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cooking To cook or not to cook

The majority of hot sauce recipes involve cooking all, or most of the ingredients for varying periods and then processing or blending the final product. However, this produces a sauce with different characteristics from one made with purely raw ingredients.
I make my own "cold brew" by de-seeding and finely chopping Scotch Bonnets with an equal quantity of finely chopped shallots,slightly less freshly chopped coriander,a little finely chopped garlic and a small amount of freshly ground cardamom seeds,all these are then well mixed with a spoon and then covered, to a depth of about one inch with Chinese, or Japanese rice vinegar,( which does not mask the other flavours as much as stronger vinegars) covered with clingfoil,placed in the fridge and well stirred every two days. After about a week I strain off most of the vinegar, keeping this for other culinary uses, and bottle the remainder of the "sauce", which is then kept in the fridge.

Since my supply of fresh chillies is very limited and seasonal here, I usually make only very small quantities at one time, consequently each batch is normally consumed within a month or so and, so far, it has not yet poisoned anyone!

I suspect,however, that I may be playing with fire in more senses than one! I am now starting to grow my own Scotch Bonnets and would like to be able to make and store larger batches of my brew. Any preservation suggestions would be warmly welcomed!!
 
I'd suggest getting a PH testing kit. A value of around 4 (as far as I remember - corrct me if I'm wrong!!! - is guaranteed to preserve your sauces for a good while.
 
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