Even with heat treatment, pathogenic spore microorganisms may remain in canned food. Thanks to their shell (spore), they are able to withstand most of the unfavorable environmental factors, including heating up to one hundred degrees Celsius. During the process of reproduction, the remaining living bacteria release toxins and gases that slowly accumulate under the lid, which ultimately leads to an explosion.

To prepare canned food in industrial settings, they are sterilized in an autoclave. The temperature is raised to one hundred and twenty degrees, which helps destroy all microorganisms.

Wrong attitude towards conservation rules

According to the rules, a certain amount of acid must be added to the marinade. If there is too little of it or the jars are kept at room temperature, the microbes that were not killed by heat treatment begin to release toxins and gases that pose a great danger to the human body.

To prevent jars from exploding during storage, certain rules must be followed during preservation. They are mandatory to follow when canning both cucumbers and other low-acid vegetables. Do not use overgrown or empty ones. Only strong specimens selected by size are ideal. In one jar, all cucumbers should be approximately the same.

How to preserve cucumbers

Before putting cucumbers in a jar, they must be washed well, and any rotten or spoiled vegetables must be thrown away. Jars and lids must be properly sterilized - rules can be found in books on home economics. There are several methods of sterilization - jars can be heated in, over steam, or boiled. Housewives choose the method that is most convenient in a particular kitchen. Nevertheless, the most popular method, due to its effectiveness, is in which the jars are boiled in boiling liquid.

It is recommended to pour a saturated solution of common table salt instead of water into the pan where the jar will be placed for sterilization. To do this, you need to take salt per one liter of water - 400 grams. The boiling point of the solution must be maintained at about 108 degrees. This will make sterilization more reliable.

Before canning, hands should be washed thoroughly with soap. Add the amount of acid to the marinade that is recommended in the recipe. For a liter of marinade this is 3-4 tablespoons of nine percent vinegar. To avoid explosions, home-canned goods should be stored at a temperature of no more than +8 degrees.

Under no circumstances should you eat canned food from jars on which the lids have swollen or exploded. This could be life-threatening.

Canning vegetables for the winter is a common practice for gardeners. This is especially true for pickling cucumbers, where in addition to the product itself, the brine is valued, which effectively quenches thirst and is also in demand among home confectioners.

Salt water and cucumbers turn white, as a result of which some prepared jars swell and may become unusable. Efforts and labor will not be in vain if you regularly ensure that the jars in which the cucumbers will be preserved do not swell.

The main causes of brine cloudiness

The turbidity of salt water is preceded by several biochemical processes:

• violation of the sealing of the jar is accompanied by the ingress of oxygen and the appearance of oxide on the iron lids and (or) the formation of harmful microorganisms;
• the technology for processing raw materials and containers (washing and steaming) is not sufficiently maintained, as a result of which dirt gets into the jars;
• mass salting was carried out using iodized salt, instead of the table salt prescribed for this purpose;
• an unsuitable variety was used for pickling, for example, dessert or large salad;
• fermentation of the brine indicates a lack of acetic or citric acid according to the recipe.

This is important to know: Storing blanks at temperatures above 5 0 heat will inevitably lead to swelling of the jar lid, and at higher temperatures they simply fly off, like champagne corks. The norm for storing canned pickled vegetables, cucumbers in particular, can be considered a cellar room or a chamber in a refrigeration unit with zero temperature.

Cloudiness of cucumbers does not mean they are unsuitable

If the cucumbers become cloudy and the lids of the jars come off, then first examine their contents. In general, only soft and completely white cucumbers are unsuitable for food and can cause food poisoning.

The rest have a chance to be saved, and they do it in several ways:

1. 1. Whole cucumbers with a white coating can be re-rolled again, the main thing is that they retain their elastic shape.
   2. If the cucumbers have barely fermented and started to turn white, take them out and pour out the old brine, and then, after boiling the jar with steam, pour in a new brine.

1. The jars are opened, more or less hard cucumbers are scrolled in a meat grinder, thereby obtaining a mini blank for jars of smaller capacity. Similar preservation is used for the current preparation of pickles.

Your seams will be of better quality the more carefully you approach the selection of source materials. Here we mean the cucumbers themselves, the main properties of which should be hardness, small size, the desired variety and oblong shape.

Grandma’s recipe has long been known, using a 70% solution of vinegar essence or mustard. Since 3-liter jars are mainly used for pickling, the proportion of vinegar will be 1 teaspoon. In the case of mustard seasoning, a large tablespoon is enough.

It is the repeated preparations that cause the most trouble. If the cucumbers have turned sour, you cannot do without vinegar. However, injections should be made into the jar after filling it with brine. In this case, you will definitely avoid a second explosion.

This is important to know: When re-canning, it is necessary to reduce the proportions of vinegar, salt and sugar. Otherwise, the cucumbers, which have absorbed the initial dose of ingredients, will be oversaturated. By the way, don’t forget to put a couple of tomatoes - these friends will reliably protect the jar from explosion.

The few easy-to-follow tips in this article will help you revive your workpieces.

From this video you will learn why jars of cucumbers explode:

From this video you will learn what to do if a jar of cucumbers becomes cloudy:

Every housewife has tried canning at least once in her life. Isn't it nice to enjoy juicy tomatoes or salty crispy cucumbers in winter? It also happens that out of a whole batch, several jars begin to deteriorate. In order not to get upset ahead of time, you need to know why the cucumbers in the jar turned cloudy and how to fix it.

Causes

Why, among a dozen jars that were prepared at the same time, according to the same recipe, some went bad, while others stood for themselves and did not know grief? You should find out why the water in a jar of cucumbers became cloudy and how to avoid such troubles in the future.

There may be several reasons for this confusion with brine:

1. Cucumbers that are not washed thoroughly enough - a piece of dirt remains on the peel of at least one cucumber, and that’s all, this is enough for all the vegetables in this jar to rot.
2. Residues of soap and detergents inside are another reason why pickles become cloudy in jars.
3. Improper sterilization of containers - a poorly washed and sterilized jar is the key to a damaged product.
4. Using unwashed or poorly washed herbs and spices - dirt and bacteria from them get into the brine and start the process of rotting or fermentation.
5. Using sea or iodized salt - experienced housewives claim that such salt contains elements that cause fermentation inside the jar.
6. Preparing the marinade according to the wrong recipe - without using acid or vinegar, the brine will definitely spoil, and along with it the entire contents.
7. Using non-sterilized lids - it happens that, after getting wrapped up, women completely forget that it is not only the jars and their contents that need to be processed, but also the lids.
8. A poor-quality seaming key or cracked jars - both of these violate the seal, which ultimately leads to fermentation or rotting inside.
9. Using cucumbers grown with the use of chemicals - it also happens that even after preliminary soaking, some of the harmful substances remain in the vegetables, and subsequently cause spoilage of the preserved food.
10. Using salad varieties - if the cucumbers are cloudy, then the reason for this may be just one cucumber of the wrong variety, lost among the rest, since such types are considered perishable and are not suitable for winter preparations.

Most of the reasons for the occurrence of such a problem lie in the inattention or negligence of the person who was engaged in the preparation. So that your work does not go down the drain and preservation ends up in a landfill, you should carefully and impeccably follow all the recommendations during the canning process and not be lazy about once again rinsing the food, boiling the brine, or inspecting the jars for flaws.

Why the water in the jars of cucumbers became cloudy is clear, but what kind of processes are happening inside at this time and is it possible to eat cloudy cucumbers?

Most experienced women are afraid to use such vegetables and do not even try to save them. However, some argue that, provided that the can did not explode and the lid did not swell, the situation can still be corrected.

Important! Fermented cucumbers can become a breeding ground for botulism! Do not reuse cucumbers from exploded jars! At best, eating such preserved food will lead to stomach upset.

How to fix

Of course, you don’t want to throw away food that took so much time and effort to prepare, because canning is a labor-intensive process. Therefore, below we will consider simple recommendations for solving the problem of cloudy cucumbers.

Don’t immediately give up and get upset if the brine raises suspicions a few days after the jars have been rolled up. The most likely culprit is lactic acid, which started the fermentation process. Typically, this is due to the absence or lack of vinegar.

It’s easy to fix the situation, but only if the lid is not swollen! Open the jar, boil the brine in a saucepan, and leave the cucumbers untouched.

It is enough to pour boiling water over them without removing them from the jar. To enhance the effect, you can pour boiling water over them for a few minutes, no more than 5. After which the water is poured out, the marinade is removed from the heat and immediately poured into a jar with cucumbers, vinegar is added and rolled up as usual.

It is important to ensure that the lid is tightly rolled up and the container is free of defects. Preservation should only be cooled upside down, wrapped in a warm blanket or blanket.

Important! If the brine has acquired a sweetish smell, then it is better not to reuse such a marinade, but to replace it with fresh one.

The second way to resuscitate the cans is to put them in the refrigerator and watch what happens next. If the lid does not swell, but the sediment sank to the bottom, and the water regained its former transparency within a week, then such cucumbers will not cause harm. The only thing that may be a little disappointing is that you can’t count on crispy cucumbers, but this does not mean that their taste will deteriorate.

If the water remains cloudy, but the jar does not explode, then you should immediately open it and use the vegetables to prepare pickle soup, azu or other dishes that require long-term heat treatment.

The third method is suitable as a kind of prevention and is used at the canning stage. To ensure that the brine in the jars does not become cloudy and that the preparations last the allotted time, it is recommended to add other vegetables to the cucumbers. In the company of the same tomatoes, they will feel better, and the chances that the marinade will spoil or the jars will explode are reduced.

To do this, just add 2-3 tomatoes, horseradish root or one hot pepper to the jar. In this way, you can not only protect the preparations, but also add new notes to the taste of vegetables.

Why do banks “explode”? There are several possible reasons. The most important of them is the formation of gases as a result of fermentation. The fermentation process activates bacteria, which means they somehow ended up inside. Most often this is a consequence of poor sterilization of jars before canning.

How to avoid exploding cucumber jars

Wash the vegetables, jar and lid thoroughly before sealing. Wash not only the vegetables that you are going to roll (cucumbers, tomatoes) but also the herbs that you add to canned food (dill, garlic).

Place the jars and lids in the oven at a temperature no higher than 100 degrees. Keep them there for at least 10 minutes, then turn off the oven, open the lid, let the jars cool gradually, then take them out and let them cool to room temperature. You can place the jars upside down on a clean towel.

Just do not take the jars out of the oven right away - they may burst!

If you don’t have an oven, pour boiling water over the jars and cook the lids in a saucepan in boiling water for a couple of minutes. Also allow the jars to cool gradually.

One common reason why cucumber jars explode more often than tomato jars is because:

Cucumbers, especially well-ripened ones, have cavities inside that fill with air and bacteria settle in them, which, once rolled up in a jar, continue to emit gas.

Therefore, use young, elastic cucumbers for salting; they do not yet have cavities inside.

If you are going to pickle your own cucumbers, be sure to water the beds overnight, and early in the morning, collect the cucumbers and soak them for an hour and a half in cold water. Soak store-bought cucumbers (choose hard, green and pimply ones) for 4 hours to properly absorb water.

Salt large cucumbers separately from small ones, and use any salt, but if you prefer coarse salt, first dissolve it in water and then strain. The strength of the brine depends on your taste and where you store the jars. Usually take 50-60 g of salt per liter of water. It is better to take water for brine not from tap water, but from well or spring water, it is harder.

If you did everything correctly, but when you went into the pantry you discovered that the jar had exploded, there is no reason to be upset. Pour the brine along with the pickles into a bowl, boil the jar and lid again, pour the brine up to the very neck of the jar - and roll it up again!

Also, do not keep rolled pickles in a warm place. Heat, air and bacteria are the three main components for the release of gas from which cans explode.

Every autumn, every housewife dreams of preserving the vegetables grown over the summer for a longer period. And what is not done for this purpose! But the most popular way to preserve vegetables such as cucumbers and tomatoes is pickling. But for some reason, sometimes, for unknown reasons, jars of cucumbers begin to explode after some time. Why does this happen and how to deal with it?

The thing is that sometimes, along with cucumbers, they also end up in jars. pathogenic spores. And the shell of the spore of any bacterium is very strong, and even if the sterilization process was carried out incorrectly, it can survive very easily. In a carefully sealed jar, every bacteria feels at home. They begin to multiply and release the products of their vital activity - gases and toxins. Gases accumulate in the jar, and as a lot of them accumulate, the jar of cucumbers explodes. But before they explode, the cucumbers begin to deteriorate and with the naked eye you can see cloudiness of the brine and gas bubbles on the surface. In this case, there is no need to wait for the climax. It is better to open such a jar yourself and throw out the cucumbers.

Yes, yes, just throw it away. No one will advise you to eat them. After all, it is unknown what bacterial spores multiplied so actively in the jar, and what the consequences of eating such cucumbers could be. But many people believe that such exploded cucumbers can be used in making soups. This is a big mistake. Even thorough cooking is not able to kill pathogenic spores.

So what can you do to prevent this kind of trouble? When preparing such home canned food, you must maintain almost the same sterility as in the operating room. Wash your hands with soap as often as possible, thoroughly wash the cucumbers themselves, jars and lids. Do not use overripe, rotten or spoiled fruits for pickling. But it is best to sterilize jars and lids not in plain water, but in a solution of table salt - 400 grams per 1 liter. This solution boils at a temperature of 108 degrees, which means it can kill many more germs. And, of course, use only those varieties of cucumbers that are intended specifically for pickling. These cucumbers have tubercles with black thorns. And you only need to pick cucumbers for pickling in dry weather.

The greens that are added during pickling must be fresh. It is added at the rate of 50–60 grams per 1 kilogram of cucumbers. And for a spicy taste, you can add a little black pepper. But to make the cucumbers crispy, you should add oak or black currant leaves to the jar when pickling. And never use iodized salt for pickling. Only the most ordinary, coarsely ground, without any additives. But it is better to use spring water or well water for salting. Brine prepared with this water better preserves the hardness of cucumbers.

If you add 2-3 tomatoes to a jar of pickled cucumbers, then such assorted jars almost never explode. And the taste of such cucumbers becomes special. But you shouldn’t get carried away with garlic. Its excess amount leads to softening of cucumbers.