve figured out what you actually need versus what’s optional. If you’re wondering what do I need to make pickles at home, this is my honest list—the essentials first, then a few extras worth considering once you’re comfortable. Let’s start with the basics.
The Must-Have Pickling Supplies for Beginners
Wide-Mouth Mason Jars
Before you buy any specialized fermentation gear, make sure you have a good stock of wide-mouth mason jars. These are the foundation of home pickling—cheap, endlessly reusable, and available everywhere from grocery stores to hardware stores to your grandmother’s basement. The wide-mouth part matters more than you might think. Regular-mouth jars work fine for canning, but when you’re packing vegetables for fermentation, you need to get your hand in there to press things down. You also need to fit weights inside, and you’ll want to actually retrieve your pickles without fishing around with a fork. I keep quart jars for standard batches of pickles or sauerkraut, half-gallon jars for bigger projects, and pint jars for small experiments or storing finished ferments in the fridge. A dozen wide-mouth quarts will run you about fifteen dollars and last essentially forever. Start here.
Pickling Salt
This is the one ingredient where substitutions actually cause problems. Table salt contains iodine and anti-caking agents that can inhibit fermentation and turn your brine cloudy. Kosher salt works in a pinch, but the flake size varies so much between brands that your measurements won’t be consistent. Pickling salt is pure sodium chloride—nothing added, nothing to interfere with the process. It dissolves cleanly, keeps your brine crystal clear, and costs almost nothing. A box will last you through dozens of batches. I use Morton’s pickling salt because it’s what my grocery store carries and it works perfectly. Don’t overthink this one, but don’t skip it either. The right salt makes everything else go smoother.
Glass Fermentation Weights
Here’s the fundamental rule of fermentation: whatever you’re pickling needs to stay submerged under the brine. Vegetables that poke above the liquid meet air, which invites mold and off-flavors. Everything below the brine stays protected in an anaerobic environment where good bacteria thrive. Fermentation weights solve this problem simply and permanently. They’re heavy glass discs designed to fit inside wide-mouth mason jars, sitting right on top of your vegetables and keeping everything pushed down. Can you improvise with a plastic bag filled with brine or a small plate? Sure. But dedicated weights eliminate the fussing, and they’re cheap enough that you can have several sets ready for multiple jars at once. I like the ones from County Line Kitchen—they’re sized right for both regular and wide-mouth jars, and the handle makes them easy to pull out. Do I need special equipment to ferment vegetables? Not really. But weights genuinely make the process more reliable.
Airlock Lids
Fermentation produces carbon dioxide. As the good bacteria eat the sugars in your vegetables, they release gas, and that gas needs somewhere to go. Seal your jar completely and pressure builds up—I’ve heard stories of exploding pickle jars, and while I’ve never experienced it myself, I don’t want to. Leave the jar open and you’re inviting dust, fruit flies, and wild yeasts. Airlock lids solve this elegantly: they fit on your mason jars in place of the regular lid and feature a small valve that lets gas escape without letting air in. This means you don’t have to “burp” your jars every day, and you can leave a ferment going for weeks without babysitting it. I use the silicone airlock lids from Masontops—they’re simple, durable, and work with the wide-mouth jars I already have. There are fancier options with water-filled airlocks like you’d use for brewing beer, but the simple silicone valve style has never let me down.
A Good Fermentation Book
This might seem like an odd pick for “essential gear,” but a comprehensive book on pickling and fermentation will save you more failed batches than any piece of equipment. Understanding why salt concentration matters, what temperature does to fermentation speed, how to tell the difference between harmless kahm yeast and actual mold—you’ll use this knowledge constantly. Random internet recipes are fine once you know what you’re doing, but for how to start fermenting with confidence, you want a resource that explains the science and gives you a framework for troubleshooting. I recommend starting with a book that covers multiple types of fermentation rather than just pickles, because once you start, you’ll want to try sauerkraut, kimchi, hot sauce, and more. The skills transfer across all of them.
Nice Extras
These aren’t essential, but they solve specific problems and make certain projects a lot easier.
Mason Jar Fermentation Kit
If you’re starting from absolute zero and want everything in one box, a complete mason jar fermentation kit is the simplest way in. These typically include the jars, airlock lids, and glass weights together—all the pickling supplies for beginners bundled so you don’t have to think about compatibility or hunt down separate pieces. The kit I started with came with everything sized to work together, plus a little instruction booklet. Great gift for someone curious about fermentation, and a solid choice if you just want to get started without researching individual components. That said, if you already have mason jars, you can save money by buying just the lids and weights separately.
Korean Kimchi Container
Once you want to make bigger batches, these containers earn their keep. Korean kimchi containers solve the submersion problem in a clever way: they have an inner lid that presses down directly onto the contents, so you don’t need separate weights. Pack your vegetables in, press the inner lid down, snap on the outer lid, done. They’re not beautiful—mostly utilitarian plastic in red or green—but they’re incredibly functional, and the rectangular shape fits in the fridge better than round vessels. I reach for mine whenever I’m making a larger batch of kimchi or sauerkraut, anything where a single mason jar isn’t enough. The brand I use is E-Jen, and the medium size handles most of my bigger projects without taking over the entire refrigerator.
Pickle Crisp (Calcium Hydroxide)
Soft pickles aren’t unsafe, but they’re disappointing. If you’ve ever bitten into a homemade pickle expecting that satisfying crunch and gotten mush instead, pickle crisp is your fix. Calcium hydroxide interacts with the pectin in vegetable cell walls, firming them up and helping them resist the softening that happens during fermentation. You only need a tiny amount per batch, and a single container lasts through many, many jars. This is especially useful for cucumber pickles, where crunch is really the whole point. Ball makes a version called Pickle Crisp that’s easy to find at most stores that carry canning supplies. Not essential, but once you’ve used it, you won’t want to go back.
Mandolin Slicer
Consistent cuts aren’t just about looking pretty—they mean everything ferments at the same rate. If your pickle slices range from paper-thin to chunky, the thin ones will be done (or overdone) while the thick ones are still firm. A mandolin with adjustable thickness settings lets you dial in exactly what you want, and most come with attachments for different cut styles. I use a Dash safe-slice mandolin because the design keeps my fingers well away from the blade. Traditional flat mandolins terrify me, and I’ve heard enough emergency room stories to justify the safer option. If you’re fermenting regularly, the time savings and consistency are worth the twenty-dollar investment.
The Upgrade: When You’re Hooked
Ceramic Fermentation Crock
My mom used a ceramic crock for sauerkraut when I was growing up, and I didn’t fully appreciate it until I started fermenting myself. Traditional crocks have a water-sealed lid—there’s a channel around the rim that you fill with water, and the lid sits in that channel, creating an airtight seal that still allows gas to escape by bubbling through the water. No plastic, no silicone valves, just simple physics that people have used for centuries. The crock itself is heavy ceramic that keeps everything at a stable temperature, and because it’s opaque, light doesn’t reach your ferment. They often come with ceramic weights that fit perfectly inside, and some include a wooden tamper for pounding cabbage—which is a real step in making sauerkraut that’s awkward to improvise with kitchen utensils.
This is firmly upgrade territory, price-wise. A good crock with weights and tamper might run you sixty to a hundred dollars, compared to maybe twenty for a basic mason jar setup. But they’re also beautiful—fermentation gear rarely is—and they’re something you’d happily leave on the counter rather than hiding in a cabinet. They’ll outlast you, too. Using one connects me to generations of home preservers who relied on the same simple, effective design—my mom included. The one I have now is from Ohio Stoneware, made in the USA, and I expect I’ll hand it down someday just like she handed hers to me.
That’s my list of pickling supplies for beginners—everything I recommend for getting started with fermentation. You don’t need all of it—jars, salt, weights, and a good book will take you incredibly far. The rest you can add as you figure out what you actually use.
What’s your fermentation setup looking like? Are you just getting started, or have you been at this for a while? I’d love to hear what’s working in your kitchen—and what you’re planning to pickle next.
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