4 pounds red bell peppers
1 cup bottled lemon juice
2 cups white wine vinegar (6% acidity)
1 cup olive oil
2 cloves sliced garlic
2 teaspoons kosher salt

Roast the peppers until skin is blackened; remove skin and seeds and tear into strips. Combine other ingredients in a pan and bring just to boil. Pack jars with pepper strips and pour hot brine over, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. process 15 mins. yields 3 pints.

Here is the problem I encountered: LOTS of the brine left over. So much so that I canned another 8 lbs of red peppers using it. So I canned 12 lbs of peppers total, using the amount of brine from only one recipe. I even still had some brine left over.

do you think I should be concerned about the safety of this product? the brine is fairly acidic to begin with; however, like i said, i did not use the intended amount per jar. if it had turned out as the recipe intended, i would have 2/3 cup of the brine per pint jar. as it turned out, i probably had between 1/5 and 1/4 cup of brine per jar.

The safety of the recipe itself aside, the proportions of the ingredients (4 lbs solids/4 cups liquid) sound about right for ending up with 3 pints of product. With jars properly packed you might have had a little brine left over but not much.

But no way can 4 cups of liquid cover 12 lbs of solids.

Dave

Compare the Canning for a New Generation recipe:

4 pounds red bell peppers
1 cup bottled lemon juice
2 cups white wine vinegar (6% acidity)
1 cup olive oil
2 cloves sliced garlic
2 teaspoons kosher salt

to the NCHFP recipe for Marinated Peppers:

4 lbs firm peppers*
1 cup bottled lemon juice
2 cups white vinegar (5 percent)
1 tbsp oregano leaves
1 cup olive or salad oil
1/2 cup chopped onions
2 cloves garlic, quartered (optional)
2 tbsp prepared horseradish (optional)

It's the same basic recipe with no onions/herbs plus specifying 6% white wine vinegar. How can there be any safety issues with the recipe, Dave? Per your quote: "Not only is the recipe to begin with highly questionable because of all the oil..."

But when used from an unreliable source as in this case, there is no way for us to know that unless we also just happen to know of the other recipe. Bottom line - source counts. In some cases so do the details left out of this recipe.

Otherwise, as you said, there is clearly some sort technique error here that has resulted in a density problem and a potential heat penetration problem. That heat penetration problem is only increased when oil is involved.

If the OP ended up with 3 pints as now indicated but still had lots of brine left over then the most likely error was in the amount of peppers used. Excess peppers results in over-packed jars (too many solids and too little liquids). Safety-wise the peppers should have been spread out in to more jars so that the brine was uniformly distributed and used up. If that meant 4 pints or even 4 1/2 pints that's fine.

But I can't imagine how there could have been enough brine left over to do 3x as many peppers (12 lbs.) unless some severe measuring mistakes were made.

Either way, either cause, they are very likely under-processed and not safe for long-term shelf storage IMO. And now more than 24 hours old so too late for re-processing so the choice boils down to how acceptable is the degree of risk?

Dave