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Canning peppers WITHOUT a waterbath
- Thread starter beerbreath81
- Start date
salsalady
Business Member
That question can probably be googled with pretty accurate information for the specific pH of different chiles.CraigJS said:
For the purposes of processing, peppers are a low acid vegetable like green beans, broccoli and cauliflower. Peppers cannot be safely preserved with a simple (peppers and water in the jar) boiling water bath. If no acids are used, the chiles must be processed by pressure canning. Otherwise chiles must have acid added to lower the pH or can be fermented (like kimchee and sauerkraut) to lower the pH.
Tomatoes used to be considered an acidic vegetable that could be safely Boiling Water Bath processed for canning. Newer strains of tomatoes have been bred to be low acid compared to heirloom tomato varieties that have higher natural acid contents. Now, all extension services say to pressure can tomatoes, not just BWB.
check out Making Hot Sauce 101 and Fermenting Peppers stickied in the Making Hot Sauce forum.,
LD, I'm in the "high altitude" crowd and I can honestly say no I have never processed my peppers according to the high altitude. But did do for the 10 min (0-1000ft) and they came out mushy.LowDrag said:
Is anyone doing this with super hot peppers? Should you only pickle the harder skin peppers like Jalapeno, or Hot Wax, etc?
SalsaLady beat me to it but yes fine for all, the only thing i would suggest with the thinner walled peppers is really pack em in there, like Lowdrag did in the pick below.Smokin James said:
Beautiful thing right there bud, nice goin. May need a bit longer than two weeks. I usually say 6 weeks min but might be able to get away with 4 in your case.LowDrag said:I did some today and followed the recipe and procedure above. We will see how it turns out in two weeks.
Pickled Banana Peppers done today:
Which peppers are considered thin walled? I am guessing Ghost's and Trinidads but not Jalapeno's right?
Thanks! I was thinking yellow moruga and mix them with sweet peppers, cucumber and carrot.beerbreath81 said:
salsalady
Business Member
habs, cayenne, and most superhots are considered thin-walled,...jalapeno, banana, rocoto, probably Serrano, fresno,Hungarian Carrot, etc...generally thick-walled. There's no set "rule".LowDrag said:I did some today and followed the recipe and procedure above. We will see how it turns out in two weeks.
Pickled Banana Peppers done today:
Which peppers are considered thin walled? I am guessing Ghost's and Trinidads but not Jalapeno's right?
If mixing peppers and veggies, use the thickest component when considering how long to let 'em soak. If there are chunks of carrot, that will take longer for the brine to penetrate through and properly pickle than onion or pepper pieces.
Again, common sense with an edge towards caution...
I'm off to the kitch right now to deal with 37 pounds of habaneros and 40 pounds of red jalapenos.....UGH!
Great mix, sounds great man, just know that the carrots will stay in the raw state with this method. Not sure how you like your carrots but may want to soften them a bit by patartaily boiling before canning em? Up to youSmokin James said:
I will have to try both soft and hard carrots to see what is best. I do like the idea of a more raw carrot though. Thanksbeerbreath81 said:
salsalady
Business Member
You said it!LowDrag said:
40 pounds jalapenos on the right, 25 pounds yellow habs on the left, another 12 pounds red habs-
Habs cleaned stemmed and sliced- ( these are commercial food hotel pans, to give you an idea of the size)
Jalapenos washed-
Most of the habaneros went into the pimped out ghetto dehydrator, I'll post more pics of that in a different thread as this is the pickling thread~
Most of the red jals went into a cold pickle, some red jals went into a ferment, 2 x 2 gallon red jals went into the freezer for later dehydrating, and a few orange habs were set up for a cold pickle also.
Pickle brine-
6 cups white vinegar
3 cups water
2T pickling salt
2T sugar
Multiply recipe as needed to get enough for 5 gallons produce.
5 1/2 gallons red jalapenos, carrots, onion, cauliflower and (tomorrow) garlic and the 2 bags of jalapenos for the freezer.
orange habaneros for cold pickle on the left, red jals with onion, garlic, bit of carrot and apples for a ferment on the right.
DAUM....thats alot of work but sure is a beautiful sight, hopefully you got some help from the salsakids 
. Are these all from your garden? that modified dehydrator is sweet how long do you gotta let them go for when stacked so full?
. Are these all from your garden? that modified dehydrator is sweet how long do you gotta let them go for when stacked so full?
salsalady
Business Member
BB- no chiles from my garden, these are grown by a local family farm. They grow TONS of produce of all kinds and sell to local stores. Last year, I think I bought about 300 pounds of various chiles.
With the chiles sliced so thin, it really doesn't take any longer than normal. They get really good air circulation. This year, the red habs on the bottom two trays are really juicy and I'm concerned about those ones not getting enough air to the middle, so I will be unstacking those two trays and turning the habs a bout every 12 hours until they get about half dry. And I'm also running it at about 110F. If it weren't for the red habs, I'd run it about 95-100F for better color retention. For these chiles, I'm not concerned with color retention, only concerned to get those red habs dried fast.
LowDrag- here's the original thread about the Overstuffed Dehydrator with these updates.
Last year, one tower had a colander of pods on top, but as the chiles dried, the tower went lopsided and the colander fell off and onto the floor. That's a reason why I went looking for something to use as spacers. Thought about wooden dowels, but those you can't really clean and would get food bits stuck to them. White PVC seemed to be the ticket.
With the chiles sliced so thin, it really doesn't take any longer than normal. They get really good air circulation. This year, the red habs on the bottom two trays are really juicy and I'm concerned about those ones not getting enough air to the middle, so I will be unstacking those two trays and turning the habs a bout every 12 hours until they get about half dry. And I'm also running it at about 110F. If it weren't for the red habs, I'd run it about 95-100F for better color retention. For these chiles, I'm not concerned with color retention, only concerned to get those red habs dried fast.
LowDrag- here's the original thread about the Overstuffed Dehydrator with these updates.
Last year, one tower had a colander of pods on top, but as the chiles dried, the tower went lopsided and the colander fell off and onto the floor. That's a reason why I went looking for something to use as spacers. Thought about wooden dowels, but those you can't really clean and would get food bits stuck to them. White PVC seemed to be the ticket.salsalady said:BB and Sizzle, you are both doing a modified Hot Pack. BB didn't post the brine recipe, but if it's like Sizzle's it's fine. With the meticulous process of boiling the jars, heated brine, high vinegar ratio, slicing or at least slitting open the pods so the brine gets all the way in (and then sloshing the jars to make sure it DOES get into the pods), all those little details are important to the safe product and the success you have.
Usually, I'm in the "just because Gramma did it that way for 40 years and never got sick doesn't make it safe" camp. But in this case, you guys are doing it right. Part of the reason the FDA and Extension Services mandate to BWB everything is because people skip steps or don't have enough vinegar, etc. BWB pretty much just make it almost for sure safe.
I ended up with about 80 pounds of jalapenos last fall that I had to do something with, so I made a bunch of cold-packed Pickled Peppers using the same basic recipe and process of you guys. I was able to sell them as a cold-packed refrigerated product, no way the "powers that be" would of let them go out as Shelf Stable without BWB.Whatever, luckily my local market has room in their Gourmet Foods cold case, so it worked out.
I think Joyners was saying he vac-seals the cuke salad and then keeps it in the refer for up to 6 months.
I am comfortable that my handling of the jars is correct. After they are cleaned, I give them a boiling water bath. I am also comfortable that this high vinegar to water ratio is more than safe to make pickles. Yes - I boil the brine.
3.5 cups white distilled vinegar (5% acidity)
1.5 cups water
4 tablespoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons sugar
I had started a thread and one of the replies linked to this one because I wanted to know if this brine was OK to pickle peppers. I was wondering whether something about the nature of peppers would require something to be added to the brine, or if I would need to modify the ratio.
Ann,
Could you please chime in on this. Also, is salt necessary for a safe brine, or it it just for taste? I love salt and am not looking to cut any out—I was just curious.
Thanks
