I don't know which of the several recipes in that link you might have used - very different ratios of vinegar to water.

But in the end it doesn't make any difference. Once the seal fails and goes undiscovered for any length of time the food should be tossed. There has been ample time for pathogenic bacteria to develop.

Dave

PS - Food can only be reprocessed within 24 hours of processing.

i agree with digdirt...toss them...sorry you lost some of your hard work but safety first

Shayne

I made the pickled pepper recipe. It's name is just "pickled peppers." And it calls for 6 cups of vinegar with 2 cups of water. So it's pretty acidic.

I was afraid throwing it out would be your advice, but I also thought I read somewhere that pickled peppers were actually safe for a period even if not canned.

Anyway . . . It's too bad, but it's also lucky that it was habaneros. I have had a bad year with my own plants, so I ordered a half bushel of peppers from my favorite farmer at the farmers market. He gave me a full bushel at no extra charge, so I have plenty of peppers to replace these. :)

Angie

You have a bushel of habaneros peppers!!!????!!!!??? What are you doing with than many hot peppers? Just curious is all.

Well, I didn't intentionally have a bushel of habanero peppers! My favorite farmers market farmer just gave me double what I actually ordered! And after all, there's a reason I'm the HotHabaneroLady. It's because I love hot habaneros! :)

Anyway, I was pretty perplexed by what to do with them too. Finally I ended up with about ten pints of pickled, canned habaneros, 3 quart jars (not including the one that went bad) of pickled habaneros, five quarts of dehydrated habaneros, plus some very tasty fish marinades and some other cooking.

They are all gone now, but the overwhelming majority are now preserved in some way. I'm hoping I will have enough until I can start harvesting from my own plants again next year.

Angie

It is likely that that jar was never sealed. If you processed them in the same way.

OTOH, in a 75% vinegar solution no bacteria can possibly grow and multiply, in a matter of one week. That is like a vinegar with 3.8% acidity and pH of 2.5 vs 5% acidity with pH of 2.4 with traditional household vinegar.
But It is your choice to do as you think what is right.

Well, when I opened it up, I realized there were two lids on the jar instead of just one. Oops! Unfortunately, I discovered that when I took them both off and went "hmmm this lid seems thicker than normal. Oh no wonder! There are two of them!" So I don't know if the one underneath was sealed or not. I threw them out. Better safe than sorry and I had a full bushel of habaneros to work with so it's not as if I have a shortage of them.

But my understanding was the same as yours, seysson. I thought that I had read somewhere that a 1:1 ratio of vinegar to water should be enough to preserve peppers for 3 months, much the way that pickles one guys from the grocery store will remain preserved for quite a while after they are opened. So one would expect a 3:1 ratio to do the same, if not better.

But I could not figure out where I saw that. Digdirt seems to be the resident canning expert and I'm doing this for the first time, so I followed his advice. But I'd like to know if I'm wrong in thinking that pickling alone, without canning, is enough to preserve for a period of months! It won't affect what I'm doing now, but it might affect how quickly I make a point of using my peppers when the time comes to stop preserving and start consuming! Plus I was going to pickle and can some sweet peppers too!

Angie

I got further curious so I asked this question of the University of Maryland Extension via their Ask An Expert service. Here is what they said:

"After 12-24 hours, test your jars to be sure they are sealed. If a jar is not sealed, refrigerate it and use the food within 2-3 days. Store the sealed and labeled jars in a clean, cool, dark dry place with the best temperature being between 50 and 70 degrees. Recommended shelf life for home canned foods is 12 months. Once a jar of pickled peppers is opened, it should be stored in the refrigerator and used within 2 months. Visit www.nchfp.uga.edu as your source for current research-based recommendations for most methods of home food preservation. "

So they will last about two months in an opened, pickled state if refrigerated. If not refrigerated and not sealed, use them promptly. That is what I take away from the response.

Angie

Hi Angie - For future reference you can always find the details on the USDA/NCHFP website but you got the basic answer.

Used to be all sorts of allowances that ceased to exist once listeria was discovered. Acid-loving, rapid growing, both heat and cold-tolerant, listeria proved to be just one of many exceptions to claims like "in a 75% vinegar solution no bacteria can possibly grow and multiply, in a matter of one week."

Add too that all the research that proves that pH does not remain stable but rises over time on the shelf and a lot of the old beliefs flew out the window.

And just to add to the confusion, when you read things like but I also thought I read somewhere that pickled peppers were actually safe for a period even if not canned the question to be asked is pickled how? Fermented, brined, or quick-pack are all "pickled peppers" but all have very different safety concerns.

Dave

Yeah, I've had jars unseal after canning, too. A few - not too many, knock on wood :-) Mostly from tiny bits of "stuff" that somehow ended up between the rim and the lid, and induced a weak seal (I call that operator error). Or a tiny chip that I didn't see/feel and that induced a weaker seal. Sometimes it just happens and I can't pin down a reason why.

If there is "something" wrong with the jar that is enabling air to get back into the vacuum OR creating some sort of gas/air to push the lid off, I dump it.

Not worth worrying about lost product, even though it's a lot of work to make it in the first place. Dispose of it safely, and chalk it up.

P.S. I can't tell you how many times I have come close to putting two lids on one jar. Dang, those things can stick together!

Thank you, Dave. All of those points help a lot. It sounds like one must be very careful to avoid old, outdated information as well. Perhaps what I read about pickled peppers being shelf stable was from someone who had not gotten the memo about listeria. I know I missed that one. I'm amazed that botulism is covered in publications like the NCHFP/USDA guide to canning, but listeria is not!

I do refer to NCHFP pretty religiously. They are a fantastic resource. I also look at Mother Earth News but for the most part they seem to republish material from NCHFP, although they often supply more detailed explanations. It's useful to know WHY things work and not just know what to do. But sometimes it can be hard to figure out why.

Angie

There is at least one listeria article on the NCHFP site.

Rodney

Here is a link that might be useful: Listeria monocytogenes survival in refrigerator dill pickles

. Perhaps what I read about pickled peppers being shelf stable was from someone who had not gotten the memo about listeria.

Perhaps but it is also possible they were referring to fermented pickled peppers. Fermenting (using lactic acid) allows for much greater margins of safety than does vinegar brine (acetic acid).

Dave

Thank you, Dave. This helps me understand what's happening a lot better! And also helps explain why articles abound about how safe and easy it is to ferment whereas there are so many cautions about being careful with canning.

Angie

I've had three or more jars of peppers open after a month. I will toss those but my question is the remaining jars...can I put rings back on them and refrigerate them? If so how long will they last. Fyi these jars were not canned but filled with hot product and turned upside down to set for 12 hours. They all sealed but now are unsealing. So upsetting!

" filled with hot product and turned upside down to set for 12 hours"

Not considered safe to do in the first place (with the possible exception of highly acidic fruit jams and even then it's not recommended). The problem is it produces only a weak seal and allows oxygen and any contaminants (including listeria) to remain in the jar to grow.

So no, adding rings back to jars which are highly likely to fail due to contamination just like the ones that already have makes no sense, sorry.

At best you'd be hanging on to contaminated food and at worst - exploding jars as the pressure builds. That is why rings/bands are always supposed to be removed during storage - so the lids can pop and indicate unsafe foods.

Dave

Thank you for the info. I guess I learned my lesson. Wish I could find a good canning receipe for peppers that don't turn soft.

Follow the NCHFP instructions and add Pickle Crisp to them. Check out all the discussions here about pickled peppers.

Dave