bottling Need some guidence in regards to processing and bottling my first sauce.

[Chilli Willi]

Hi everyone!

I''ve just made my first ever fermented hot sauce... or rather, three. A scotch bonnet, carrot, and garlic sauce. A smaller batch of the same but with 400% more garlic. And another batch that has the same ratio of peppers, carrots and garlic but with some added spices, some foraged berries, and an orange. Everything is going great (touch wood)... I washed, steralized, and sanitized like I was in an operating theatre, which has meant that there are no signs of mould*, not even Kahm yeast, and the ferments are smelling great... at least as far as I can tell without opening the jars. Now it's almost time to process and bottle the sauce.

With the first variety of sauce, as I made a much larger batch, I plan to no pasteurize some of it, and to keep it in the fridge in a Ball mason jar, with the lid ever so slightly loose. Owing to limited fridge space and the intent of gifting some of the sauce to family and friends (and not wanting it to decorate their respective ceilings when they open it), I plan to heat treat the rest of the sauce. But I'm not decided on the best method, so I'd appreciate any advice you're willing to share.

1. If I boil the woozy's and hot fill and invert them... what's the best way of handling the hot bottles? All the kitchen tongs I have would make it risky, so I'm thinking of getting some heat proof, waterproof gloves but I'm worried that that might introduce issues with keeping the bottles sterile.

2. Could I sterilise with a bleach solution, rinse, then fill the bottles, and then water process them? I can't really find trustworthy, clear documentation on this technique.

3. I don't quite understand the rules regarding sweetening the sauce, especially the batch that I plan on not pasteurising. Can I just add sugar to a "completed" fermentation as long as the PH is lower enough?

*my larger batch does have some orange particles floating around the rim of the brine but I'm almost certain that they're just very small particles of carrot as the ferment still smells great, I can't find any mould or yeast that looks like them, and they haven't increased in number or size since they first appeared a few days into the fermentation (which was started on 2023-11-25).

 

[salsalady]

Greetings Chilli Willi. Welcome to THP.

Most of your questions can be answered here

tutorial - Making Hot Sauce 101

Making and Bottling Hot Sauce 101 for Beginners This post is for people wishing to make and bottle sauces for personal use or to share with friends and family. Persons wishing to sell their sauces should contact their local health authority and follow the guidelines of their Authority Having...

thehotpepper.com

1. You dont have to fill HEATED bottles, just cleaned sanitized bottles. You can prep the bottles ahead of time, keep them covered and safe, room temp.

When ready... heat, blender, add other ingredients, bring up to temp, simmer, bottle, etc according to instructions in Hot Sauce 101.

2. I do not suggest boiling bath filled bottles.

3. Others with way more experiece with ferments can comment.

Hope this helps.
Have Fun and post pics!
Salsalady

 

[Siv]

I'm gonna answer your questions but then give you what I would do:

1, Just use oven gloves. It's the inside of the bottle you want to keep sterile, the outside doesn't matter.

2, You can't water process or can with the plastic caps that come with woozy bottles. You have to use mason jars or another type that can take the heat of canning. The plastic cap may melt.

3, If you add sugar to the ferment, then it will start fermenting again. The fermentation process is bacteria turning the sugars into acid and carbon dioxide. Adding sugar when bottling is how they get the bubbles in bottled beer. So you have to make sure the bacteria is dead (by pasteurizing) before you add sugar for sweetness.

Now my advice:

1, Buy yourself a pH tester and make sure it's a decent one. Spend $50, not $10. Check the pH of your ferments. If they're 4.0 or below, then don't worry about being overly paranoid with sterility. They're acidified enough that they will keep forever in a sealed container.

2, Keep your natural sauces alive! There is no need to boil and kill your ferments.

3, Buy a bunch of Grolsch, drink the beer and keep the bottles for sauce (or buy empty bottles with the wire spring closure). The wire spring closure is designed to prevent overpressure and explosion of the bottle as the spring has enough give to burp off CO2 if the pressure inside the bottle gets too high. Wash and clean the bottles and fill them with your sauce.

 

[Chilli Willi]

Greetings Chilli Willi. Welcome to THP.

Most of your questions can be answered here

tutorial - Making Hot Sauce 101

Making and Bottling Hot Sauce 101 for Beginners This post is for people wishing to make and bottle sauces for personal use or to share with friends and family. Persons wishing to sell their sauces should contact their local health authority and follow the guidelines of their Authority Having...

thehotpepper.com

Thank you for the link to your guide salsalady. I''ve ready it straight through just now but I would like to give it a another good read soon (but I'm really busy with work at the mo'). I'll be sure to read it before I process my current batch, or make the next one, which I've already got lots of ideas for.

1. You dont have to fill HEATED bottles, just cleaned sanitized bottles. You can prep the bottles ahead of time, keep them covered and safe, room temp.

I thought the point of putting heated sauce into hot bottles was partially to increase sanitation but also to prevent the bottles breaking?

2. I do not suggest boiling bath filled bottles.

Do you have any thoughts on the idea of filling the sterilized bottles and then water bathing them to either the same temperatures you would be pasteurizing the hot sauce, or to a lower temp for a longer time sous vide cooking style? I've seen a few users floating to idea and it does seam to have some advantages inherent in sous vide style cooking, namely being able to heat to lower temperatures as long as the heat is held for long enough... it might also be less work but I can't find anyone who has actually documented the process.

Hope this helps.
Have Fun and post pics!
Salsalady

Thank you. I'll post some pics once there's something to see!

1, Just use oven gloves. It's the inside of the bottle you want to keep sterile, the outside doesn't matter.

I don't actually own any oven gloves (as I've always just used old towels before they get binned). So it's basically a question of whether I can make do with clean towels and less that ideal tongs, or should I just bite the bullet and invest in some decent gloves.

2, You can't water process or can with the plastic caps that come with woozy bottles. You have to use mason jars or another type that can take the heat of canning. The plastic cap may melt.

I guess even at relatively low temps like 63c*, the plastic cap could be compromised... I guess I just like the idea of having to finally buy a sous vide immersion pump for something!

* I'm just using 63c as an example, because that's what I aim to cook and hold Chicken breast at when I'm making a Curry. According to this article by J Kenji Lopez-Alt. As long as Chicken is held at 63c for 10 minutes, it's just as safe as it would be if it were cooked to the instant pasteurization temp of 74c. As shown in this handy chart. I'm currently researching the temperatures and hold times required to kill lactobacillus, in the hopes that I can find or create a similar chart that is based on scientific data... perhaps cooking hot sauce to just the low 60c's is the future? What would a newbie like me know though.

3, If you add sugar to the ferment, then it will start fermenting again. The fermentation process is bacteria turning the sugars into acid and carbon dioxide. Adding sugar when bottling is how they get the bubbles in bottled beer. So you have to make sure the bacteria is dead (by pasteurizing) before you add sugar for sweetness.

So if I need to balance a sauce with sweetness, I can just add sugar but only if the sauce is pasteurized right?

Now my advice:

1, Buy yourself a pH tester and make sure it's a decent one. Spend $50, not $10. Check the pH of your ferments. If they're 4.0 or below, then don't worry about being overly paranoid with sterility. They're acidified enough that they will keep forever in a sealed container.

I already have a cheap PH meter but I am still looking for a better model that has a replaceable bulb but doesn't cost too much to justify.

2, Keep your natural sauces alive! There is no need to boil and kill your ferments.

My current plan is to keep some of the sauce alive, which I will keep... as I'll be gifting much of it to family and friends, I just don't want to take the risk of a bottle exploding or gushing out everywhere. Plus there is an added bonus in my eyes. It will give me the chance to compare the pasteurized batch and the live sauce, over time.

3, Buy a bunch of Grolsch, drink the beer and keep the bottles for sauce (or buy empty bottles with the wire spring closure). The wire spring closure is designed to prevent overpressure and explosion of the bottle as the spring has enough give to burp off CO2 if the pressure inside the bottle gets too high. Wash and clean the bottles and fill them with your sauce.

That will have to go on the todo list as I've got enough Christmas beer left over to last me a good couple of months.

 

[Chilli Willi]

I just wanted to post a quick update to this thread.

I've now bottled my first sauces. In the end, I decided not to pasteurize the sauce because I would like to see how the sauces develop over time. It's only been a couple of weeks since I bottled them but the changes I've noticed have been fascinating and delicious. To be honest, when I first bottled the sauce, I did have a serious moment of "why the hell have I spent so much money, just to end up with a 'meh' sauce?!" but thankfully the sauces have developed having been given a few days rest. I'd also like to share this nugget of advice for any fellow first timers.

When you're processing the sauce and you're adding your various spices and vinegars to balance and boost the flavour. Sometimes it can be good to take a break and come back at the process with a fresh head. With one of my three batches, everytime I added something, I was left underwhelmed but it's a lesson I learned a long time ago with cooking... if you keep adding and tinkering with a dish, you'll end up with an unfocused, confused mess. I didn't want to make that mistake after waiting all those weeks while the ferment bubbled away. So I popped the blender jug in the fridge, finished balancing the flavours the next day, and ended up with a much better sauce for it.

One other lesson I learned is that not all bleach is created equal. It was only after I had started the fermenting that I found out that the bleach I was using was only 1% but I'd been mixing it with water as if it was 5%. So check your bleaches and read the labels, buds. I was very careful with cross contamination though, and everything was washed, sort of bleached, and sprayed with ChemSan. So thankfully, everything still turned out well.

Another bit of advice, and I'm still kicking myself about this one... if you sieve your sauce, scrape the underside of the sieve! I lost a small bottle's worth of my spiced blackberry sauce because I forgot.

Oh, and if you ferment raw garlic, don't be surprised if it still taste raw when you blend and bottle the sauce. I did one large batch of sauce, and a small batch of the same sauce but with 400% the amount of garlic. When it came time to bottle it, the garlic taste was unpleasantly raw... kind of like the smell you get when you put chopped / crushed garlic in the fridge. But after a week or two, the flavours are really starting to mellow and mingle.

One last thing I'll add to this "quick update", as much for my own benefit, what with a kilo of Carolina Reapers heading my way... get some gloves for when you're wrist deep in chopped up chilli tops, seeds, and membranes!

 

[salsalady]

I just wanted to post a quick update to this thread.

I've now bottled my first sauces. In the end, I decided not to pasteurize the sauce because I would like to see how the sauces develop over time. It's only been a couple of weeks since I bottled them but the changes I've noticed have been fascinating and delicious. To be honest, when I first bottled the sauce, I did have a serious moment of "why the hell have I spent so much money, just to end up with a 'meh' sauce?!" but thankfully the sauces have developed having been given a few days rest. I'd also like to share this nugget of advice for any fellow first timers.

If you didn't pasteurize the sauce, I assume it is still 'working'. Be careful and cautious of exploding sauce when the bottles are opened. Also keep the sauce refrigerated. It is a raw vegetable product. Just like kimchee, which is a fermented product, if you left kimchee out on the counter, it will spoil. While it is fermented, it is also kept cold for food safety.

When you're processing the sauce and you're adding your various spices and vinegars to balance and boost the flavour. Sometimes it can be good to take a break and come back at the process with a fresh head. With one of my three batches, everytime I added something, I was left underwhelmed but it's a lesson I learned a long time ago with cooking... if you keep adding and tinkering with a dish, you'll end up with an unfocused, confused mess. I didn't want to make that mistake after waiting all those weeks while the ferment bubbled away. So I popped the blender jug in the fridge, finished balancing the flavours the next day, and ended up with a much better sauce for it.

Super Smart to do this! Let it rest, and your taste buds also. Things can taste different even based on what you have had to eat that day.

One other lesson I learned is that not all bleach is created equal. It was only after I had started the fermenting that I found out that the bleach I was using was only 1% but I'd been mixing it with water as if it was 5%. So check your bleaches and read the labels, buds. I was very careful with cross contamination though, and everything was washed, sort of bleached, and sprayed with ChemSan. So thankfully, everything still turned out well.

Also watch the vinegar acidity! Most recipes are based on a 5% acidity vinegar, rice vinegar is less, balsamic is usually more.

Another bit of advice, and I'm still kicking myself about this one... if you sieve your sauce, scrape the underside of the sieve! I lost a small bottle's worth of my spiced blackberry sauce because I forgot.

Bummer on the loss of product. You can also take the 'tailings' (stuff in the sieve) and dry it to make seasoning salts or seasoning blends.

Oh, and if you ferment raw garlic, don't be surprised if it still taste raw when you blend and bottle the sauce. I did one large batch of sauce, and a small batch of the same sauce but with 400% the amount of garlic. When it came time to bottle it, the garlic taste was unpleasantly raw... kind of like the smell you get when you put chopped / crushed garlic in the fridge. But after a week or two, the flavours are really starting to mellow and mingle.

One last thing I'll add to this "quick update", as much for my own benefit, what with a kilo of Carolina Reapers heading my way... get some gloves for when you're wrist deep in chopped up chilli tops, seeds, and membranes!

Everyone should have nitrile gloves around. for more than just chiles.

Couple other comments---
If the room temp bottles are properly prepped, and the sauce is heated to 190F, that is good enough. Hot fill-Invert-Hold will take care of all the issues. BWB or sous vide of filled bottles is NOT recommended. Water can get into the threads and leach up the threads and compromise the seal. Unbeknownst to you, the seal can be compromised, Nasties can start growing, the bottle gets opened and the contaminated contents consumed with potentially REALLY BAD results. No need to reinvent the tried, true, Process Authority recommended HFH process.

Thanks for the update. Hope you are having fun!
SL