pickling Pickle at room temperature with just vinegar

Siv

Siv

I've been watching a few recipes for pickled onions (mostly British) and it seems that they just skin the onions, put them in a jar, add salt and seasonings and then pour over straight vinegar from the bottle until they're covered. These are then left for months to do their thing.
 
I was wondering if the same thing can be done with peppers? I'd imagine that you'd want to cut them up so that the vinegar gets inside the pepper. Other than that, isn't straight vinegar pretty much going to kill everything bad in the jar?
 
I have a lot of peppadew and sugar rush peach peppers and am thinking this may be an easy way to preserve them.
 
Siv said:
I've been watching a few recipes for pickled onions (mostly British) and it seems that they just skin the onions, put them in a jar, add salt and seasonings and then pour over straight vinegar from the bottle until they're covered. These are then left for months to do their thing.
 
I was wondering if the same thing can be done with peppers? I'd imagine that you'd want to cut them up so that the vinegar gets inside the pepper. Other than that, isn't straight vinegar pretty much going to kill everything bad in the jar?
 
I have a lot of peppadew and sugar rush peach peppers and am thinking this may be an easy way to preserve them.
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Hey Siv, you've been here for quite some time - this is the Hot Sauce Making - Not the The Test Kitchen - The "How To" cooking forum. Discuss cooking methods, temperatures, preservation, and more....There's a bunch of recipes there like:
 
 
Reaper pickle recipe
 

 
The Hot Pepper said:
For peppers I'd go with a standard escabeche.
 
https://lolascocina.com/2014/09/10/pickled-jalapenos-chiles-en-vinagre/
 
Posted that recipe because no sugar added, you DO NOT need sugar. And the olive oil can be left out or replaced with sesame as well.
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Pickled "Everything"

SmokenFire said:
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/56248-im-looking-for-a-good-brine-please/?p=1203124Here is a simple brine recipe I use for pickling cukes, peppers, carrots, beans and cauliflower: 
 
8 oz white wine vinegar
6 oz kosher salt (or sea salt)
About 120-ish ounces water
 
Mix the vinegar with the salt and add the water - make sure the salt is dissolved.  Makes 1 gallon.  Recipe can be easily scaled up or down.
 
Then add any/all of the following, to taste:
 
1-2 tbsp dill seed, or 4-5 flower heads of dill
2-12 cloves of garlic
1-2 tbsp hot pepper flake 
1-2 tbsp black peppercorns
1-2 tbsp mustard seed
1-2 tbsp all spice berries
Sometimes I add a few capers or maybe a little fennel or bayleaf.  My go to is simple; 1 tbsp of all the above plus 2 bay leaves.  
 
I will mix the brine and then pour into smaller jars to pickle different things.  Cukes are fast - only a week or so and it's in the fridge (they stay crisp that way).  Peppers and most everything else will sit for 2-3 weeks or so before they start getting real good.  Check the fermenting 101 thread for information on best practices.   :)
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_
 
No worries :)
 
I've done a bunch of searching but everyone seems to want to boil the vinegar/brine. Trying to find out if there is is something that makes straight vinegar a no no...
 
Well here goes nothing! Jars on the left are sugar rush peach in red wine vinegar and bottle on the right is piri piri in white wine vinegar!
 
50260270628_ec24a258b4_c.jpg
 
Did you ever figure out why boiling the brine is recommended Siv?
 
I'm on the same boat - trying to determine if the brine really needs to be boiled and what the shelf life of pickled peppers is (without canning). This article seems to indicate that there is botulism risk:
 
https://extension.colostate.edu/topic-areas/nutrition-food-safety-health/making-pickled-peppers-at-home-9-314/
 
"Pickled peppers and mixed vegetable-pepper home-canned products are commonly prepared by many Colorado households. These products also have been implicated in botulism deaths due to the use of untested recipes, under-acidified products, addition of too much oil, or lack of processing."
 
Even if I believe that vinegar will kill botulism without any additional processing, I think I'll take the "belt and suspenders" approach and boil the brine and do the water bath to can the peppers. 
 
Thanks NECM - but even SL says to refrigerate.

Here are my experiments:

50733773392_69a64d6e77_c.jpg


According to my pH meter, straight vinegar is pH 2.5 to 3.5. This is pretty acidic and you'd have to add 10x volume of peppers to get it moved up from pH 3.5 to 4.5 which is still shelf stable. There's almost certainly more vinegar by volume than peppers in these bottles so I'm feeling pretty safe. Having said that, I have yet to open any of them!

HM, I think the botulism thing is real and mainly because people don't have a sufficiently acidified pickling liquid or if they've using a weak acid, they're not canning them correctly. From the WHO:
C. botulinum is an anaerobic bacterium, meaning it can only grow in the absence of oxygen. Foodborne botulism occurs when C. botulinum grows and produces toxins in food prior to consumption. C. botulinum produces spores and they exist widely in the environment including soil, river and sea water.

The growth of the bacteria and the formation of toxin occur in products with low oxygen content and certain combinations of storage temperature and preservative parameters. This happens most often in lightly preserved foods and in inadequately processed, home-canned or home-bottled foods.

C. botulinum will not grow in acidic conditions (pH less than 4.6), and therefore the toxin will not be formed in acidic foods (however, a low pH will not degrade any pre-formed toxin). Combinations of low storage temperature and salt contents and/or pH are also used to prevent the growth of the bacteria or the formation of the toxin.
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This is the only video I've seen where he cold bottles onions. Admittedly he does pour boiling water on the onions to peel them...
 
Using all vinegar is quite strong you are best with 50/50 water. Even picked products you buy are half or part water.
 
Siv said:
 
HM, I think the botulism thing is real and mainly because people don't have a sufficiently acidified pickling liquid or if they've using a weak acid, they're not canning them correctly. From the WHO:
 
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Oh yea, I'm not questioning whether it's real or not (it definitely is). The question was mainly why are they recommending both an acidic solution and boiling when the acidic solution by itself is enough. Seems to be more of a foolproof solution since as you mention, some people don't have a sufficiently acid brine.
 
So for what it's worth, here in North Carolina, nearly every ol'timers table has a bottle of pepper vinegar on it. I've had relatives who cherish these bottles, some sitting collecting dust for years. Literally all they do is put peppers in a bottle and cover them with vinegar. When the vinegar runs low they just top it off with new. Now I'm not saying it's anything that a process authority would deem shelf stable, nor am I saying its safe for home consumption. But I am saying my Grandparents lived to be in their 90's and I along with most people around here do it this way. I have bottles that are years old and no one I have ever known has ever gotten sick from botulism.
 
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Well, from a recent real life occassion, i had 10 gallons of pickled pepper medley in the fridge using the brine linked above. The fridge quit. The veggies molded, the whole thing got pitched.

Generally, if using the brine mix, if doing a cold pack, uncooked, keep it refrigerated. Or do a boiling water bath for a traditional shelf stable pickle.

Regarding cooking the brine, i think that is mostly to help dissolve the salt and sugar (if used).

Those bottles of straight vinegar with peppers in them dont seem to spoil. History plays that out. As long the peppers are cut and other veggies are of a size that the vinegar can penetrate easily and quickly.
 
I do several 10 oz bottles every season. by the time we get to the last bottle it's usually been in the cupboard for several months without any evidence of spoilage whatsoever. Once the vinegar is used I will process into relish. I definitely refrigerate the relish. It really doesn't last that long anyway.
 

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