Good morning,

Picked up a gallon pickling kit off amazon and tries my first batch of pickles.  Simple recipe that came with it.  Stuff the jar with kirbies, sliced onion, garlic, and dill.

Fill with filtered water and sea salt.

Going on day four and there's a reddish brown sediment that has settled on top of the pickles.  Wondering if it's from the salt and/ or normal.

I won't be opening it until day seven.

Any thoughts and additional tips would be appreciated.

Thanks

A photo would be helpful.

I’ve only been doing lacto fermentation of veggies for about a year, and haven’t used a kit, so I’m sure there are people who can offer better suggestions than me. But I’ll offer what help I can.  I’ve not run into reddish brown sediment before, but my offhand guesses would be:  metals introduced via a utensil or other reactive metal coming into incidental contact with the acidic brine, one of the spices in the pickling brine, metallic impurities in the water you used, or possibly some kind of mold or bacteria.  

If it’s just spice gunk, you’re fine.  If it’s any of the others, I would consider tossing and starting over after sanitizing everything.  The nose is a pretty good poison detector, so if it’s some weird kind of mold or rot, it will be immediately obvious.  Pickles should smell like pickles. If they don’t, they are probably bad and not worth risking it.

Regardless, I would not do anything rash until you can post a photo and get more experienced eyes on the problem.

Thank you, I'll try to get a picture tonight when I get home.

If it matters, the sea salt was pink Himalayan salt.

https://www.snapfish.com/share?via=link&token=XE9KCHzMNLQJzVUccpB9Zg/AUS/27951878006070/SNAPFISH

please be aware that different salts have different levels of saltiness. i always determine my ingredients by weight,i.e. if i want a 2.5% salt level, i weigh my ingredients including any liquids and add 2.5% salt by weight. 1 liter of water weighs 1000 grams + 25.625 grams. makes for a much more consistant product.
i tbs of himalayan salt is much less salt than 1 tbs of pickling salt due to the size of the grains.
eta: weigh your ingredients including any veggies, liquids, flavorings, etc.
hth

I don’t see a sediment.  How does it smell?

100% agree, my fermentation is always by weight.

I think it is probably fine.  Does the brine smell bad?  

However, you are not going to get much of a pickle in a week of fermentation.  I go at least 3 weeks or more to get a full sour pickle.  To maintain a half-sour flavor I will ferment at room temp for about 10 days and then put it in the refrigerator and slowly eat through the gallon container.

As far as salt by weight I suppose that is better but I have never had any issues using the ubiquitous state extension service recipe you can google (I think it is exactly the same as the Ball Blue Book recipe).  That recipe measures salt by volume and the extension services are pretty conservative to prevent food-born illnesses.  I do follow the recipe and use canning salt which likely makes the conversion of weight to volume more consistent.    

Seem fine.  They do have a taste that is similar to salami.  I eat Busseto salami often.  If you are familiar with that, they have a faint resemblance to that.  I don't know what that is.  They are good.  Since I am used to regular pickles, the blandness in these is different to me.  They are otherwise fine.

I think I will try sauerkraut next!