- Joined
- Oct 16, 2006
- Messages
- 38,393
- Reaction score
- 13,643
I don't know where to post this, but this seems reasonable. I have begun pickling and I am wondering if anybody has more experience doing it that could shed some light on a few things. Does the jar really have to be boiled before pickling? It seems to always be a first step, but it seems odd considering you're putting somewhat dirty vegetables in the thing with somewhat non-sterile hands. Also, I hear about different % of salt to use, however anywhere you read you get a slightly different metric. I see this a lot: salt weight/(water weight+vegetable weight) but this would be wrong. If you were after something that is 2% salt weight this would give you slightly under 2% because you don't account for the salt weight in the denominator. Does that matter? Also, I see some recipes that only call for making a 2% salt solution and pouring that into a jar of vegetables. This doesn't account for the weight of the vegetables themselves. Is that ok? Basically I want to know how easily I can get botulism. I know it is rare, but is it something that grows quickly? Am I overthinking this and it really doesn't matter how much salt you use if it will be eaten relatively quickly?