food-safety Acidification Method of Fresh Chilli’s

[Treesie]

Hi Everyone,

First post, apologies if this exact query has been made before.

I consulted with a Food Scientist about making my Chilli Paste shelf stable. I’m currently making it just at home, but looking to start giving it to people and potentially selling it.

The ingredients are fresh Australian Red Chillies, fresh garlic, fresh onion, salt, vinegar and extra virgin olive oil and some dry spices. Basic method is blitzing everything and cooking it out, then adding the oil and jarring into sterilised jars.

The scientist said I need to acidify the fresh ingredients before cooking, soaking them (once blitzed) in vinegar for 24 hours to lower the pH. I understand this, but was thinking if I’m making large amounts, say around 30kg regularly, this means I will be using huge amounts of vinegar just for soaking.

I’m new to sauce making, and I know safety is number one. So is this just something that has to be done if you’re not willing to use artificial preservatives?

Any advice would be appreciated
Thanks

 

[salsalady]

Interesting. I have never heard of this requirement.

There is a thing called 'finished equilibrium'. Think pickles. The cukes by themselves have a high pH, but when soaked in vinegar for a couple weeks, the vinegar permeates the cucumber, becomes acidified and when the the resulting (now pickle) is tested it will have a low finished equilibrium pH.

99% of hot sauces do not do the soak step. Blitz it, mix it, if low enough pH, bottle it.

The addition of oil does add an additional issue. Most sauces containing oil need to be processed by pressure canning for food safety. This is not an insurmountable issue. There are many nice looking hexagon jars with metal lids that are pressure cookable.

Here in the US, there are food scientist, some affiliated with commercial labs, and then there are process authorities (PA). Persons wanting to sell their food product must get their process reviewed and approved by a process authority, not a food scientist. I don't know where you found the food scientist. I would get a 2nd opinion. And make sure the person you are talking to is knowledgeable about making and selling food products. A lot of PAs are affiliated with university food science departments. Many have programs where people can send the PA a sample of their product with detailed processing notes. The product will be reviewed by the PA, approved, denied, suggest changes.

Definitely get a 2nd opinion.

Quick fyi for general reading
A lemon is acidic. It naturally has low pH
A pickle is acidified. Something that has a naturally high pH (like a cucumber or chilles) is mixed with something acidic (like vinegar, lemon or pineapple) so the finished equilibrium is low pH.

Good luck with this. Your product sounds good. Keep us posted.
Hope this helps.
salsalady

Welcome to thp!

 

[The Hot Pepper]

Not sure how it works in AUS but surprised the food scientist was not concerned about the oil.

The addition of oil does add an additional issue. Most sauces containing oil need to be processed by pressure canning for food safety.

Right, there's many a marinara out there with oil... but when it comes to hot sauce, you can't just add oil and process as normal.

 

[Treesie]

@salsalady Thanks for that information!

They were based in the USA and from a large food processing company.

I'm looking into a second opinion from Australia.

When making it at home, I have been adding around 25% acid/vinegar and also hot-filling, then jarring. I have not been pressure canning though.