What to do if the cucumbers are cloudy in the jar and the lids are swollen? Recipe for delicious and crispy pickled cucumbers. If the brine in the jar of cucumbers is cloudy, what to do

Encyclopedia of Plants 21.10.2019
Encyclopedia of Plants

It's a shame when pickles, canned with one's own hand, become cloudy, boil and tear off the clogged lids on the jars. Do not get upset and do not rush to throw away cucumbers. We will tell you how to reanimate the workpiece, and at the same time we will figure out why such a failure occurred.

Why do cucumbers grow cloudy in jars - check

The first thing to do with cloudy cucumbers is to determine their edibility.

  • Remove the lid from the jar and smell it. It doesn’t smell like mold - feel free to try the brine and if it is spicy-salty without a bitter aftertaste - these cucumbers can be saved.

For your information: the cucumbers are covered with a white coating, the lid is swollen, and unpleasant sourness is kicking out of the jar in the nose - throw everything away without hesitation.

  • Is there any uncertainty? Take out the gherkin - it is not slippery, hard to the touch and crunches deliciously (couldn't resist, took a bite)? Move on to recovery procedures.

Why do cucumbers grow cloudy in jars - reasons

Cloudiness of the marinade can occur for several reasons:

  • the glass container is poorly washed. Take your time preparing the blanks. Wash jars with lids thoroughly in soapy water and sterilize them for at least five minutes;
  • incorrect prescription. It is possible that you put less salt in the water than indicated in the recipe or reduced the amount of preservative (when pickling);
  • variety incompatibility. Most often, lettuce cucumbers explode, not pickled varieties, so be careful when harvesting or buying on the market - do not confuse the types of gherkins;
  • improper storage. Keep all blanks in a cool place at a temperature not exceeding 5 ° C. Ideally - in the cellar or basement, but you can also on the balcony.


Why do cucumbers grow cloudy in jars - re-canning

It is not so important which cucumbers you have become cloudy: made simple ambassador or marinated, re-preservation is the same in both cases.

  • Drain the brine. Pour the gherkins boiled water, rinse them with your hands in a jar, then splash out the liquid.
  • Prepare a new marinade - add salt, spices and, if necessary, sugar, to boiling water.
  • Pour the cucumbers with the resulting solution, put 0.5 tsp on top. citric acid (calculation for 1.5 liters of brine) and let stand for two minutes. As soon as the cucumbers begin to change color, roll up the jar and turn the finished product over.


Why do cucumbers grow cloudy in jars - urgent measures

Many summer residents use their own methods of rescuing cloudy cucumbers. Check them out, you may find them useful:

  • pierce a hole in the lid of the jar with an awl. Wait for the air to come down and seal the hole with melted wax (drip from a candle) or a band-aid;
  • pour a generous pinch of salt on the swollen lid (with a puncture) and it will lower and the solution will become clear;
  • use cucumbers to prepare pickle, azu, hodgepodge, you will not regret it - it will turn out delicious;


  • pour into the brine 2 tbsp. l. vodka, and put a plastic lid on top.


To summarize: when preserving cucumbers, follow the recipe, do not neglect preparatory stage, and crispy cucumbers will be your reward for hard work.

Causes of cloudiness in canned cucumber jars. Tips for avoiding such an incident.

The summer time is hot not only in terms of temperature, but also in terms of the number of blanks for the winter for each housewife.

A dacha or a garden in the middle of the hot season gives a stable harvest, which we want to have time to save a little longer. Therefore, you can’t do without cans, pasteurization, pickling vegetables.

Perhaps one of the favorite dishes in winter is cucumbers from a jar. But there are unpleasant moments when the brine becomes cloudy, and the banks even explode.

Let's talk more about the causes of such problems and the secrets of their prevention.

Why cucumbers in jars become cloudy after seaming and explode: reasons

There are a number of reasons for the turbidity of the brine in jars of cucumbers that you have safely prepared for the winter:

  • depending on conservation technology
  • not dependent on her

Let's designate the reasons from the new category:

  • Preparation of cucumbers and herbs.
    The more thoroughly and carefully you wash, clean the ingredients for home preservation, the more likely it is that the brine will not become cloudy.
    Please note that you should rub the cucumbers harder, for example, with a brush. Then no dirt will start the process of decay under the lid.
  • Vinegar or citric acid.
    They provide an acidic environment that is hostile to the growth of putrefactive bacteria. But due to violations in proportions, the ratio with salt and sugar, the use of an expired product, the formation of turbidity in canned jars of cucumbers is evident.
  • Salt.
    Use only the dining room for preparations for the winter. Iodized and marine contain impurities that can disrupt the transparency of cucumber pickle.
  • Marinade preparation.
    Experienced housewives recommend boiling it twice, and adding vinegar just before spinning the cans.
  • Selection, washing and processing of cans.
    Choose jars carefully. The best candidates are without chips or cracks on the neck. Wash with products that rinse easily cold water. Perfect option- baking soda. Hot steam sterilization is also required.
    And if you also boil jars of herbs and cucumbers in hot water, then definitely increasing their chances of surviving until winter without turbidity.
  • Lids.
    Check them after unpacking for the softness of the rubber. If it is hard, replace with others. Before the rolling process, process them by dipping them in boiling water for 3 minutes. The advice is also suitable for screw caps.
  • Sunset device.
    It happens that due to time, it wears out, its parts stop working correctly. Then the problems of lack of tightness, poor fit of the lid to the neck of the jar are inevitable.
  • Process before capping caps.
    If you practice 2-3 times filling cucumbers and herbs in jars with boiling brine, you will significantly increase the chances of conservation to reach the date you need without clouding the liquid.

The second category of reasons is poor-quality products. That is, the excessive content of nitrates in cucumbers, which remain even after soaking in cold water. Or if you decide to roll up for the winter early varieties cucumbers. They are also not suitable for this kind of work.

As a result, your cloudy cucumber jars may start to explode. The reason is an increase in the concentration of lactic acid and waste products of putrefactive bacteria, an increase in the number of the latter. In other words, carbon dioxide finds its way out only through the lid. Although there are times when the bottom of the can breaks.

If the cucumbers have become cloudy, fermented: can they be redone?

The answer is unequivocal - yes. However, the procedure is different depending on what is cloudy:

  • brine

Firstly, experienced housewives note that fresh cucumber preservation may lose transparency on the first day after clogging with lids. After 3-4 days, it will disappear, settle to the bottom.

In other cases, if turbidity occurs, if the lid is not swollen, proceed as follows:

  • open cans
  • drain the brine and take out the contents
  • if you decide not to take it out, then rinse it with boiling water a couple of times
  • if taken out, process jars and cucumbers with herbs hot water separately from each other
  • put the ingredients back and fill with salted boiling water
  • after 10-15 minutes, drain it into a cooking container, add sugar, vinegar or citric acid according to the recipe
  • boil and again pour into jars with cucumbers
  • roll up with new sterile caps

When the color of cucumbers in jars has become cloudy, do not wait for it to disappear. Proceed as follows:

  • open the jars and pour the brine into the pan
  • pour boiling water over cucumbers and herbs, filling the jars up to the neck
  • drain hot water
  • bring the brine in a saucepan to a boil and increase the concentration of vinegar
  • pour back into jars and roll up

If turbidity forms in a jar of cucumbers for 2-3 days after conservation, put it in the refrigerator for a week. Watch the brine.
If it brightens and a precipitate appears, while the lid remains flat, without swelling, then feel free to leave the jar for storage.

An option for the lazy is to leave cloudy cucumbers without alteration. If they do not explode, feel free to add them to the pot with the future pickle.

Is it possible to eat pickled and canned cucumbers in cloudy brine?

The answer depends on:

  • brine turbidity
  • the number of days of its appearance after conservation
  • lack of swelling of the lid on the banks

When turbidity appears a couple of days after the hermetic sealing of the cucumbers, you can either open them and eat them, or put them in the refrigerator to continue observing the color of the liquid. By the way, to taste such cucumbers will be like lightly salted.

If you took out a jar of cucumbers in a cloudy brine from the basement and the lid remained without swelling and hermetically sealed, eat them after additional heat treatment. For example, in a pickle.

In the event of a swelling of the lid, and even more so, its explosion, cucumbers from the jar are only subject to ejection. Otherwise, you risk the health of people who will eat them.

One of the unpleasant diseases that provokes the consumption of low-quality foods is botulism.

Secrets of proper salting and pickling cucumbers

delicious and crispy pickled cucumbers on the table in a bowl surrounded by heads of garlic and herbs

  • Take cucumbers grown on your site, except for salad early varieties.
  • Carefully sort them out and discard any manifestations of damage - softness and rot.
  • Soak cucumbers for a day in cold water so that it occupies all the internal voids of the products. Then the air with them will not be under the lid.
  • Use good water. The best option- spring, well, in extreme cases bottled.
  • Do not neglect all manipulations for sterilizing jars, lids, cucumbers and herbs before filling and blocking.
  • Put a small tomato in a jar or green apple that fell from a tree.
  • Carefully follow the technology for preparing containers, products and the pickling process. Pay attention to eliminating the causes of poor results listed in the first section of the article.
  • Put in a couple of garlic cloves. It neutralizes the process of gas formation and adds spice to cucumbers from a jar.
  • Add a pinch of mustard seeds to the brine before pouring it into jars, and under the lid - a couple of pieces of horseradish root to avoid mold.
  • Experiment with 1 tablespoon alcohol or vodka added to the jar before sealing.
  • Turn rolled up jars of cucumbers, wrap them in a fur coat and leave to cool completely, or at least for a day. So you will carry out additional sterilization of the covers, check the tightness of their fit to the necks.
  • Talk to your mom or grandma. They definitely have their time-tested secrets of delicious crispy pickled cucumbers prepared for the winter. And at the same time, they will tell you how to avoid turbidity of the brine and keep the preservation without swelling and explosions.

So, we examined the reasons for the appearance of turbidity of the brine in jars of cucumbers after their conservation. We took into account the advice of experienced housewives to neutralize the formation of these causes. We found out how safe it is to eat cucumbers from a jar of opaque brine.

Summer is in full swing. Every day you harvest from your plot. Therefore, you have enough practice to check tips on preserving cucumbers for the winter.

Delicious preparations for you!

Video: what to do if the cucumbers in the jar become cloudy after conservation?

When making preparations for the winter, you always hope that they will last two or three months. You follow the recipe to the letter, but after two weeks you notice that the marinade has become cloudy. What to do if the pickled cucumbers turn cloudy and the lids swell, why did this happen, and can they be saved?

A jar of cucumbers swelled up. Can they be eaten?

There are several reasons why the marinade has become cloudy. And don't blame yourself for not washing the jars enough. When pickling, cucumbers are poured with boiling water several times, and under such conditions, all bacteria and microorganisms will die, even if you have not washed the jars or cucumbers.

We see swollen jars of cucumbers for several reasons. Let's start with mechanical reasons:

Chips on the neck of the jar or poor-quality lids / seamer. Over time, the seamer may wear out, and it is difficult to press the rim of the lid. Rubber compressor cannot hold air by itself, and bacteria enter the jar. This air with bacteria causes fermentation and the lid swells.

Second, most common cause why jars of cucumbers swell - this is salt. We all know how useful iodized or sea ​​salt, all of this is correct. But for sunsets you need only rock salt coarse grind. If you have pickled cucumbers with sea or iodized salt, then clouding is a completely expected process.

Cucumber variety. Yes, that's important too. Not all cucumbers can be pickled. Lettuce and greenhouse/greenhouse cucumbers are not designed for this purpose, and they can turn sour. Most often they become inedible, and here you can only sympathize with the hostess.

If your cucumbers are cloudy, the question naturally arises, is it possible to eat cloudy cucumbers?

Why not? Open the jar and smell the cucumbers. Do they smell like cask, but are they hard to the touch? Such pickled cucumbers become pickled and they are quite edible.

If the jar smells of mash, white flakes of mold have formed around the edges, and the cucumbers themselves turn into jelly when pressed, feel free to flush it down the toilet, and do not forget to wash your hands. These cucumbers are not edible, and there is nothing to save here.

How to revive swollen jars of cucumbers?

Now let's see how to remake pickled cucumbers if the jar is swollen and the brine is cloudy. If it turned out to be pickled cucumbers, they can be saved and stored in a jar for many months.

Drain the marinade into a saucepan. Shake cucumbers in a colander and rinse under running water cold water. All herbs and spices must be thrown away, they cannot be reused.

Wash the jar baking soda and scald it from the inside with boiling water. Chop 2-3 cloves of garlic at the bottom of the jar, and place the washed cucumbers on top. Garlic is an additional insurance against spoilage of cucumbers.

Boil the old marinade and pour over the cucumbers. Now you need to close the jar with a lid. You can roll up the jar again with a new metal lid, or close it with a plastic one, now it doesn’t matter.

Take care only of a place to store such cucumbers. They need a stable temperature, without major fluctuations, otherwise they will start fermenting again. Ideally, this is +12 degrees, or on the lowest shelf of the refrigerator.

If you are afraid to serve such fermented cucumbers on the table, cook pickle, hodgepodge or other dish from them, in which cucumbers will undergo additional heat treatment, and then indigestion will definitely not threaten you.

This is how we are arranged, having grown a crop, we definitely preserve something else for the winter. It can be a shame when, after a while, we find a cloudy pickle in jars of cucumbers, swollen lids that are about to explode. And the question of why cucumbers become cloudy and jars with them explode, what is done wrong, for sure, arises with every housewife. Let's look into these questions today and find the right answers.

The main reason is the presence of microorganisms in the jar. How can they get into a jar of cucumbers? Very simple: with cucumbers, herbs, spices, and also through poorly washed jars.

Other causes of cloudy cucumber brine can be

  • use of iodized salt
  • use for salting salad varieties,
  • violation of the tightness of the container,
  • old lids,
  • lack of acetic or citric acid.

Why do cans of blanks explode?

Homemade items should be stored in a cool place. Conditions with a temperature not higher than + 5ºС in the cellar, underground, household refrigerator are considered ideal.

Closing jars can allow microbes to get in. Storage of canned food at temperatures above +5ºС leads to active reproduction of microorganisms. They begin to release their waste products - toxins and gas. Gas accumulates under the cover. Gradually, the amount of gas increases, the lid inflates, a so-called bombing is formed. At some point, the lid cannot withstand the pressure of the gas and explodes, flies off the can.

Why do cucumbers grow cloudy in jars?

So that the brine does not become cloudy in the jars and the lids do not explode on them, certain rules are followed during conservation.

  1. Some hostesses sterilize jars in the oven, over steam in a kettle, in the oven, etc. Of course, this is not bad. However, it is not necessary to do this when canning cucumbers, since we put non-sterile vegetables and herbs in a jar. The main condition is that the banks themselves must be clean. To do this, it is enough to wash them with water and soda and rinse thoroughly.
  2. The purity of cucumbers is achieved by washing in two waters. Before laying in a jar, vegetables should be thoroughly washed. In relation to cucumbers, the following can be said. Have you noticed a whitish coating on freshly picked cucumbers? The film becomes noticeable, it is worth lowering the cucumbers into the water. Beneficial bacteria live in this plaque, fighting pathogenic microflora, preventing the development of diseases on cucumbers. The film must be thoroughly washed off. Cucumbers immediately take on a green appearance, begin to creak. By removing the film, all bacteria are removed.
  3. Greens should be no less clean. It is washed under running water. Then, cut into small pieces, boil in water for 2-3 minutes. The broth is diluted with boiled water and a brine is prepared. The greens themselves are transferred to the jar.
  4. I don't know if it's sterile acetic acid or vinegar, which we always add to the blanks, but it also needs to be boiled. I always add it to the brine at the end and boil for 1-2 minutes.
  5. After rolling the lid, the jars are turned over. This is necessary to check the tightness. Having twisted badly, microbes get inside the jar along with the air, starting to multiply there. Turning over the jars, disinfection occurs inside lid and top of the jar.

And one more important tip.

Through poorly washed vegetables, causative agents of botulism can enter the preparations. The disease is dangerous because in a tightly closed jar it produces a toxin - botulinum, the strongest poison, often fatal. This toxin has no taste or smell. Its possible appearance can be prevented by washing the vegetables thoroughly and adding acetic or citric acid. Acids are harmful to bacteria.

What varieties are taken for canning?

For canning, it is necessary to take cucumbers in the stage of milky ripeness with a size of no more than 10-12 cm, preferably one size. Using fruits different sizes, salt unevenly enters the pulp of cucumbers, so some of them are worse salted. Insufficiently salted cucumbers again serve as an excellent breeding ground for microorganisms.

Not suitable salad early ripe varieties. Their pulp is more tender, it will deteriorate faster in blanks. Having rolled salad cucumbers for the winter, after a while, opening the jars, you will find soft, tasteless vegetables. Choose for home-made preparations such varieties: Friendly family, Cheerful guys, Salting, Rodnichok. To be sure, when buying seeds, read for what purposes this variety is used.

What to do if the jar of cucumbers is cloudy?

Depending on how long the cloudy billet costs, proceed as follows.

  • If the preparation was made a few days ago, it is necessary to open the jar, drain the brine, rinse the cucumbers and re-preserve them according to the recipe. Moreover, the amount of salt and sugar must be reduced.
  • Having found a cloudy workpiece late in winter, look at the condition of your cucumbers. If they remain hard, crispy, use them for making vinaigrettes, salads, pickles. Soft - are not subject to further use, they are thrown away without regret!


Dear readers, I hope that the tips will come in handy and you will not encounter such an unpleasant situation in the future when the prepared cucumbers become cloudy or, even worse, explode.

The appearance of turbidity in jars with pickled cucumbers indicates a violation of technology. Such cucumbers quickly lose their crispy properties and deteriorate. It is not safe to eat them!

The main reason why the brine in jars of cucumbers becomes cloudy is improper preparation dishes for harvesting cucumbers It is necessary to thoroughly wash the jars with warm water and soda. Then rinse well. Do not use jars with chips or cracks on the neck. - Insufficient sterility of jars and purity of products.

Be sure to sterilize the jars

To do this, place the jar over a pot of boiling water on a special stand. Wash all ingredients well, from cucumbers to spices. - Leaky sealing of jars. Tin lids should be thoroughly boiled and washed. You need to roll up the jar tightly. Since microorganisms can get into the jar along with air.

Non-compliance with the recipe for canning cucumbers

Despite careful preparation of food and utensils, pickled cucumbers may become cloudy. The wrong ingredients for the marinade were taken. You must follow the recipe exactly. This is especially true for vinegar or acid. After all, it is these ingredients that ensure the safety of products on long term.

Wrong salt

Iodized salt usually always gives a whitish precipitate. - The variety of cucumbers is not suitable for pickling Not all varieties of cucumbers are intended for canning. Therefore, having rolled lettuce cucumbers into jars, be prepared for the brine to become cloudy and acquire sediment. — Incorrect storage Winter preparations should not be left for more than two or three days at room temperature. Cucumbers should be stored in a dark, cool place at a temperature of 2-7 degrees.

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