ottawa foodies

friends brought a brand new jar of roasted red peppers (in water, not oil) to our cottage in february. they used a few, then sealed up the jar and put it in the fridge. we took the jar back to ottawa and put it in the back of the fridge. tonight i brought it out to put on pizza. i opened the jar and it started bubbling! the entire jar was in a slow rolling boil it seemed - though still cold, not hot. i had left it on the counter for almost 2 hours before i opened it (i put it out and then forget about it until after yoga).

does anyone know what happened? i threw out the peppers into my compost, i wasn't brave enough to eat it. my husband had a few theories about air temperature vs water temperature, but he wasn't going to try eating them either.

any thoughts? i know most nasty bacterial are silent, so i don't really think it was anything too bad, but still very curious.

I can't offer any expert insight as to what happened but I can make two comments:

1. Very cool!
2. I wouldn't have eaten them either.

fermentation! you made some lovely roasted red pepper wine/beer. Something got in that jar with the peppers, likely when you handled them at the cottage.

That is so freakin' cool.

HHF,
refrigeration as does freezing on slows things down
one slower than the other

peppers stored in water are very perishable
in oil, last longer but are subject to bacterial contamination (notice: prechopped garlic is no longer available in oil but rather water with citric acid added)

my roasted peppers that aren't used same day are stored either in acidified water (vinegar added) or a brine (essentially salted water)

peppers are very perishable and prone to quick compromise

when I get jalapenos into the resto, I pickle them if I do not use them right away
Thai bird chilis, I dry what I don't use in a few days
Bell peppers, are stored dry with lots of circulation and not wrapped
cut peppers are stored between sheets of paper toweling

on the jar, including water and peppers was calcium cloride and some kind of sodium. still you might be right chef obi, and they weren't meant to keep that long open?

it was actually really cool, and being a clear jar you could get a good look at the bubbles developing on the bottom and moving up through the peppers.

chef obi- What is your recipe for pickling jalapenos? I have been seeking a tried and true method. I am mostly looking for a good vinegar/water ratio.

That must indeed have been very surprising and interesting to watch, hipfunkyfun. I'd have tossed them too. I think sourdough is likely right in that some (yeast?) fermentation took place. The resulting CO2 produced would have dissolved in the water over the months after opening. When the jar was removed from the fridge and sat at room temperature the water temperature increased, resulting in further dissolving of the gas from the supersaturated air above it, increasing the amount of dissolved CO2 in the water. When you opened the jar, releasing the pressure, the CO2 came out of solution, forming bubbles of gas that rose "in a slow rolling boil" as you described. So much more elegant to see than to read about!
I must add the disclaimer that I cannot claim to be a food scientist or any other scientist (for those who might take issue =;0).

PS thanks for the feta dip recipe you posted elsewhere - very tasty and will become a work in progress for me - it's very adaptable. One thing I had it with in a wrap was ajvar (roasted red pepper dip/spread - something I can now highly recommend and might make a very good sauce for a pizza itself).

I know what you mean! The same thing happened to me with a jar of pickled carrots! Pretty cool to watch but I threw it out.

after reading through these theories, my initial thought was 'oh no, i threw away roasted red pepper wine!', though probably not safe to drink. andy, your theory is basically what my husband was trying to tell me happened. interesting at any rate.

also andy, so glad to hear you liked the feta dip recipe. we love it and it is so versatile, you can really do anything to it. i didn't have much feta one night, so i made it, thinned it with milk and used it as a garlic sauce on home made veggie burgers. you just can't mess it up. my mom has added lemon & dill and it is good. i've never tried avjar, but it sounds great.

If you saved the liquid and put it together with some flour, you may have made a mean sourdough starter! I'm not sure the "wine" would be all that pleasant.

Peppermon, being I don't always have time to wait a week or two for things to go through natural maturation, I sometimes let my "Genghis" side out

I use 100% rice vinegar...no water
and with a wooden spoon, incorporate salt til the salt can no be dissolved

if I used a whisk it would actually absorb more salt

so that being said, the container is packed with cut and seeded or not peppers and they are covered in the mix

24 hours later or as long as it takes the chilis to change colour and become darker, you're set