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erdmanski1341

Are my peppers safe?

erdmanski1341
9 years ago

I grew some pepperoncinis this year and decided to try pickling them along with some sliced jalape�os. I found a recipe :

3 cups vinegar
3 cups water
Tbsp Sea salt
Garlic cloves
Tbsp Olive oil
Spices -Dill, peppercorns, coriander, etc.

I followed the recipe by boiling the jars and lids and getting the vinegar, water and salt brine to boil. I added the peppers, garlic and other spices to the jars and then covered in the brine. The recipe added a Tbsp of olive oil to each jar at the end. I sealed the jars and the recipe said no need to process so I let them be.

The jars sealed properly, but then I got to reading about botulism and the thought of a pickled pepper being my last meal didn't sit well, so the following night I decided to process the jars (~20 hrs).

I popped the seals, cleaned the rims of the jars, re-covered and boiled the jars for 10 minutes. Once again the jars sealed fine, but I still was nervous. I figured the peppers would get eaten with a few weeks, so i refrigerated them after a few hours when they were cooled.

The jars are all sealed and my fridge is cold enough that the olive oil has solidified at the top, so would you eat these peppers? The vinegar ratio and being refridgerated the whole time makes me think there shouldnt be an issue and the internet might just have me paranoid, but some reassurance from this community wouldn't hurt.

Comments (4)

  • 2ajsmama
    9 years ago

    Did they sit out at room temperature for the first 20 hours? That's on the hairy edge for something under-processed or under-acidified.

    Then to process them, you just wiped the jar rims, put new (?) lids on, and put the room temperature jars in a pot of water and brought them to a boil? That's not a proper process either.

    The recipe seems fine except for the oil - though The Joy of Pickling (a generally accepted as safe source) has a similar recipe using 1Tbsp of oil on the top of each jar and a 50:50 vinegar ratio, I always omit the oil to be safe. You'd also want to use pickling salt, since sea salt contains impurities.

    But you should have processed the jars for 10 minutes when you first made them, or poured off the liquid, rinsed the peppers (to get the oil off, the oil is only supposed to be on top), mixed a new brine and boiled it, put the peppers in clean hot jars, filled with hot brine and used new lids before processing for 10 minutes.

    I wouldn't eat those peppers if you didn't follow that (re)process.

  • malna
    9 years ago

    Me? I wouldn't eat them. The three marinated pepper recipes I looked at (Joy of Pickling, NCHFP and Colorado State) all use either no water in the brine or a much higher concentration of vinegar/acid. For example, Colorado State's recipe uses 5 cups of vinegar and only 1 cup of water. NCHFP is vinegar and lemon juice - no water at all. Joy of Pickling is all vinegar.

    The 50/50 brine is the minimum for pickling vegetables without oil. With the oil included, I wouldn't consider that a safe recipe.

  • erdmanski1341
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Thanks for the input

    Does it make no difference that they are refrigerated though? I've seen recipes on trusted food sites for refrigerator pickles that have 2:1 Water to Vinegar ratios and clearly they are fine.

  • 2ajsmama
    9 years ago

    Joy of Pickling first edition page 142 Whole Pickled Peppers uses 2C of vinegar and 2C of water, also tops each pint with 1 Tsbp olive oil but as I said I never felt comfortable with the oil.

    Refrigerator pickles don't need as much vinegar b/c they aren't sealed. Your 1:1 ratio of vinegar:water was safe, but without processing, sitting out 20 hours (again, I assume room temperature) with a weak seal (but still low-oxygen), and then not really reprocessing (you didn't change/heat the brine, just boiled the jars - you're lucky they didn't break), if I understand it you didn't use new lids, just put the old ones back on after wiping the jar rims - I wouldn't eat them. Not even refrigerated now. I'd dispose of them, and really to be safe I'd do the detox procedure on them b/c with the lids technically being "used" when you did process them, they might open up. But that's being ultra-conservative. It's your call.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Handling potentially spoiled canned foods

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