# Pickling with citric acid?



## cjean (May 1, 2007)

Has anyone done this, or does anyone know a recipe/method? Is it even possible?

I'm talking about water bath canning things like dilly beans, asparagus, carrots...I can't have any sort of vinegar, and I'm really missing my dilly veggies.


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## BlackFeather (Jun 17, 2014)

The only pickling I found with citric acid is for metal jewelry. Pickling w/o vinegar is usually done with salt.... http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/pickle-vinegar-20961.html


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## cjean (May 1, 2007)

Yeah, that's all I could find, too. 

And I can't have salt-brined, fermented foods like my homemade sauerkraut anymore. 

I do have some red pepper sauce that I bought that is made with citric acid instead of vinegar, so I was hoping that someone might know a way to preserve veggies with it...give them that nice sour, salty taste.


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## BlackFeather (Jun 17, 2014)

The another thing I found was to preserve fruit in alcohol, I didn't see vegetables preserved that way though. Just found this..


> Good-bye salt and vinegar. While vinegar and salt are traditional ingredients for pickle processing, some packers have eliminated them from their products due to consumer demand. Some vinegar-free, no-salt pickle products in the Pickle Eater's line from New Morning in Acton, MA, contain only cucumbers, honey, lemon juice concentrate, water, spices and turmeric. Special processing considerations involve smaller batch sizes and controlling the acidity with lemon juice, according to Gene Fialkoff, president. Although the products are not pasteurized, they are heat-sealed, resulting in a shelf life of two years.


Then found this...
http://www.ehow.com/how_7533673_substitute-lemon-juice-vinegar-pickles.html
http://www.homepreservingbible.com/1375-how-to-mak-refrigerator-pickles-or-fresh-vegetable-pickles/

Then this..
http://immigrantstable.com/2013/11/17/whey-pickles/
although whey pickles is more like lacto-fermented pickles and may contain too much salt for you.
I think these links will get you started.


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## BlackFeather (Jun 17, 2014)

Found more for you I'll just copy my notes... The citric acid is ph of about 2.2 so I don't know why it wouldn't work but the one link seemed to think it wouldn't. At the bottom is another link on using lemon juice and olive oil to preserve vegetables not just cucumbers like the other link.



> ph for pickles....
> Another distinguishing characteristic is a pH 4.6 or lower,
> https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Pickling
> 
> ...


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## cjean (May 1, 2007)

Holy cow! Thank you so much for all of that...I have some reading to do!


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