preservation Favorite Vinegars to Use

[TV_LI_111]

Hi All,
 
Wanted to see what types of vinegar's everyone likes to use when making a shelf stable, bottled hot sauce.
 
I've really only used white distilled and apple cider, but both are extremely strong. For the white distilled especially, it makes some new sauces I've been trying out, too vinegary, which is not what I'm going for. It just seems to over power everything.
 
I don't know if all vinegar's are good to use for shelf stable hot sauces, but I did just order some rice wine vinegar, and white wine vinegar, as I've been told rice wine is not as strong, and white wine is used in a sauce I use at home.
 
Does anyone have any recommendations on this? Is rice vinegar good to use? I've seen some very conflicting things on google. Some saying rice vinegar and rice wine vinegar are the same, some saying they are not.
 
Thanks in advance!
 
 

 

[SmokenFire]

I have used just about every vinegar out there in sauces.  Balsamic is the one vinegar I have yet to get where I want it in a sauce.  Haven't ever had fig vinegar - going to track some down when the weather breaks. 
 
Red wine vinegar is great matched with red peppers and fruits.  White wine vinegar is what I probably use the most, followed by apple cider vinegar.  I use plain regular (not petroleum based) white vinegar for a couple sauces too as its perfect for achieving the flavor profile I want. 

 

[Chorizo857_62J]

I've been experimenting with different vinegars thusfar, and so far my go-tos are rice-vinegar and white vinegar. I'd sworn off regular white vinegar after I tried using Heinz, which seems to make everything just taste vinegary, and not in the way I wanted it to, even if I used 50% vinegar/50% water.
Rice vinegar really seems to work for a lot of my verde sauces as it helps to keep the original flavor pretty well while lowering the pH, and it also seems to keep it relatively smooth. After a recent blunder with white-wine vinegar in my red-paper-flake/cayenne powder ferment experiment (the white-wine vinegar simply has too much of a non-complimentary flavor for the perfection I'm looking for - I like it, but it could be better), I decided to go back to white vinegars. 

I asked my wife to pick up vinegar that she thought looked like quality vinegar (neither of us really seems to know how to tell, and I hadn't been having luck), and she grabbed White House Vinegar.
Surprisingly, the stuff is cheap as all get-out comparatively to what I'm using, is available just about everywhere that I can tell, and after using it and no water at all in a sauce I'm making now, the flavor is just right. Smooth vinegar flavor, but not overpowering. I've currently got it pickling some jalapeno slices and a non-fermented verde-sauce experiment I'm working on.

It's now going to be my go-to vinegar, I think.

 
I also use WhiteHouse when needing white vinegar, and agree completely.  Pickling tobascos or refilling an existing bottle where the peppers stay and the vinegar goes on food.  Great stuff.
 

 

[Maverick27]

Speaking of Vinegars, anyone care to advise how much vinegar to put in a 1Lt of sauce, after, the fermentation is complete ?
 
I want to add White Rice Vinegar to the finished product in order to preserve & add some flavour ( before bottling ).
 
   

 

[Pharthan]

Speaking of Vinegars, anyone care to advise how much vinegar to put in a 1Lt of sauce, after, the fermentation is complete ?
 
I want to add White Rice Vinegar to the finished product in order to preserve & add some flavour ( before bottling ).
 
   

Rice vinegars are excellent to use!

As for how much, it depends on just how much of your original liquid you retain and what you’re working with in terms of material.

I usually just keep adding vinegar in my blender until it’s the consistency I want. It can be anywhere from using the same volume as what you’re adding to, to 5 times as much.

 

[Maverick27]

Rice vinegars are excellent to use!

As for how much, it depends on just how much of your original liquid you retain and what you’re working with in terms of material.

I usually just keep adding vinegar in my blender until it’s the consistency I want. It can be anywhere from using the same volume as what you’re adding to, to 5 times as much.

 
Assuming I want to add just enough to act as a Preservative ? 
 
To prevent Kahm Yeast from forming on the top after bottling.