Uncovered.

Dave

I kinda of thought so--just wanted to make sure.
Thanks

Give it plenty of ventilation. Boiling vinegar is quite strong smelling

It's doesn't bother me, but my husband is being a "big" baby about that "smell".

Ha ha mine was doing the same thing when I was making Jalepeno's in Escabeche ...I could hear him clearing his throat so I stuck my head into his office and ask if his eyes were burning yet...He said ...What the heck is that...

Oh, I hear this -- my husband HATES vinegar. And all forms of pickles. I, on the other hand, can't go a day without something pickled!

Last week, I had a batch of dill pickles go bad. (I think I overfilled the jars.) Four quarts bubbled over and spilled stinky garlicy vinegary brine - spoiled, no less - on the garage floor. (Thank heavens they were in the garage.)

Well, I scrubbed the garage floor, dumped the cukes out in a trash bag, and tossed it in the large city-provided trash bin that we keep in the garage.

The smell inside that bin after about two hours forced it outside to the driveway where it has been brewing all week. I had to agree to take out all the trash this week because he couldn't even lift the lid without turning green.

He said it was his "worst nightmare come true."

Trash day is tomorrow.

Cathy, making another batch of dills while DH is out on his bicycle

If your vinegar based pickles turned bad, it could be due to an insufficient amount of vinegar. I never add water to my vinegar pickle brines, only pickling salt. Never had a jar leak or expand, and some of mine are well over 5 years old now, so they are just quite mushy after all that time. The jars when being filled need about a half to one inch of head space.

You can imagine on a very cold day that a glass gallon bottle that had 100% Glacial Acetic acid broke. Its freezing temp is about 40 degrees, and once it leaked out in a large freight elevator, the whole building smelled of vinegar for days after.