I only hot water bath process my pickles if they don't seal on their own. Otherwise, I use what is referred to as the "European" method in a previous post. Boiling brine poured over the contents (and I make it with organic apple cider vinegar which has a high acidity than regular white vinegar - or what passes for white vinegar these days.) into hot sterilised jars and covered boiling hot sterilised lids. When we used to do 200-300 Litres of pickles in a day, I'd probably have to process in a hot water bath, less than 20 jars. Granted I made sure that all the lids were clean of any scratches too, so that I could get a good seal, and that any jar that either looked off when I took it from the cold cellar or smelled off when I opened it, were pitched. But most of our pickles didn't last long enough to test out how long the shelf life was. But when I did variations on the Tourshi (Armenian mixed pickles) not everybody liked all the combos so some of those kicked around in the cold cellar up to 2 to 3 years.....and were still good (except for the occasional one). So far in over 45 years of pickling and canning, I haven't managed to kill anybody or make them sick (ok, there were a few who ate waaaaaaay too many and were sick.....but that could've also been because they chose to drink the brine too. LOL)
So prepping of the actual canning jars, lids and rings is just as important in my mind as the contents to prevent spoiled food and botulism. Just my humble opinion.
Zana
|