On Fri, 2 Sep 2011 11:56:59 +0100, "john east"
> wrote:

>Want to pickle a lot of onions and cabbage. Here in London, Sarsons Malt
>Vinegar is cheap and cheerful when purchased from Chinese wholesalers. Would
>prefer the mild flavour of Rice Vinigar, but it's expensive having to come
>from Japanese shops here.
>
>I have heard of people adding thirty percent of boiled water to a pickling
>mixture reduce the vinigar taste.
>
>Would you think adding fifty percent of boiled water would make the mixture
>too dilute to sterilize and pickle properly? Basically I would add as
>much water as I could get away with, but i dont know how much that could be.
>Thanks for any advice.
>

Specific strength and type of vinegar is used to guarantee a specific
PH solution. It is dangerous (as in you can kill yourself with
botulism) to have any other solution than that recommended for
canning/pickling specific produce. Consult UK canning guidelines for
correct procedure, they should be available on the Internet. If you
insist on going ahead on your own, please do not feed the results to
anyone.
Janet US