From your description it does sound overly dry as it should normally be sloshy, free moving in the jars with liquid clearly visible. Most likely the jars were over packed with solids and not enough liquids.

Is it less than 24 hours old? If so I would suggest making up some additional brine from the recipe and re-heating, re-jarring adding 1-2 additional jars to the count and reprocessing.

If more then 24 hours old then it is too late to re-process. It then becomes your choice to keep it or not. It is probably still safe to eat because of the vinegar but there is no assurance of safety for long term shelf storage.

How many jars? Can they be stored in the fridge and used with 3 months?

Dave

Actually, I think it would be fine. If you followed the recipe and had the correct amount of ingredients in it, it is fine. My Ball Complete cookbook recipe for Zesty Zucchini Relish doesn't mention anything about pouring off liquid. In fact, it encourages you to salt the zucchini and squeeze it out to draw off as much liquid as possible, It says it should have the consistency of a "thin storebought relish". Happy canning!

Mine is defiantly not sloshy or free moving in the jar. It's not really dry but you can tip the jar over and the relish barley moves at all. Defiantly past the 24 hour mark now.

Sounds like eating this could be iffy?

Sounds like eating this could be iffy?

It might be. As I said above it is probably still safe to eat because of the vinegar used but we can't know that for sure. It sure doesn't sound as if it has the consistency of "thin store bought relish" which always has free liquid in the container much less the recommended consistency of "clearly visible liquid".

Personally I would pitch it. But that is just my opinion.

Dave

I think I will pitch it and make some more. Better safe then sorry. The relish is very good but not worth dying over!!!