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tutorial Making Hot Sauce 101

Cool, thanks for the info.
 
Yet another thing:
 
I see in post 1 it's suggested to use no liner if using an orifice dropper.
Can one use a liner with an orifice reducer and still do hot fill?
Or does the liner + orifice reducer combo interfere with that?
 
I see my orifice reducer + liner cap bottles I got and am weary of digging out the liners.
 
You can use a lined cap with a reducer and hot fill.  Just pay special attention to snug down the cap well.  The liner and the reducer add fractions of an inch, I've had some lined caps not seal with a reducer because they weren't snugged down tight. 
 
Specialty Bottle (who I usually order bottles through) usually catches it when reducers are ordered and they usually automatically send unlined caps.  I don't know if other bottle companies have unlined caps as options.  Anyone know?
 
salsalady said:
You can use a lined cap with a reducer and hot fill.  Just pay special attention to snug down the cap well.  The liner and the reducer add fractions of an inch, I've had some lined caps not seal with a reducer because they weren't snugged down tight. 
 
Specialty Bottle (who I usually order bottles through) usually catches it when reducers are ordered and they usually automatically send unlined caps.  I don't know if other bottle companies have unlined caps as options.  Anyone know?
Click to expand...
How do you know if a vacuum is not present, or a seal is not made? Leaking?
This is why I'd prefer those click-caps to signify a proper seal or vacuum.
With these plastic caps it seems you don't have anything to go on as far as ensuring the hot fill actually worked.
 
well, based on the thousands and thousands of bottles used by hundreds and hundreds of sauce makers around the world....if the cap is snugged on correctly, it's pretty much foolproof.  No need to reinvent the wheel.  If it's not snugged on and a vacuum isn't formed, likely it will leak.  
 
Any time I open a bottle, I try to pay attention for that little pfft when the seal is broken.
 
Hi everyone. New user and new hot sauce-maker here. I've been speaking with a friend who is very experienced in canning/preserving. She says (and some other forums agree) that the hot fill method is no longer considered "safe" for shelf storage. The reasoning is that it creates a seal, but not a true vacuum. Even with pH levels under 4.0, there's a chance that nasties could occur because of the presence of air in the bottle.
 
This thread seems to disagree with that assessment. Am I reading this right? I want to be overly cautious because I am hoping to give my sauce to friends and family as gifts. But it's possible I am being too paranoid?
 
:welcome: to THP, Hudson Street Heat!
 
The Hot Fill/Hold process is Industry Standard for thousands of sauces made by hundreds of sauce makers.  All of the sauces I make and sell have been reviewed by a processing authority and all of them are approved for the Hot Fill/Hold process.   
 
I'm not a food scientist or processing authority, this is based on what I know as a food processor.  The sauce is heated, therefore expanded in volume, when the sauces goes into the bottles.  The cap is applied and the bottle is inverted.  The inversion step is for the heated sauce to come in contact with th inside of the cap and sterilize it.  Once the required 3 minutes is up, the bottle can be turned back up or left to cool. 
 
As the sauce cools, it shrinks in volume, sucking the cap on tighter and therefore (as I understand things) creating a vacuum inside the bottle.  One of the safety things many people look for when opening bottles is to listen for that PFFFT when the cap is opened.  It's the same basic thing that happens with a boiling water bath, except with BWB, the jar can be filled with cold product, then everything is heated in the boiling water.  When the jars are removed from the water and left to cool, the mass shrinks and creates the vacuum.
 
Caution is a good thing, and it's good for to ask questions if something is not understood.  If HFH is no longer acceptable, I think us licensed sauce makers would of been informed by our AHJ and directed to adopt a different processing method.  There are quite a few licensed processors here on THP, and this is the first I've heard of the HFH not being acceptable.  That's not to say that changes may not be in the works, I just haven't heard about them. For now,  I'll follow what my licensing inspector and the PA say is acceptable.  If/When processing regulations change, I'll definitely post to keep everyone up on the Latest/Greatest. 
 
Thanks for posting!  Good Luck and Have Fun making and sharing your sauces!
:cheers:
SL 
 
Thanks salsalady for this wonderful resource when it comes to making sauce! :D
 
Got a quick question about the liner. How important is it?
I've been trying to find a good supplier in Sweden(and Europe) but most do not give any information about cap liners, if they're included or not.
If you skip the liner, how would it affect the "shelf stability" of the product?
 
Ohjay said:
Thanks salsalady for this wonderful resource when it comes to making sauce! :D
 
Got a quick question about the liner. How important is it?
I've been trying to find a good supplier in Sweden(and Europe) but most do not give any information about cap liners, if they're included or not.
If you skip the liner, how would it affect the "shelf stability" of the product?
Click to expand...
 
Greetings, Ohjay, thanks for the comments.
 
Unlined caps will work fine with or without the dropper insert.  You just have to be careful to get the cap nicely snug so it will seal properly when cool, and make sure the top of the bottle and threads are clean of any sauce before capping.
 
Wherever you are looking for bottles, you should be able to contact the seller and ask.  Good Luck!
 
 
Update note on unlined caps- I recently tried to order some reducers and unlined caps from Specialty Bottle.  They no longer carry unlined caps.  I haven't gone looking from other suppliers.  So for now, I'm using lined caps with orofice reducers.  Again, they work fine, just have to be careful to get the caps snug.  When Specialty Bottle did carry the unlined caps, they would automatically send unlined caps when ordering bottles with reducers.  If ordering bottles without reducers, they sent lined caps.  I haven't ordered bottles from other suppliers so I can't say how they work.  Perhaps someone else will chime in with their supplier experience.   
 
Thanks so much for sharing the receipt to make sauce. It's really useful for me.I often use sauce to make my dishes more delicious but I just buy it from store. I think sauce made by ourself will be more safety. I will try it. :P
 
:welcome: to THP, Daniel!  Making sauces is a ton of fun, and useful.  Hope you try it. 
SL
 
Is it OK to trust an acidity reading with a  "paper acidity test kit"?
The ones with the little strips of paper and a color chart for proofing?
 
OK..after completely reading first post,  I stumbled across the below..  
 
 
ETA:  Quote from salsalady first post   "Litmus strips will work for a general guideline of where the sauce is at, but should not be relied upon for an accurate pH reading". 
 
-lol- it's OK, there's a lot of info in that first post, it's easy to miss something.
 
 
I think it's posted, but to repeat- the color of the sauce can make it hard to read the actual changed color of the paper after being dunked. And you need to make sure the papers can read the desired range, like 2.5-5.0.  I don't know the ranges the papers are available in, so  :shrug: ...   
 
If the sauce is well below the safety margins, like below 3.0pH, strips can help to just "make sure", they are better than nothing.  If the sauce is a higher pH, like above 3.5pH,  I wouldn't rely on them for the safety of the sauce.
 
I've got a question regarding sterilizing the lids or more specifically, the reducers.  It seems to me that if the lid is snug to the reducer then the inversion step wouldn't be sufficient considering the hot sauce would never come in contact with the top of the reducer. 
 
Am I over thinking this?
 
Thanks, I've enjoyed reading this thread and I'm ready to get started.
 
:welcome: to THP CardHog!  Thanks for your question.
 
 
When the cap is properly installed on the bottle, it is pressed down tight onto the reducer.  It's the heat of the sauce that does the sterilization, so the sauce doesn't need to com in contact with the lid.
 
"But" you may ask..."Heat rises, so why not just leave them upright?"  I'm not a Process Authority, but I would theorize that the variations in headspace when bottling would be the reason for not leaving them upright.  If a sauce is right at the margin of 180F, the bottle is room temp, and the bottle is short-filled to 1/2 inch or more below the neck ring, the sauce that's in the neck of the bottle will cool down to below 180F, and there wouldn't be enough heat rising to sterilize the cap/reducer.  I've seen some bottles that when cooled have a sauce level down at the shoulders.  The hot fill line on that bottle would of been an inch below the neck ring.  In this scenario, there wouldn't of been enough heat to properly sterilize the cap if left upright. 
 
If the sauce was 200F and filled right up to the neck ring, there might be enough heat rising to do the job.  But there's too much variables in that scenario.  If even one bottle was short-filled, then there'd be a problem.  It's been standard process to Hot Fill/Invert for decades, it's a pretty fool-proof method and it's what most Process Authorities dictate.  It eliminates a lot of potential problems and variables. 
 
 
Good Luck and Have fun with your project!  If you feel like it, start a thread and share some pics of your first project.  We luuuv pics!   :)
SL
 
Can use test strips to test the PH or is the sauce too dark in color to see the reading?  I've ordered two ph tester's from Amazon and both of them are junk, I don't want to order a 3rd.
 
Thanks!
 
CardHog said:
Can use test strips to test the PH or is the sauce too dark in color to see the reading?  I've ordered two ph tester's from Amazon and both of them are junk, I don't want to order a 3rd.
 
Thanks!
Click to expand...
From earlier posts, it very well could be. Depends on the sauce color as well as litmus paper colors. Which meters have you used? If you're frequently making sauces, maybe search the forum for better quality meters? I can't remember the name of the one I've seen frequently used around here, but it's around $50 on Amazon. I'll get it one day
 
hi hotlovers,,im from Coatia,Europe,, i m ferenting for three years now ,but i had never try it with oak cubes, so im looking for buy on e bay but its all expensive,,so..anybody from europe with oak cubes,,need one :)
 
Croatia has a wine county and you are across the Adriatic from Italy, surely you can get some oak cubes? Wine supply store? Homebrew store?
 
Do other people also find that after the sauce ripens a bit the burn changes? Made a sauce with 7 pots, mango, carrot and some other stuff and at first the burn was very up front and nearly dominated the flavour. After just a week in the fridge it takes a bit longer to kick in.
 
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