I'm looking at that recipe right now. I think if you complete the day 6 brine with the vinegar and sugar, let the cucumbers cool and then refrigerate, you should be fine to pick up where you left off when you return from your weekend. The worst that "might" happen is the pickles could be a bit less crisp, but if you stop at day six and can at that point they aren't going to be as sweet or taste as good. I'd take the risk of a slight diminution of crispness over that. I might also delay adding the pickling spice until Day "7" when you return just in case it would get too strong with longer sitting. I see from the recipe the spices are removed before processing. Carol

angiepangie: "I have been making dilly beans and pickled beets by just blanching the beans, boiling the beets- and pouring over hot seasoned water and vinegar mixture. I keep them in the fridge and then are eaten within a couple of weeks or months. I've always heard that you are supposed to heat process things or you could get sick. However this is the method my grandmother uses and I've never gotten sick with it....." "...Please don't tell me to invest in a canner and learn how to heat process! I don't have the money to do so, no matter how cheap- I only come across organic beans and beets etc every so often, and only make pickles a few times a year. my basic question here is, can I just pickle up all these beans by blanching, then hot vinegar/water/sugar/spices- and leave them in the fridge indefinately? I don't want to make my family sick." Have you ever tried to lacto ferment your dilly beans? This was actually my first year at fermenting raw unpasteurized unblanched live Fortex beans and we like them nearly as much as we do the half sour/full sour cukes; I served them at a cookout last weekend and they were a huge favorite with most of the folks there. It's soooo easy, and absolutely no heating energy or special equipment is required; they will keep for months in the fridge, and they're not only 'safe' for your family, they are very nutritious for them also. This is the basic recipe I followed: "These pickled green beans make a tasty snack anytime of the day…they have a wonderful garlicky taste and are a great little “finger-food”. I like to grab a few straight from the jar and munch on them….betcha’ can’t eat just one Recipe type: Lacto-fermentation, Appetizer, Condiment Serves: 1 quart Ingredients ¾ to 1 pound fresh green beans 1 large clove garlic, thinly sliced pinch red pepper flakes 1 teaspoon dried dill OR 3 to 4 sprigs fresh dill 1½ Tablespoons unrefined sea salt 2 cups filtered water Instructions Place half of the sliced garlic to a clean quart-sized mason jar, followed by the red pepper flakes and dill. Snap off the stem-end of green beans. Blanch green beans in boiling water for 2 minutes, then immediately transfer to a bowl of ice water until no longer hot. Drain the blanched beans well and pat dry with paper towels. Add green beans to your jar, stem-end down, packing them close together….it helps to lay the jar on its side at first. Fill the jar completely with the green beans, but do not pack them in too tight. Sprinkle remaining garlic slices on top of beans in jar. In a bowl, or large glass measuring cup, mix together the water and salt. Pour this mixture into your jar of beans to cover, being sure to leave 1-inch space from the top of the jar for expansion. (If the brine does not cover, simply make up another batch using the same ratio of salt to water.) Place lid (preferably air-lock lid) on the jar tightly. If using air-lock fill with water according to instructions. Allow to ferment (culture) for 3 days at room temperature, checking after day 2. When they are done, the beans will smell and taste “pickled”, but they should still be slightly crisp. Remove air-lock lid, if using, and replace with storage lid ��" transfer to cold storage." Here is a link that might be useful: Lacto-fermented “Pickled” Green Beans This post was edited by sidhartha0209 on Tue, Sep 10, 13 at 21:33

Calculating the pH of a strong acid is fairly simple math: pH = - log[H3O+]. But first you have to know the concentration of the hydronium (in moles per liter) to use the formula. 5% vinegar varies in mol/liter depending on the manufacturer/brand because of the differing pH of the water used. I have seen ranges varying from 0.384 to 0.479 and no, 5% vinegar does NOT have an ironclad pH of 2.46. It has an allowed range of pHs from brand to brand depending on the water used and the amount of hydronium ions that can disassociate in that water. Then you have to understand the differences between weak and strong acids. Vinegar is a weak acid not a strong acid so the "simple" formula above does not even apply and if used results in faulty results. You want to base your safety on those erroneous results, fine. Your choice. Most of us do not. Calculating the pH of a weak acid such as vinegar or a weak base (such as water) is a whole different ballgame. It is a quadratic equation that has to factor in equilibrium because weak acids do not completely dissociate in water. Incomplete disassociation = inaccurate # of disassociated hydronium ions = erroneous pH values. You want to use quick and dirty math when canning your pickles, fine. Go for it. But the majority of home canners do not. Especially when the valid math has already been done for them by the food scientists and used to based the guidelines on. Guidelines which also compensate for all the variances in the products and the range of water pH and also compensate for the fact that pH in canning is not stable, it rises over time in storage. So your continued insistence of posting this information when it is not even applicable to home canning serves no purpose except to confuse and mislead.. Dave

<Or doesn't this come in to play when you pickle whole cucumbers?> Not really. There are many whole cuke pickling recipes that don't call for pre-soak. Only way it can work is when you cut some slits in the whole cukes to begin with. But they always call for more than a 1:1 vinegar brine to compensate for the extra water in the cukes. So if he was home with them and they had just been done then I'd recommend opening the jars and adding some more vinegar to them. If he gets them in the fridge and doesn't keep them for more than a week or so the risk is minimal. Personally I'd dump them but it boils down to his choice whether to eat them or not now. Dave