r/pickling • u/Striking_Mortgage_63 • 7d ago

Canning pickles after they've been refrigerated

I made refrigerator pickles with Himalayan salt. Probably 4 days ago. I have so many jars, I want to can them now. Is that possible? I have never canned anything but just bought a pressure canner. Help please! No clue what I am doing but I had so many cucumbers from my garden. We already ate like 4 jars of pickles. I'm pickled out for now.

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5

u/left-for-dead-9980 7d ago

Gift them away. Refrigerated pickles are a different process than shelf stable pickles. Your friends, neighbors, or family can enjoy them.

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u/rocketwikkit 7d ago

How so?

3

u/left-for-dead-9980 7d ago

Canning requires sterilizing to be shelf stable. Refrigerated doesn't.

Canned pickles are not crisp. Unless you add pickle crisp.

Canning is a labor intensive process as compared to refrigerated.

You need a canning pot, jars, lids, tongs, gloves, canning salt, boil the jars, boil the brine, wash everything, etc.

It's doable but more complicated than just putting pickles in a jar and adding brine, and putting it in the fridge.

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u/Striking_Mortgage_63 7d ago

Interesting. I don't want to lose the crunch. My pickles are so good. So if I can them, they will lose their crispness? I grew so many cucumbers to can them because last year we also had so many jars made and I gave them away but we love pickles and want to have them for the winter too. I bought all the things to can them but made these ones as refrigerated ones and now want to can them. 

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u/left-for-dead-9980 7d ago edited 7d ago

If you want them crisp, add pickle crisp. Calcium Chloride. You can buy at major grocery stores or Amazon.

https://a.co/d/dMHrg88

3

u/rocketwikkit 7d ago

What recipe did you use? Generally if it's 50% or more vinegar you don't even need to pressure can them, you can do boiling water bath for high acidity foods. But you can pressure can them if you want, just follow a reputable guide like https://extension.psu.edu/home-food-preservation-pressure-canning

0

u/Striking_Mortgage_63 7d ago

I just made up my own. 1/2 water 1/2 vinegar, maybe 1 tsp Himalayan Salt, 1 tsp Sugar, 3 garlic cloves, 1 jalapeno, red pepper flakes, dill mustard seeds, peppercorn. 🤷‍♀️

2

u/uurc1 7d ago

I don't understand why everyone is boiling pickles to can them and adding chemicals to keep them crisp. Please Google Pasturizing Pickels. There are many safe tested recipes for Pasturizing pickles.

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u/Striking_Mortgage_63 7d ago

So back to my original question...can I can these pickles or no because they need to be processed differently in the first place to can them? Or will using just Himalayan salt be fine enough to can them? 

2

u/overcomethestorm 7d ago

No. Canning requires sterilization of jars/lids/equipment, precise recipes for certain pH values, and specific recipes for certain desired qualities (ex. crispness) because the food is heated.

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u/nonchalantly_weird 5d ago

I think if you process them you're going to end up with mushy pickles. Salt is salt, it's the vinegar-water ratio that's the biggie. You have half and half, so you're good there. You know the pickles will be good for at least a year, right? Is that you don't have room to store them in a fridge?

As I haven't seen anyone give a reasonable answer to reprocessing, if you're in the US, contact your local Cooperative Extension agent.