My main questions are:

1. I have a pickle recipe that I am wondering if I could use the same brine recipe for making pickled garlic. So is garlic similar in pH to cucumbers? The recipe is just less than 50% ratio of vinegar to water.

2. I despise onions - so if I leave onions out of the recipes or substitute peppers for the onions am I in danger of altering the recipe too much?

or this one

or this one from Oklahoma State University.

Hope that helps.

First, if you're speaking of canning, I wouldn't use a recipe that's just less than 50% ratio of vinegar to water unless I knew it was tested and came from an approved source.

Secondly, knowing the pH isn't necessarily adequate for these kinds of decisions. Garlic is much denser than cucumber. It also has a very different water content. So the safety issues, entirely aside from the pH, are quite different.

Offhand I don't know of any canned pickled garlic recipe that calls for less than 100% vinegar, with the exception of an excellent Bernardin recipe which uses a combination of white vinegar and white wine.

I do have various refrigerated pickled garlic recipes which use varying combinations of acid and some Asian-style ones which call for such ingredients as brown sugar, soy sauce and sesame oil. But that's a whole different thing.

To answer the other question about onions versus green peppers, it depends upon the strength of the pickling solution and the proportions. If the recipe were posted, members would be better able to assess.

Carol

Sorry as I know it isn't what you wanted to hear.

Dave

"And garlic, besides being more dense, is in the top 5 of the potential for botulism scale so greater safety is required."

Can you cite a source for this? As a garlic grower and home canner I try to keep up on these things. I know of a few cases of botulism from storing garlic in oil, but have never heard of a case from pickled garlic.

Thanks!

TomNJ

However, along with other root vegetables (simply because they ARE root vegetables), garlic is one of the top 5 potential food sources of c. botulinum per the CDC.

Asparagus, green beans, beets, corn, garlic. Other possible sources: chile peppers, tomatoes, and improperly handled baked potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil.

NCHFP uses the same list.

Dave

TomNJ

Therefore, even in pickled foods there is the potential for contamination if heat processing or penetration of acid isn't sufficient. This is further complicated by leaching of water from the product, which over time weakens the brine. So the pH of a pickle which has sat on the shelf for six months is often higher than the original product as tested.

We have noted in latter years an increase in recommended brine strength in such foods as pickled beets, partly for this reason. Chunks of beet can be residing in a vinegar solution and yet at the center low-acid product remains. Then this is further exacerbated by the process of time and redistribution of water.

I'm not saying there've been instances of botulism, but the testing demonstrates the potential is there. As botulism is so dangerous, we avoid recommendations that might have damaging consequences.

Carol

TomNJ

Osmosis. ;)

Dave

Just wanted to say thanks for sharing those links!

There's some great info there.

Rick

Many of us "old-timers" have disagreed about the relative safety of various sources and canning recipes. Some are philosophical disagreements. Still, it always comes down to the individual.

Personally, I also think it comes down to "audience." For example, taking a risk for oneself is quite different from coming up with an untested product and selling it at a farmers' market or giving it to grandma, who may have immune-system deficiences.

I think you'll find companies (and this forum) even more conservative in recommendations because so many people today are new to canning, and the potential for error is higher.

Carol

TomNJ

Carol

Osmosis. ;)

Dave

Just as a point of clarification. By definition, osmosis is the movement of water (alone) across a semi-permeable membrane. Nothing else, not salts, not bacteria spores, not virions, nothing.

Water is freely able to move in and out of vegetable and fruit chunks by osmosis. The semi-permeable membranes are the cell membranes that (along with cell walls which are also selectively permeable) make up the structure of the plant (or animal, for that matter).

In some limited cases, such things as virions and spores can pass through cell membranes due to their very small size, but this is not osmosis. Most cell membranes, however, will exclude most bacteria spores and virions unless these items are actively transported into the cell through membrane bound receptors.

Active transport does require biological activity by the host, so canned vegetables would be unable to uptake botulism spores in this manner.

Canning, and other mechanical damage such as cutting, heating, etc will damage cell membranes/cell walls. Botulism spores could, conceivably, come to equillibrium inside and outside a chunk of food in a botulism filled brine if the cellular structure of the food was sufficiently damaged. This would be diffusion, not osmosis.

I am not sure exactly how much damage to the food's cellular structure would really be necessary, nor how deeply this route of diffusion would actually be able to penetrate, as I am not a food scientist.

However, I am a cellular biologist and a molecular virologist and I feel strongly that scientific terms with very exact meanings should not be used incorrectly or casually. I also agree that scientific claims (at least in the realm of practicing academic and industrial science) must always be backed by citing the sources, studies, authors and potential biases that form the basis for the claims.

Sharon

I am aware low-acid micro-environments have been identified in salsas. That's one of the principal issues with the testing done currently by groups such as the NCHFP. Adequate heat penetration of product during processing is crucial.

These micro-environments are particularly concerning in foods such as salsas because they are traditionally served from the jar with no additional heating.

This is a document I downloaded to my computer a while back. What interests me is that it includes even such traditionally "safe" foods as pears, peaches and applesauce in its list of potential sources of botulism.

What I have read includes cases involving cured meats (i.e. smoked salmon), green beans (Washington), tomatoes (Maine), and native foods such as seal. And of course, there's the well-known garlic in oil.

But it is very concerning to me that this document implies there have been instances involving even high-acid fruits.

So much of the science is available only through subscription databases. I hope someday a member who has access to a metropolitan library with broader access will look up some of the current research and data.

Carol

I've found them helpful and searching their archives can be useful as their expertise extends far beyond what you would find here. IIRC, it was via that group that I began to read about low-acid microenvironments.

Carol

Not a scientist nor a microbiologist so don't claim to know how it gets in there. And just the knowledge that it does and that respected authorities consider garlic to be potentially risky is sufficient for me for take care with it.

and I feel strongly that scientific terms with very exact meanings should not be used incorrectly or casually. I also agree that scientific claims (at least in the realm of practicing academic and industrial science) must always be backed by citing the sources, studies, authors and potential biases that form the basis for the claims.

While I would agree that within the realm of practicing academic and industrial science, correct usage of terms is vital, therein lies the difference. This isn't that realm. But I do appreciate the clarification. ;)

Dave