The cloud layer looks normal to me. All my pickles, home made and store bought do the same thing. I just shake a little to stir up before opening, and never think twice about it.

All I can say is the head honcho at the FDA couldn't convince me that it is safe to eat. EEUUWWW.

Likely the byproduct of lacto fermentation. How did you pickle them? Did you cook them or just pickle brine over the raw tomatoes?
I sure would eat them....nothing I can think of in green tomatoes that would cause botulism....and for sure it's not mold!
It's like the stuff in the bottom of a pickle barrel.

Right now the jars are out in the solarium, which hovers between freezing and 45 degrees right now. My outside fridge this time of year.

I've just never seen this before. The green tomatoes were unripe green. Unripe whites actually. Snow White Cherry. I'm wondering if maybe I didn't rinse them well enough and this is late season something? Yeasts or pollens in the air?

All the seasonings below the murk like are whole ones. Pepper flake, whole seeds. No minced garlic or other something that would kick off white sediment this way I would think.

The jars are still in very chilly fridge holding for the moment, lol.

Posted too soon, lol.

I had a lot of raw unripe cherry tomatoes that I rinsed well in hot water and packed into jars. These were the last of the few trays of baby greens. I had already had a long day of canning pints of them too. Super cute, eaten too soon :)
Brought to a boil a 50/50 ratio of white vinegar if I am recalling right, plus two tablespoons caning salt.
Put seasonings into bottom jar. Whole mustard seed, pepper flake, coriander, fennel seed. Then warm washed tomatoes. Then boiling brine.

Then I loose capped them and left them out on the front porch in the cooling cabinet for a few hours since it was extra cold that day. Hovering around freezing.

Then tossed the jars into the back of my fridge before went to bed that night and forgot about them.

I'll bet they are delicious....I would not be afraid to eat them.

I buy Bubbies pickles these days because I don't eat enough to justify the work canning them. They are a refrigerated, brined product and delicious, by the way. They always have that cloudy liquid in them so I looked it up. Here is what their product description says:

Pure Kosher Dills are naturally crunchy just like the "pickle barrel"
pickles so many folks remember from their childhood. Made with no
vinegar or preservatives, our CLOUDY BRINE is proof that Bubbies are
naturally fermented and cured.

You can experience a piece of early American history each time you open a jar of Bubbies Pure Kosher Dills.

"Bubbies" traditional cloudy brine contains no vinegar ...only natural
ingredients are used to preserve our pure kosher taste. Refrigerate
"Bubbies" products to insure that they retain their unique flavor to the
last bite.

Ingredients:Cucumbers, Artesian Well Water, Garlic, Salt, Dill and Spices.

Since I am used to eating a pickle with a brine like that, I'd eat them, no worries at all. Esp if they aren't squishy, but firmish like a pickled tomato should be.

That stuff in the jars looks like 'mother'. It's yucky looking but completely natural and harmless.

Did you ever figure out what it was? It looks like mother of vinegar to my uninformed eye. I tried to look it up, as well as lacto fermentation, just on a general knowledge quest, but the info I found was too general or too technical.

Linda, I think you're a chemist or something similar? If you don't mind, can you explain what by products of lacto fermentation are (where they come from and what they are)? And anything you'd care to add about the difference between lactic acid fermentation and other kinds of preservation/pickling? Just general terms is fine. I'm just kind of lost and I bet you know and can explain better than what I've been reading.

Thanks!

JC

ETA: Cross posted with the last two. Olychick, I have a friend who eats the Bubbe's pickles to deal with stomach acid issues. Apparently, it works like the unfiltered apple cider vinegar cure, possibly by recolonizing good bacteria (though that's speculation). Kimchi is supposed to be good for that too. All kinds of naturally fermented foods are becoming very popular. :)

Probiotic yeast it seems. I'm a fermenter for a few years now and always do what you are doing and research the heck out of odd looking 'floaters', especially when it is in something new i have tried.

Red, orange, black. Those are the real concerns. Especially a thick layer.

Kahm yeast is something i can't wrap me head around, and some others. It takes some research for me to feel confident consuming some of the perfectly safe and natural oddities.

I would probably not eat that. I find some cloudiness early on and then it settles clear. Even though i've been fermenting for a while i still want total control and filter after a few weeks depending on what i am doing...

If that type of cloudiness happens after a heat processing all the good probiotics were destroyed? So no longer is a balance existing for active fermentation. I'm not sure. We have been tackling one thing at a time....

Lacto fermentation is a way of preserving foods that is ages and ages old and present in many cultures. Brine cured pickles are lacto fermented, saurkraut is lacto fermented, kimchee is also as is cortido.
Most vegetables, especially those grown near the ground have some lactobacillus present....which is a bacteria...but not harmful. By adding a brine ( and spices for flavor) to certain foods, moisture is drawn out and the lactobacillus create an acid enviornment where harmful yeasts and bacteria don't grow. As the fermentation continues the brine becomes cloudy...or even flakey. Don't know for sure just what it is but the by product of lacto fermentation.
Here's a picture of pickled tomatoes that looks just like beesneeds jars.
http://phickle.com/whats-that-white-stuff-in-my-ferment/.

Many foods are changed and preserved through the action of bacteria. think of yogurt, wine, beer, cheese....as well as those things we consider "pickled".

plllog, Bubbies are really the very best pickles I've ever had. I used to can my own, using a method that didn't include a water bath. They were delicious, but I always worried because it wasn't an approved method of canning, but I hate water bathed pickles. I discovered Bubbies and quit canning pickles. It's good to know that there may be some health benefits, but, I don't really care. They are fabulously delicious!

After reading comments here.. I went back through my processing notes to make sure I knew which jars they were. Turns out they are lacto-fermented jars, not processed jars. I was thinking of the wrong batch when I wrote earlier. It had been a long few days of processing several bushels into various stuff.

So what I did was at the end of the canning night- I water bath
pickled a few jars of green cherry tomatoes, and was pretty wiped out to
do another batch.I brought the jars up to a brief boil while I prepped
up the tomatoes.

Pulled jars out of hot water,. into each jar went 2t mustard seed, 1t
peppercorns, 1t dill seed , 1/2t hot pepper flake, 1 bay leaf, and a
couple small whole fresh garlic cloves.

Brine was 10 cups water, and 50 grams of salt, I used 30 grams of
canning salt, and 20 grams of large flake sea salt. Brought briefly up
to a boil and salt added in, then cooled down to room temp before
pouring over the tomatoes.

Weights went into the top of the jars, then the jars got capped with
clean coffee filters bonnets. Sat on the counter for 4 days or so till
they stopped bubbling. Then they got their solid cap and ring, and went
into the back of the fridge. This was in October.

I think I'm a bit alarmed because this is the first time doing something like this has resulted in a cloud like it has. I regularly will lacto-ferment carrots, and have done summer squash. And I have fridge pickled a whole ton of stuff. And of course hot water bath processing, but that's a whole nother pickle. But never seen a cloud before. Good to know it seems like a good thing and not a yucky thing.

Beesneeds, so glad the mystery is solved!

Linda, thanks so much! That was very clear and informative and I'm not lost any more!!

Olychick, thanks for the recommendation. I'm going to see if I can convert my father to Bubbie's. :)