I make what I believe are referred to as “refrigerator pickles”. I make a vinegar and salt brine with spices, and then put my desired pickle item into the brine. Then I eat the now-pickled items (eggs and cabbage mostly), and replace them with a new round of eggs and veggies.

My question is how long is it safe to keep one batch of brine for? My pickle jar got pushed to the back of the fridge so it looked empty, but there’s actually a good three or so eggs left in there. I can reckon that the eggs are probably not good to eat, but should I toss the brine, sterilize the jar, and start all the way over?

So sometime in spring of 2024 I went on a pickling spree after I had a horticulture class that left me with one 0.5 acre row of daikon radishes. I couldn't find the exact recipe, but I know it was a mix of: daikon radishes, cabbages, sliced bamboo shoots, a few Jalapeños slices in some, 5% white vinegar, 4% rice vinegar, salt, sugar, mustard seeds, and hot pepper flakes. I remember the recipe had me boil the brine and then immediately seal the cans.

I want to open a few now to try them with dishes but I'm a bit scared due to a few pieces looking red-ish. Plus, I've heard that the radishes may smell like urine.

This was my first time pickling something that wasn't eaten in a week so I'm wary of getting my family sick. Are they safe to eat?

This a chuck or a normal thing? Were about 7 days post fridge pickling. Everything smells fine? No other signs of oddities.

I made my first pickles and red onions.

Added some chillis to the red onions, plus black pepper and some bay leaves, but after tasting them felt like they were missing salt and more spice, can I add these ingredients a day after?

Picture was right after adding the brine.

I hope cross posting is ok, Reddit suggested it!

Long time reader, first time poster, I normally do dill cucs but here's my jars using Heavytech's recipe.

Brine is red due to red carrots, I also used smoked beef sausage, since my local store didn't have andouille.

Decided to pickle a whole onion. Used water, vinegar, sea salt, peppercorns, mustard seeds, and coriander seeds. Can't wait to devour them in a few days!

It’s been about a month of fermenting. Brine looks cloudy in a weird way. Planning to make hot sauce with this.

Hey all, been picking for a little under a month now and after a few good batches I branched out and tried to pickle cabbage.

The cabbage turned out great, but the eggs I pickled using the same brine (which is why it's deep red) got cloudy and has a lot of sediment at the bottom, which only appeared after about 3 days in the fridge. They tasted fine, I've had two from the jar on the left the day after brining them to test flavor (and I was hungry), the jar on the right hasn't been opened since pouring the brine.

Other than adding finely chopped cabbage for the last minute of boiling the brine, I haven't changed the brine recipe and the pickled cabbage themselves don't have this, or at the very least not a noticeable amount, of sediment or cloudiness.

Did I just not wash the cabbage properly? Is this a known thing that can leech out of cabbage?

EDIT: Just to clarify, I didn't finish the cabbage and then use the same brine from the cabbage to pickle the eggs. My bad, I should have made that more clear.

I made one large batch of brine to pickle both the eggs and the cabbage with, and since there was cabbage in the brine itself since I boiled the cabbage in the brine for a minute before turning off the heat, I called it cabbage brine.

No brine was re-used for anything.

Hello! I made red onion pickles earlier, accidentally used cleaning 14% white vinegar instead of 8%. I used this recipe, with half vinegar and half water.

I checked and the vinegar has no additives. I think the pickles should still be edible (given that I don't drink the brine, which was not planned), but I'd rather ask.

Thanks in advance!

What happens when your algorithm knows you are a pickle kid

Been wanting to pickle for some time now. Wife and I finally said screw it let's just dive right in.

So here we have I guess you could say an attempt at a Grillos "clone". Done two way (well 4 if we separate chips and spears).

Brine is pretty basic. Going to be the base and see how these turn out, then play with the ingredients later.

Brine: 1 cup purified water, half cup vinegar (5%) 15 grams salt (used pink Himalayan, but im not convinced that matters). (We used more but this was the ratio)

Batch one (one chip and one spear) I did with just cucumber, dill, and garlic. Used bay leaf since I have no idea where to stumble across grape leaves.

Batch two (one chip and one spear) same as Batch one but added 2 grams of mustard seed and 2 grams of black peppercorn.

16oz jars.

Had brine left over so we chopped up a purple onion and the brine, garlic, dill, mustard seed and black peppercorn.

We will see how these are on day 5 or 7

I have a bumper crop of beautiful Japanese cucumbers. I tried the Serious Eats recipe for quick dill pickle chips, and they’re great! Now I’m wondering if I can pickle at scale, and can them. Are Japanese cucumbers good for storage pickles? Or are they really better suited for quick-pickling and eating within a week or two? I‘m preferring the vinegar style rather than the lacto-fermented style of picking at this time. Also really value crispness so not interested in recipes that yield soft/soggy pickles. Thanks so much!

Cauliflower, shallot, red peppers, carrots and green beans

House still smelled like apple cider vinegar hours later

More info in the main post; but the brine is a mix of apple cider vinegar, white wine, salt, and juices from simmering the chanterelles.

This is something I have always wanted to do, but never had the time to: pickled red onions. I followed a recipe I found online, and states as follows:

Ingredients:
4 red onions
300 ml water
300 ml apple cider vinegar
50 g sugar
15 g salt
3 bay leaves
20 black peppercorns

Peel and slice red onions.
Bring to boil a combination of 1:1 water/vinegar, sugar, salt, bay leaves and peppercorns.
Add the solution to the onions.
Let them rest until cooled.
Store for 3-4 weeks in the fridge.

Any suggestions about this method/ingredients? How do you usually pickle your onions? I’d appreciate your comments. Thanks! 😊

Back when I was working construction we had this jar of pickles in the work fridge. Everyone just kept throwing things in. And it was delicious.

Its been years now and I thought. Why not. Let's give it a go.

So. Attempt one at chasing the dream that was the work fridge abomination.

2c white vinegar

1c water

Your hearts feeling of local honey (little under a half cup?)

1 Large bulb of garlic

4 habenaeros grown out back

1 leg of horse radish that mostly fits

1 bundle of pickling dill.

2 ish teaspoons of salt.

It was originally a jar of "Artisinal" hand crafted pickles we got a holiday gift (bribe) from one of our ancillary service providers.

Once we killed the pickles in about 15 minutes flat we had this left over brine. And an idea was borne. What if. We just threw eggs in it.

The pickles were delightful. So let's get our monies worth out of our free pickle jar. Every week wed tip in a bit more vinegar, bit more salt.

And throw in whatever we felt like.

More garlic. Habeneros. Horse radish. W/e.

Wellp it lasted a good month before we retired her. And ive always wanted to try and recreate that dream. So here we go. First time pickling anything myself. Will check back in 3 to 10 days depending on how long I last.