Hey,

I pickled ~1 lb of nice cayenne peppers today, think I did it right,
sterilized jars and
all. My only question is, the processing- after I poured in the boiled
(undiluted)
vinegar on top of the cleaned but raw peppers, I put the lids on and
processed in
a boiling water bath for about 15 min or so but the water didn't cover
the jars,
it came up to about half way on them. Is this a concern ? The vacuum
is good and
there's about a 1/3 inch airspace.

Thanks so much,

a soon-to-be pickling-more newbie

ps here's what I followed, recipe-wise:
----------------------------------------------
Garlic Pickled Chile Peppers

* 500g (1 lb) Cayenne peppers
* 2 tablespoons salt
* 1/4 teaspoon allspice
* 1/4 teaspoon celery seeds
* 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
* 3 cloves of garlic cut in halves
* 900ml (1 1/2 pints) vinegar (garlic vinegar if available)
* 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
* 8 peppercorns

Wash the peppers and place into hot sterilised jars. Mix the allspice
with the celery and mustard
seeds. Pack into the jars. Add the garlic. Place the vinegar, sugar and
peppercorns into pan and
bring to the boil. Pour over the peppers and seal the jars. Makes about
1.5kg (3 lb)

martin rogers wrote:

> all. My only question is, the processing- after I poured in the boiled
> (undiluted)
> vinegar

Interesting reading:
http://www.soe.stevens-tech.edu/cbme...xtraction.html

says (I think) that boiling vinegar in an open pot will make it very
slightly stronger.

> on top of the cleaned but raw peppers, I put the lids on and
> processed in
> a boiling water bath for about 15 min or so but the water didn't cover
> the jars,
> it came up to about half way on them. Is this a concern ?

Yes. That's a concern. Put the jars in the refrigerator until you can
re-process them properly.

David

>Thanks so much,
>
>a soon-to-be pickling-more newbie

I don't have all that stuff you have in the recipe so I don't do the
boiling water bath (BWB). I just pack the jars with fresh picked
cayanee peppers, boil apple cider vinigar and top off the jars. Screw
the lids on and let cool. You should here the lids popping as the
contents cool. I then keep this product on the shelf with no further
processing. Great on a Ritz with cheddar cheese (extra sharp).

Note to newbie: Do not boil vinigar in microwave in glass jar. I did
once and the contents exploded out of the jar. I was covered in a
quart of boiling hot vinigar. Not fun. The jar was in one peice, the
contents just blew out. And I mean BLEW OUT.

Later I've heard about keeping a wooden stirrer in the liquid and you
can do it in the microwave. Sorry, I'm not going to do that again.

Craig Watts

> Note to newbie: Do not boil vinigar in microwave in glass jar. I did
> once and the contents exploded out of the jar. I was covered in a
> quart of boiling hot vinigar. Not fun. The jar was in one peice, the
> contents just blew out. And I mean BLEW OUT.
>
> Later I've heard about keeping a wooden stirrer in the liquid and you
> can do it in the microwave. Sorry, I'm not going to do that again.

I understand that you can do the same thing with water too. Apparently
you need to be sure that there is something in the jar to act as a
nucleation site for the bubbles to start forming on. Otherwise you
get superheated liquid that suddenly boils as soon as it is disturbed.
I guess we're lucky that most glassware isn't that smooth (or perhaps
they're made rough on purpose?).

Craig Watts wrote:

> I don't have all that stuff you have in the recipe so I don't do the
> boiling water bath (BWB). I just pack the jars with fresh picked
> cayanee peppers, boil apple cider vinigar and top off the jars. Screw
> the lids on and let cool. You should here the lids popping as the
> contents cool. I then keep this product on the shelf with no further
> processing.

I'm still a newbie at this myself Craig, but this sounds like a dangerous

practice. You might want to get some canning texts from the liberry
and read up on the subject. Or check out the USDA website.
Our FAQ has a pretty complete list of both. I think being fresh,
the peppers will not have got hot enuf to be sterilized, even tho
the high concentration of vinegar will keep the bad guys down.
BWB is not too hard or expensive to do - I used a stockpot at
first with a cake cooling rack. Course I could only do a few pint
jars at a time, but it was okay with me. A jarlifter is a real handy
gadget to have tho.
Edrena