New to canning and made dill pickles yesterday. varied from the recipe like and idiot and did 2 cups water to one 5% white vinegar then boiled for the recomended time. Have looked at other recipes and some seem variable in this regard. Any thoughts on if I should chuck them or are they ok? Is there a way to open a jar and test them? Any advice would be appreciated.
I know the "Canning Police" say any deviation from a time proven recipe is dangerous, but I think think that they are mostly concerned with ensuring things are safe for long-term, unrefrigerated storage. With any canning the big danger is botulism, an anaerobic bacteria, which as it grows gives off a toxin which is dangerous or deadly even in minute quantities. So the goal is to make the conditions such that the bacteria cannot grow.
High heat pressure canning aims to any bacteria and any spores for the bacteria. Boiling water bath canning destroys the bacteria that are present but isn't enough to destroy the spores, so the conditions must be kept such that the spores cannot develop into live bacteria, which can be done either via high-enough acidity, or through low-enough temperature (below 40 deg F ??)
However one common rescue for failures, such as when the lid doesn't "pop" or if the headspace is too large (like a half full, last jar of tomato sauce) is to store it in the fridge and use it first. So at least there is a middle ground between "safe" and "discard"
As to whether one night of not cold in conditions that are not quite acidic enough could have allowed any potential spores to hatch (or whatever they do) I don't know. Personally I'd refrigerate them immediately and keep them there, and use them.
bob_cville
rmahoneyvtOriginal Author
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