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bottling Bottling and sanitizing non-fermented hot sauce?

L

literaphile

Question for the hot sauce-bottling veterans out there. I’m getting into bottling non-fermented hot sauce for sale at farmers markets. Where I am (BC, Canada), you can sell non-fermented hot sauce that you make at home at markets, as long as the Ph level is 4.6 or lower.

I’ve got all my sauces Ph lab-tested and they are well below 4.6.

When preparing the sauces, I bring them to a boil and then simmer for 20ish minutes.

My question is: to achieve sufficient sanitization, do I need to sanitize the empty glass bottles (boiling, etc) and caps (bleach/water wash) AND do a hot fill? Or is just sanitizing the bottles and caps enough? I’ve done lots of reading but can’t find the answer to this specific question.
 
Check out the Making Hot Sauce 101 thread, it explains the Hot Fill Hold in detail.

Clean/wash/sanitize bottles using one of the methods in HS 101.

Do NOT wash or sanitize the caps. Reasons explained in HS101.

Bring sauce up to temp. Cook as desired. Use Hot Fill Hold processing method.

For sauces pH 3.0 to 4.6, they generally must be HFH processed with clean bottles and "out of the box" caps. Meaning...do not bleach or wash the caps.

Good luck and Have Fun!
SL
 
Thanks! That makes sense. I did read the HS101 thread but wasn’t sure if I needed to sanitize the bottles AND hot fill. Thanks for clearing that up.
 
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