Hi Renie - did your classes cover pickling? Those that do would probably have explained that these pickles are likely unsafe and why but without seeing the full recipe and the details on how you processed them, if you did, for storage it would be difficult to know for sure.

Refrigerator pickles have their own set of problems but those issue aside, I honestly have never seen an unprocessed pickle recipe that would allow for a year of fridge storage. 3 months tops in most of the recipes I have seen.

Can you provide more info please?

Dave

Oh boy, do I agre with dAve on this one. Refrigerator pickles kept a year? That's more than I've ever seen, unless they were fermented pickles which I'm assuming they are not.

Nope, I wouldn't eat 'em, not unless they were properly processed in the first place and then refrigerated which makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

Annie

Thanks for your responses. These are done by boiling brine and then covering them, you use hot jars and hot lids etc. They have to sit in frig for 5-7 days, no BWB. The lady who gave the cannning and pickling class uses the same recipe (and she has us all scared to death about botulism etc.) and she keeps her for 12 months. She told me last week she is still eating hers from last summer. She also worked for our local extension office for years and she is a bug about proper and I mean proper)canning methods. I dont know, Im getting so paranoid about bugs in food, especially after reading all the recent articles about what all is out there to get us. Maybe Ill just toss em and start over!

She also worked for our local extension office for years and she is a bug about proper and I mean proper)canning methods.

Well as any one here can tell you I just LOVE people who are "bugs about proper canning methods". But I got to tell you that this isn't one of them - proper method I mean.

She may have worked for the extension for years but she hasn't kept current with the changes since retiring so I'm guessing this wasn't a certified canning class?

Ask her about listeria - it's the main problem with refrigerator pickle recipes - and the current extension position on them is do not make them. Botulism is only a problem with pickles if too little vinegar (less than 50:50) is used.

I'd strongly recommend you dump these but it is your choice. Without seeing the recipe we have no way to tell if it is safe to use or not.

Dave

Ok, the recipe calls for 3/4 cukes or zucchini, sliced. 4 cups sliced onions, 4 cups sugar, 2cups vinegar, 1/2 cup pickling salt,turmeric, celery seed, mustard seed and dill seed or dill heads. Boil sugar, vinegar, salt and spices 5 minutes. Let cool Pour over cukes/zucs ,onion and dill. I put them in hot jars with placed hot lids and rings on them and put them in the frig. They were supposed to be in frig 5-7 days, before consuming them. Supposedly good for 12 months. I think Ill just toss them...thanks for your help

Oh my, they will be going in the trash tonight. Im just going to buy pickles. I lost all my cucumbers this year and my zucchinis are gone too. The extension lady just loves that website (The one about home food preservation). She swears by that now. And the Ball Blue Book. There is a class on Friday night, I will ask her about Listeria. Im not sure she ever mentioned the possibility of that. But she is a bug about botulism :)

Hi, I am new to gardening this year and new to canning NEXT year! I just found this canning site and plan to read all winter and get caught up for next years harvest. Thanks in advance for all the great questions/advice/information!!
Here is what my mom always said "When in doubt, throw it out" and to add to that "it's not worth getting sick over".

As mentioned in another post. Listeria was INJECTED into the cukes before they were fermented in the salt brine to do the tests. That would only show you that if there was listeria inside a cuke, it would not be killed off immediately. Not eveyone can tell if they have any listeria in their cukes. And its natural contamintion is minimal.