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Hard/soft water issues?

U

UseTheSauce

Greetings, hot sauce gang!

I just moved back to the UK (Bristol, specifically) from a 2 and a half year stint living in Boston, where I've been working on a hot sauce recipe for 18 months or so and had finally perfected it. Or so I thought.

The first time I made a batch in Bristol I followed my exact recipe and steps down to a T, but found that when I blended my sauce it was considerably thicker than usual. I thought maybe the xanthan gum I had used was slightly different than what is been using in the US so I didn't think too much of it and carried on. However, when I bottled it I found that my recipe which usually yields 50oz of sauce had only produced around 35-38oz.

The water in Bristol is particularly hard which was the only thing I could think of that had changed, asides from source of ingredients, so I made another batch and added an extra 250ml of water and followed the same steps. This time my batch came up just short at around 45oz so I think I have solved the problem and just need to add more water to my batches, but I was curious as to whether anybody else had ever experienced this issue?

I was wondering if I should try using bottled water for the next batch and use my original recipe. The sauce tastes the same (although considerably hotter, I think the habaneros I'm getting here are a few notches up on the Scoville scale than the ones I was getting in Boston) so I don't think it should be an issue to continue using tap water from Bristol, but feel free to let me know if you have any thoughts on this matter. I'm pretty new to the game and am always looking to learn and improve.

Thanks in advance!
 
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Do you measure all your ingredients by volume or by weight? I recently made a batch of sauce that was slightly more forward on one ingredient than the previous batch and was told it could be because I was measuring by volume and not weight. The solid ingredients that is. Measure the liquids by volume and the solids by weight. Should help make your batches more consistent.
 
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Hi Edmick, thanks for the reply. I weigh all of the dry ingredients and measure the wet in a jug, it's really strange that there's such a great difference in the final volume but I'm struggling to find a reason for it asides from the different water. I'm using the same set of scales I had in Boston too.
 
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I just had a quick check online, there's approximately a 200ft difference between where I was living in Boston and where I am in Bristol. I can't imagine that would have a huge effect, would it? I could be wrong but it doesn't seem like a significant enough difference to cause such a drastic change.
 
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Could it be the fruit you're using has a lower moisture content?  You'd end up with a thicker product despite using the same weights..................  Grasping at straws here.
 
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I'd be surprised. I'm using red capsicum peppers, habaneros, onions and garlic so I'd be pretty shocked if there was that much of moisture difference between those things from Boston to Bristol. I'm almost certain that it's something to do with the water hardness, but I wanted to see if anybody else had experienced this problem after making sauce in 2 different places.
 
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Is the '50oz down to 35oz' measurement while it's still in the blender, or is that the yield after it's cooked and bottled?

I'm wondering if you've been "cooking it down"/reducing it longer than you had previously. I realize that 15oz of sauce is quite a bit to cook down without noticing, but that's about the only thing I can come up with :shrug:

If that's what the yield ends up being, that would make more sense than losing an entire 15oz while you're still loading the blender up
 
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To be honest I didn't check while it was in the blender as I'd never had this issue before, so it wasn't something I was looking out for. It's also a new blender which is considerably bigger than my old one, so I wouldn't have noticed unless I was really paying attention to it. After I bottled it I was over 3 and a half 5oz woozys short of what I normally make in a batch. 

As far as I know I didn't cook it for any longer than usual, I have a pretty consistent regime it terms of my preparation and cooking methods, it's possible that it may have taken a little longer than usual but I don't think it could have been enough of a time difference to explain that much liquid evaporating. 
 
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