Pickled Peppers

From Facebook last year (2013):

Take 3 on the pickled pepper front today:  All of my reading says that if you want to store pickled peppers at room temp, you have to boil-can them or you risk botulism poisoning.

Take 1, I tried boil-canning and they came out with good flavor but bad texture - pure mush; I threw them out.

Take 2, I used cold brine and after a day refrigerated. These were good enough that I ate nearly a whole jar in one day yesterday but taste a little bit "raw".

So today, Take 3: I put the peppers in the jars then filled the jars with boiling brine, put on lids, and let them cool. These, too, I will refrigerate.  The yellow and orange rings on the right are Hungarian wax peppers - not too hot but a little zip due to the orange and red peppers in the mix (they get hotter as the yellow peppers progress through orange to red). The red and green on the left are pepperocini, hotter than the Hungarians but still eatable and a great addition to a sandwich. I still have salsa peppers, a long bright red, much hotter pepper, and Thai peppers, small red and green, very hot to do something with. For brine I used 50/50 white distilled vinegar and water with 1/2 cup per gallon Kosher salt.

Today's Update (September 2014):
The Take 3 peppers from last year worked really well.  We enjoyed them all year.  The Hungarian Wax Pepper rings were probably our faves; some bite but not too hot; nearest to the hot pepper rings from the store (or the Wawa breakfast hoagie!); very pretty with yellow, orange and red mixed colors.  Pepperocini rings were OK; hotter than the Hungarian Wax but thinner walled.  We are just about through our last jar from last year after putting these on sandwiches all winter.

This year we planted more Hungarian Wax and fewer Pepperocini.  But bad news!:  the "Hungarian Wax" we planted must have been mislabeled at the nursery because we got a large, elongated sweet red pepper from the plants.  Not a bad pepper (not as good as the Lady Bells for a sweet pepper, tho') but definitely not going to make pickled hot pepper rings.  We also planted Biggie Chillis and Garden Salsa peppers, so the other day I tried picking and pickling the red Biggie Chillis and

got three quarts.  They are GREAT!!!  Hotter than the Hungarian Wax but not too hot, bright red, and beautiful in the jar or on the sandwich, perfect size rings with a nice firm wall.   Will definitely do some more of these this year.

So, the recap on the method:
Cut the peppers into rings and remove seeds from the center of each ring.
Pack into jars; jiggle and press to get them really full.
Make a brine of 50/50 vinegar (I used white distilled) and water with 1/2 cup salt (I used Kosher) per gallon and bring to a boil.
Pour the boiling brine over the peppers in the jar; fill them all the way.
Put lids on and let the jars cool, then refrigerate.

These are not canned, per se, so your MUST REFRIGERATE to keep them. 

By the way, I did not wear gloves while cutting the peppers.  I was very careful not to touch my face or eyes until I had washed my hands.  Even so, TWO DAYS LATER I could still feel every part of my hands and the spots on my face which I had inadvertently touched when exposed to the warm water in the shower.  You could really hurt yourself with these peppers if you don't wear gloves!!!