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refrigeration of new sauce

C

cmwr

Boy guys I apologize for blowing up the boards with so many questions this morning. I am gearing up to make a batch of sauce and had a question about safety. I don't own a ph tester. In the past I have experience canning jellies and pickled peppers etc and nothing has ever spoiled after years of sitting in the pantry prior to opening. But hot sauce, like I have been playing with lately, is a new game to me. I have been creating wing style sauces for several years with great success but those sauces go immediately in the fridge and keep for months as I use them like salsa (sort of). Now I am playing with standard based hot sauce making and was wondering about spoilage. I boil all my ingredients for 20 minutes or so before final blending. My recipe is as follows:
 
1 cup vinegar
3/4 cup water (or more to desired consistency)
1 peach or pear
1/2 onion
chinese dried red peppers
fresh habaneros
salt
sugar
lemon juice
 
Is there a way to know by how much vinegar you have in the ratio if the sauce is safe to let sit at room temperature or if it needs to be refrigerated? what about the onions and fruit that is in the sauce?
 
 
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I can't find the edit button so I will reply with this.....I am reading the sticky about food safety on this forum right now. I posted this question wondering if there was a general rule of thumb when it came to vinegar ratio in sauce.
 
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cmwr said:
Boy guys I apologize for blowing up the boards with so many questions this morning.
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Don't apologize, man! We're all here to help each other out and learn from each other's experiences (and mistakes ;) ) That's what it's all about!
cmwr said:
I don't own a ph tester.
 
Is there a way to know by how much vinegar you have in the ratio if the sauce is safe to let sit at room temperature or if it needs to be refrigerated? 
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Without knowing the exact pH, it's really just a guessing game, honestly. I don't have any kind of "formal" training in food preservation/safety, so I refrigerate my sauces after opening. I'm always a bit wary about keeping a sauce with fruit in it sitting on the table, but if we wanna get technical here, peppers are "fruit" lol

Hopefully someone with more experience than me, like SmokenFire or Salsalady, can chime in and clear things up a little better.

Either way, welcome to the madness, and ask away!
:cheers:
 
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MikeUSMC said:
Don't apologize, man! We're all here to help each other out and learn from each other's experiences (and mistakes ;) ) That's what it's all about!
Without knowing the exact pH, it's really just a guessing game, honestly. I don't have any kind of "formal" training in food preservation/safety, so I refrigerate my sauces after opening. I'm always a bit wary about keeping a sauce with fruit in it sitting on the table, but if we wanna get technical here, peppers are "fruit" lol

Hopefully someone with more experience than me, like SmokenFire or Salsalady, can chime in and clear things up a little better.

Either way, welcome to the madness, and ask away!
:cheers:
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Well here's the thing lol.......I have no issues at all making sauce and refrigerating it. In fact that's what I have been doing for several years. My peach wing sauce was originally created by me looking for a substitute for BWW mango habanero sauce. I didn't come close to that but in the process I came up with a dandy of a hot sauce that I have been using for a couple years on tacos and anything else that needed heat. I go from the blender to cheap squirt bottles and straight into the fridge with that and it keeps for months (I eat it a lot but my recipe makes several bottles lol). Just recently has been my first time at making "true" hot sauce that actually has vinegar in it and is planned on going into little 5 ounce bottles lol. The wing sauce is more of a "hot BBQ sauce" so to speak.......
 
It's not true "vinegar hot sauce" as I stated but if anyone's interested in a yummy hot/sweet hot sauce I will gladly share the recipe!!
 
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cmwr said:
.....originally created by me looking for a substitute for BWW mango habanero sauce
 
It's not true "vinegar hot sauce" as I stated but if anyone's interested in a yummy hot/sweet hot sauce I will gladly share the recipe!!
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That same recipe is the reason I got into growing peppers a few years ago :rofl:
I've got a pretty decent recipe for that myself ;)

And now, here we are! :cheers:
 
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MikeUSMC said:
That same recipe is the reason I got into growing peppers a few years ago :rofl:
I've got a pretty decent recipe for that myself ;)

And now, here we are! :cheers:
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I have been growing peppers for 17 years lol!! I had one year where I got a 5 gallon bucket of old hardened hog compost and broke it up on my garden. I had jalepeno plants 3 feet tall and had so many peppers that year I was giving them away by the gallon!! Since then I have gotten tired of maintaining my garden so for the last 3 years I have been growing peppers in pots on my back deck. They do pretty good but I have never had a year like the one mentioned again!!
 
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Unfortunately there is no general guide or rule of thumb for how much vinegar to use.  Totally depends on amount of ingredients and acidity of the other ingredients.
 
Your posted recipe looks like it should be fine, but remember literally ANY hot sauce you make - regardless of ingredients or pH - can be safely stored in your fridge just like your other adapted mango hab sauce.  You only need be concerned about pH if you are planning to store the bottled sauces at room temp. 
 
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In the fridge, taste is your focus. Make the sauce however you damn please... when making shelf stable it needs to be tested for pH and then, you need to worry how your recipe actually changes... but for now, make how you want for taste and not preservation. So if you like vinegar use it. If not, don't.
 
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A lot of extension service recipes use a ratio of about 1-2 cups vinegar/acids to 10 cups produce/other ingredients.  More is better...;)  
 
and ++ to what SnF and Boss posted about refrigerated sauces.  If the refrigerated sauce has no vinegar/acid at all, it will spoil just like any other produce you would keep in the fridge.  If the sauce has some vinegar/acid, it will keep quite a while in the fridge. 
 
Have Fun!
SL
 
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