Pickling help!

THANKS EVERYONE!

If you're considering hot process pickling, I'd suggest you read up on it, or attend a class. There's that pesty little botulisim thing, though pickles are *usually* acidic enough to avoid it. Good resources are the U of Georgia ( www.uga.edu/nchfp ) and Ball/Mason ( www.freshpreserving.com ). As others have said, hot processed pickles are the ONLY shelf-stable pickles, and then only until opened.

Refrigerator pickles are just that. You brine your veg/fruit, usually in hot brine, in clean (sterilized) jars. Running the jars and lids through your dishwasher's sterlization or "heat clean" cycle can accomplish this. As soon as the brine cools, put them into the fridge. Mine usually last 4-6 weeks (if they don't get eaten), but after about the 3rd week, I give them the evil eye/sniff test before eating. If the brine suddenly clouds, looks slimy or just "different", don't chance it.

Everything you need to know about the subject:

http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can6b_pickle.html

good question. if you waterbath can them and then open them, i'd start the clock at a month. they aren't likely to go bad really, just more likely to lose texture. i pickled some rhubarb earlier this summer and they were mush pretty quickly. pickled beets and okra on the other hand, for ex, can last quite a while in the fridge.
if the jars are waterbathed and unopened, you can put them in your pantry or your fridge if you've got the room. you may want to experiment with both to see what you think about resultant textural differences.
i recently made a batch of dilly beans and in the bottom of each jar put a folded grape leaf b/c i've heard they help maintain crunch. there was a hotline thread going around about this a couple weeks back if you want to search for it.
you might want to pick up the Ball Canning Guide or another trusted source to get a lay of the land. www.foodinjars.com is a great site- marisa knows what she's doing. and i've been teaching cannign classes recently in addition to all the canning i do for fun...you can check out my site if you'd like. www.em-i-lis.com

hey there, pretty much anything you're pickling can be waterbath canned rather than pressure canned. so no, in this instance, you wouldn't need to pressure can your peppers. the vinegar and salt serve a similar purpose as do sugar/acid/addition of lemon juice in jams. you want to prevent any microbes in the food you want to process from continuing to live or multiply. in jams, heat + sugar + acid makes them safe. for pickles, salt + vinegar + heat act in much the same fashion. if you're using a reputable recipe (DON'T make up your own recipes until you a very practiced canner) as you seem to be (although again, don't go nuts tweaking simon's recipe; follow his measurements accurately) you can A) safely refrigerate your pickles for the month he notes, or B) waterbath can them. pressure canners operate at a higher temp than do waterbath canners and are a different piece of equipment. hope this helps!

your pickles can stay in the fridge for up to a month, if you've not processed them in a water bath canner. simon is probably assuming you're not going to seal them for preservation. don't put them on your pantry shelves unless you process them correctly.

If you want to preserve pickles and jams and the like so that you can keep them in your pantry rather than the fridge, you have to process them in a waterbath canner. This is a large pot which you fill with water and set to a boil. You then immerse your sealed Mason jars in that boiling bath for a set time (usually 10-15 minutes for pint-size jars) which creates a vacuum inside each jar which seals them. You know when you buy a jar of jam at the store and then have to force the lid off the first time? They've been sealed for long-term shelf stability. For acidic-enough foods (jams, pickles, chutneys), home canners use a waterbath for this same purpose. Low acid foods like veggies need to be pressure canned which is a whole different ball of wax....

what do you mean by waterbath?

some pickles maintain a better crunch in the fridge too. i'm an avid canner and find that if you waterbath process your pickles they will be perfectly shelf-stable and fine for 9-12 months BUT i prefer the flavor and texture before 6 months.

Also, in my experience, pickled peppers, no matter the pickling method, last a REALLY long time in the fridge.

A lot depends in whether or not you processed the pickles to seal the jars which would make them shelf stable. As for reusing the pickling solution, you would need to make sure the acid level is still high enough to work, since it can get diluted by the juice of whatever fruit or vegetable was pickled in it.