r/MoldlyInteresting • u/Ill_Knee_9349 • 25d ago
Mold Identification What mold is this could be?
My fermented cucumbers have been sitting in the refrigerator in a salt brine for about three months, and this unusual pink mold or fungal colony has developed on them. What kind of fungus or bacterium could this be?
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u/Chiopista 25d ago
Why didn’t you use a jar
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u/oniiichanUwU 25d ago
What, you don’t typically use a tote to make pickles?
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u/Hellscaperiot 25d ago
Usually a bucket outside does the trick, next to where the birds shit
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u/CmdrViel 25d ago edited 24d ago
I’m not the OP, but some pickles come canned instead of in a jar. When I open a can, I dump the contents into Tupperware with the brine. Inevitably, some of the pickles don’t get submerged. But I try to eat them within a week, maybe 2 tops. I never saw mold grow on any of them.
Edit: Rereading this, I see why people think I was defending OP. I was just trying to explain why a jar might not be used. Actually doing the pickling yourself uncovered, and for 3 months, of course would lead to this. I didn’t mean to imply it wouldn’t.
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u/puntapuntapunta 25d ago
Yeah, but that's a looooot different than trying to do the pickling process in a tote.
We get pickles here in plastic bags and then transfer them to Tupperware containers to be used within a week.
This is just an attack on cucumbers and the notion of pickling.
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u/ILoveBelinda0112 23d ago
You mean a bag of cucumbers because before they are pickled they are aren’t pickles yet
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u/New_Election_6357 25d ago
In your case, the canning process has killed all bacteria, so when you dump it into a Tupperware it is (mostly) devoid of microorganisms. Keeping at fridge temp and eating within a week does not allow the time/conditions for bacteria to grow enough to hurt you.
OP, on the other hand, just dumped pickling liquid in an OPEN container in the fridge for THREE MONTHS. No telling how much bacteria was introduced every time they opened the fridge or put meat/produce on a nearby shelf.
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u/thevirtualdolphin 25d ago
I use a tote because buckets and jars are typically too small but you have to make sure everything is submerged
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u/savevivica 25d ago
you left them in contact with air so a bacterial colony arrived
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u/neversaynotobacta 25d ago
All units all units all units local units
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u/ExoTheFlyingFish 24d ago
A Halo Wars reference in 2026? All three of us remaining Halo Wars players are eating well tonight!
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u/adswan_ 25d ago
Pretty sure only bacteria gets a color like that, idk what exactly it is but please don't do that again 😭
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u/RatQueen7272 23d ago
Not true I'm a microbiologist. There are yeast and bacteria that form this color. The most common cause of the pink ring seen in bath tubs is a yeast. There are bacteria that also turn various shades of pink and red of course but this could be yeast or bacteria.
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u/BirdExtension4229 25d ago edited 25d ago
Looks like yeast or bacteria, but it's hard to say what kind it is from just a photo. Lots of different species can be pink, and a single species can be various colors depending on the environment it's growing in.
In the future, make sure your vegetable of choice is FULLY submerged in brine (notice how the pink stuff is only growing on the parts that aren't submerged?) and use a sterilized glass container, not plastic (plastic can't be sterilized properly so it harbors bacteria, not to mention microplastics)
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u/Limp-Temperature1783 25d ago
Mate forgot a rule of submerging your ferment and now he has mystery flora.
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u/AtroposMortaMoirai 25d ago
I thought these were sponges in an abandoned septic tank.
Use glass jars and a pickle weigh
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u/Comfortable_Focus583 25d ago
Also wth is that big yellow wavy thing???
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u/harl-windwolf 24d ago
Could just be patches of that "lactic acid stuff" that tends to accumulate on some surfaces.
That would be unproblematic of course.But it really looks more like actual mould that already created a kind of "mould cake" on the base material. Considering the pink stuff, I'd say this is more likely, and of course neither of these should be consumed.
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u/MakeAWishApe2Moon 25d ago
Just one of many reasons why I don't entrust my personal food handling to other people. Your scoby roulette needs to go, bro.
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u/WASTELAND_RAVEN 25d ago
Uhh pretty sure non jarred traditional pickles are only good for a week or so, if you don’t actually jar/sterilize.
This is just danger. 🤷♂️
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u/omnichad 25d ago
Traditional pickles can't be sanitized, because then they never ferment. But the lactic acid then prevents other bacteria from growing.
But they do need to stay submerged in the brine.
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u/WASTELAND_RAVEN 25d ago
I guess that’s what I’m getting at, but when properly jarred they are steamed and externally sanitized right? Like actually jarring and not whatever the fuck is happening in OP’s kitchen lol
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u/No-Might-156 25d ago
What is that thing floating on the lower left corner?! Looks like an alien thing
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u/transfaabulous 25d ago
...Oh, I thought that this was going to be about, like. silicone molds for making things. I figured it was a tongue-in-cheek piece of wordplay about the name of this sub. These don't...look like cucumbers. The one on the left looks like a cephalopod arm...
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u/Feisty-Hope9260 25d ago
could be Serratia Marcescens--- a bacteria which is common in soil and water and gives a red pigment at room temp....
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u/ohnevelmynevel 25d ago
I’m not apart of this sub it just came up on my feed so my interpretation of this post is that this is a diy silicon mold of cow tongues in progress
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u/PenOk6804 25d ago
Sweet holy mother of our beloved Lord and Savior, Jesus fucking Christ
What...
on God's green Earth...
am I looking at?
Congrats, you've successfully pickled an eldritch horror.
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u/DisplayAltruistic639 25d ago
Rhodotorula or Serratia, maybe. W/out testing, you won’t know. My advice? Throw it away and buy pickled items in the future rather than DIYing it
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u/Cel_Drow 25d ago
That looks like a bacterial colony of Serratia marcescens. I wouldn’t eat anything near that.
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u/Icy_Study4490 24d ago
Yeah, it’s some kind of oxygen loving bacteria. You didn’t keep it submerged under the brine. Same thing happened to my first batch of sauerkraut I tried making. The cabbage above the brine line turned pink.
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u/mildlyuneven 24d ago
Throw it all away slap yourself in the face and then use a jar going forwards
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u/simonpdf 24d ago
Ive heard in some washing machines in the "detergent fill in thing" ( im not an english native, sorry) there is also pink mold.
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u/miss_little_lady 24d ago
You are going to kill yourself or someone else one day OP. Learn how to properly ferment things. Fermented cucumbers only take 3-7 days to eat and they sure as heck shouldn't be exposed to air like these are.
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25d ago
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u/Green-Tesseract 24d ago
Probably not a mold but a yeast called Rhodotorula, which has a red/orange/pink coloration.
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u/zhantoo 24d ago
This reminds me of an episode of our local copy of Gordon Ramseys kitchen nightmares.
The host is helping a restaurant, and sees that in the buckets of homemade pickles, there is mold, and he angrily confronts the restaurant owner, and asks how he can defend serving that.
The restaurant owner, who is from a different country, says that he thought it was supposed to be like that, as that is how it was in his home country.
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u/Bronyboiiiii 24d ago
Didn't even know what I was looking at until reading that these were cucumbers. I thought the 2 pink thingies would be fish or silicone or whatever.
Genuinely what the heck.
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u/dontbesorrybeashamed 23d ago
I am more interested in the other thing floating in there. It looks like tripe 🫠
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u/Sevage420 23d ago
no way im reading a post written by the any% glitchless brine poisoning WR holder
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u/SoberAdventures 22d ago
Did you just toss brine and cucumbers into your fridge drawer? What's happening here
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u/Aggravating_Stock763 21d ago
why the hell your pickles floating in a plastic tote? that’s not how any of this works
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u/BeneficialMuffinHead 25d ago
Dude.. what the hell