I'm not sure where you got your instructions, but no reliable source recommends open kettle method or inversion.

Open kettle is not canning. It's just placing contents in jars and sealing. There's no heat processing and therefore no assurance of long-term shelf stability.

Inverted jars are prone to seal failure regardless of what you do; because the jars aren't heat-processed the seal is weak and air has not been expelled from the jars.

Unless they're refrigerated, peppers need to be heat-processed. Some people object to that because it does soften the texture but pickle crisp can counteract that effect.

Regardless of the method a popped lid is a failed seal. Either the contents are re-processed or refrigerated.

Carol

I always worry when I accidentally touch the lid and it pops, but most of the time, they are ok (as far as the sealing processing, which is NOT the same as the processing process).

No body has recommended open kettle canning for as long as I remember, before the 1960s, inverted or not.

I would refrigerate those immediately or discard. To me, they are NOT canned. Sorry for all your hard work for nothing.

I used the inverted open kettle method to can my pickled peppers. Without getting into too much detail...I followed the whole process.

I can't imagine who or what would recommend that long outdated method to you but they did you a great dis-service in doing so.

As others have indicated it has been proven to be unsafe for decades so your question about the seals isn't of concern. The peppers wouldn't be safely canned whether you touched the lids or not.

Hope fully you refrigerated the jars immediately since if not, once 24 hours has passed they can't even be re-processed but need to be discarded.

Since you are new to canning please rely on only the approved guidelines for processing your foods

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: National Center for Home Food Processing

Thank you all for your comments. I'll be sure to use more current methods of canning going forward. In this case, I had left these jars out for roughly 14 hours prior to refrigeration. Are they most likely okay to eat?

Why take a chance? My motto, when in doubt, throw it out!

Are they most likely okay to eat?

That is going to depend on the recipe you used, what other ingredients you added, and what the ratio of vinegar to water was. Peppers are a low-acid food so given the way you made them, the only protection they had against bacteria and toxin development was the pH, the acidity of the brine.

Dave

Also if you raw-packed the peppers and poured boiling brine over, there's an additional risk that portions of the peppers are not fully penetrated so there's varying acidity in the contents of the jar.

Carol