GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

14-08-2005, 01:04 AM

In article .com,
says...

Bob Hobden wrote:
Tony wrote
You've answered your own question on why salt.
Yes the salt does remove water from the onions by osmosis and therefore
softens them. This concentrates the liguid in the onion cells so that
the vinegar can add water again by osmosis, thereby resulting in
crunchy onions.

Why bother then, just do it my way and leave the original liquid in place.
Even crunchier onions.
Peel, pop in the jar, add spice and vinegar, seal and leave for 3 months
min.

OK Bob
Here are the principles of osmosis, as I understand them from my O
level biology many many years ago.

hacketry

Pickling is a preserving process. You want the preserved product to take
up the the preserving medium. Vinegar is not the kind of place that
bacteria/yeasts etc will be happy to live. If you water down the
preserving media below a critical level by adding say shallots with a
high water content, the environment becomes less hostile to invasive
elements. The salt solution will replace the simple water and is a
hostile environment. The vinegar will replace the saline and the
environment should remain fairly hostile. Packing a jar full of nice wet
onions should produce a cloudy jar within a few weeks depending on how
you store it. Water down the pickling solution enough and it *will* be
susceptible to something setting up home.

If you want an example of similar conditions causing problems, bottle up
some garlic in olive oil. It'll keep for ages. Be messy while getting
out a few cloves and leave the tops of some cloves exposed to the air.
Test for botulin.

Warwick