1/4 cup water
1 cup vinegar
1/2 tsp salt just plain old salt

bring to a boil she said for a couple of minutes then pour over peppers in jar and seal no water bath. This is for quart jars.
We have already ate about 4 jars of these. And I have 2 more left.

But, after reading this site and looking in my ball book I see that the mixture probably should of been boiled for 5 minutes and they should be put in a water bath.

So, were we just lucky we didn't get sick or is her way ok? This is how she has done it for years and we have ate lots of them! lol

The approved ratio is 5 cups of vinegar to 1 cup of water so it is close but processing is always required for shelf storage. No processing means no vacuum and no vacuum means air and bacteria can get in the jar.

In this case it was the vinegar that makes them ok to eat for awhile. But peppers are a low acid food and over time the water in them dilutes the vinegar even more and the risk rises.

There are many things that people "do" but that doesn't make them right or safe without lots of luck. So if you are going to do it, why not do it right? :-) otherwise it is a matter of deciding if the risk is worth it to you and yours.

Dave

It isn't that it is "wrong". It's just that testing and research have proven some of the older methods to be unsafe if done today. That research wasn't available when she was learning to can.

One big difference is that the vinegar available to use today is less than 1/2 the strength that was available decades ago. People often make the assumption that vinegar is vinegar but your Mamaw's vinegar was likely 8-12% vs. the 5% available today.

And yes, she is unlikely to change. That is her choice. Many canners younger than she is refuse to change methods regardless of the evidence presented to them. There are online canning forums that actively preach and aggressively defend long outdated methods and their basic argument is some form of "no one has died of it...". That they know of.

Dave