Emergency pickling advice please! Changing quick pickle recipe to shelf-stable?

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Subversive_plot

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My Biquinho peppers are showing irrational exuberance late in the growing season, I started picking today and realized that I might have a gallon or more of these little peppers when I'm done picking, and that is just today! 

I have attached a recipe for making a refrigerator sweet pickle (called sweety drops).  I've already made some exactly per the recipe, they taste great!  Original recipe is from here:  https://soupaddict.com/pickled-sweety-drops/ 

Problem: the recipe is for refrigerator pickles, not shelf stable..  I think I will have enough by the end of the season to make several quart jars of these, but I won't have refrigerator space for all of them.  I am looking for suggestions from pickle-makers on the forum as to how to convert the recipe to shelf-stable.

Good news: I have a functional pressure cooker.  Also the necessary canning jars, rings, lids.  I also have pickling lime if it is needed.

Is making the recipe shelf-stable simply a matter of using a pressure cooker for an appropriate time and pressure  with the same recipe?

To achieve shelf stability, would you alter the ingredients, or the steps to make the pickles?

I realize that shelf-stable pickles will not have the crunch that the refrigerator version has, due to the higher temperature. I'm ok with losing that in some of my pickle production I just want to avoid not being able to make use of the peppers I produce.

Any help appreciated - thank you!
* Sweety drops recipe page.pdf
(415.64 kB ~ Downloads: 97)
« Last Edit: September 30, 2023, 01:00 by Subversive_plot »
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New shoot

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I think it is the inclusion of the water of the recipe that is making it not shelf stable.  If the vinegar is diluted below 5% acidity, you have a brine rather than a true pickle.  That can let bacteria and other nasties breed in the jar, unless you heat treat it to sterilise the contents or keep it in the fridge to slow them right down.  I would say even in the fridge storage time would be limited, so a lot of jars in there would not make sense, even if you had the room.

You could use the pressure cooker to can them and that would overcome the problem, as it effectively sterilises the contents.  We would use the term bottling over here, but there is often some element of water in these recipes and they do keep out of the fridge.  Once you open the jar, the advice is usually to fridge it.

I have made pickled chillies in a vinegar and sugar mix.  They would be a bit different to your recipe but you use the tip of a small knife to poke holes into the chillies, before packing in a sterilised jar.  You then bring a vinegar and sugar mix (with flavourings to your taste) to the boil, before pouring it over the chillies and sealing the jar. That also keeps out of the fridge until you open the jar.  The chillies lose some crunch because of the hot vinegar, but probably not as much as if you can them.

If you have a lot of peppers to use up, you could try both ways and see what is your favourite.


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snowdrops

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Here in the UK we don’t pressure can or waterbath our preserves like over in your neck of the woods due to as Newshoot says of using 5% vinegars and our jams(your jellies) having 50% sugar in them. Jam here will last years with no harmful consequences unless not properly sterilised jars/contamination etc. I’m on a UK Preserving and Canning forum on a site that shall not be named  :wacko: and they are very strict about pointing out about USDA “rules” not applying here as it’s not that it is dangerous not to apply their “rules” because those rules are out dated and are quoted unnecessarily because lots of ingredients ets haven’t been tested by the USDA. Just change the vinegar to 5% if you dare :): omitting the water as NS says
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Subversive_plot

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Thank you both for the replies.  I appreciate the feedback regarding the acidity and vinegar content.  Before reading the comments here, I also found some information on vinegar content, pH of different vinegar-water mixtures, and so forth.  No bottling pun intended, but I'm still "processing" it all!



 

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