preservation Vinegar or Lime quantity

sab · Jan 23, 2009

How you all doing. well I finally have some ripe O-Habs,& would like to make a hot sauce out of them. Im not to sure on the quantity of vinegar or lime to use in the mix,is there a base quantity to use per grams of chilis.

Cheers

sab

stillmanz · Jan 23, 2009

minimum 20 % vin/lime is a safe start.

Scorpion · Jan 23, 2009

Yep 20-25% is cool...Be careful with the wine vinegars as they are much lower in acid! i'm a bit of a lime fan! Good work, my habs are so close its crazy......Hab concentrate here we come!

chilehunter · Jan 24, 2009

Scorpion said:
Be careful with the wine vinegars as they are much lower in acid!

I'm curious as to why you say this ?
I use red/white wine vinegars mostly, but I have also used basic vinegar & apple cider vinegar. all of these vinegars are 5% acidity (including the wine vinegars) say's it right on the labels.

texas blues · Jan 24, 2009

chilehunter said:
I'm curious as to why you say this ?
I use red/white wine vinegars mostly, but I have also used basic vinegar & apple cider vinegar. all of these vinegars are 5% acidity (including the wine vinegars) say's it right on the labels.

I generally use the apple cider vin as well but have used white and even tried balsamic once when I ran out of cider vin. Tasty stuff. The lime juice which is always fresh squeezed, I always use to bring out and enhance the hab flavor. I don't know how much acid is actually in my sauces as I just eyeball it and taste. I make rather small batches..a dozen 5oz bottles at a time so it never stays around long enough to go bad. Coincidently making a batch tonight.

Cheers, TB.

chilehunter · Jan 24, 2009

texas blues said:
I generally use the apple cider vin as well but have used white and even tried balsamic once when I ran out of cider vin. Tasty stuff. The lime juice which is always fresh squeezed

if ya have a choice between basic vinegar & apple cider - apple cider wins! & price is close to the same.
IF you have wine vinegar for a choice, IMO wine vinegar wins!! the taste is much sweeter!! only problem it cost's alot more!
I've never tried the other herb type of vinegars.
as for lime juice I love the stuff (I'll even eat limes fresh!) I add lime juice to every hot sauce, be it freshly squeezed or from concentrated.

stillmanz · Jan 24, 2009

I use Apple cider in all my sauces. I will not use anything else.

chilehunter · Jan 24, 2009

stillmanz said:
I use Apple cider in all my sauces. I will not use anything else.

you should try wine vinegar, even if it's a limited run of sauce, far tastier than apple cider, IMO.

sab · Jan 25, 2009

Thanks for the info guys.