• If you have a question about commercial production or the hot sauce business, please post in The Food Biz.

fermenting Use Dehydrated peppers to avoid fermentation?

Jmarglon

Jmarglon

Ive been having an issue with my cooked sauce fermenting and blowing up once opened. Once all cooked at 200 degrees for 20 minutes, I bottle and then refrigerate. Im incredibly confused why, as I have read a ton about this and the general understanding is that once cooked at 190 for 15 minutes that it will remedy the problem by killing all active bacteria. I have sterilized the funnel I use as well as the bottles that are to be filled.

Note that I am NOT using sweetener, sugar or pineapple/mango. I am using a combo of fresh and dehydrated peppers...would limiting this to dehydrated only help my cause? To mix, I use a Vitamix...is this adding air and is this part of the problem?

Sometimes I will cook, then let cool to room temp to make spice adjustments. I then will cook at 200 degrees at 20 minutes. Then I will refrigerate.

Is it always necessary to hot-bottle direct from the 200 degree/20 min cook?

Any help would be appreciated!
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
It could be the caps. Personally, I always hot fill and invert my bottles even though they have been sanitized. Sounds to me like there is an underlying issue with your process. I doubt only using dehydrated peppers will solve your problem
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Are you adding vinegar? Taking a ph level?

It is recommended to hit fill and invert as stated above.

I am not finding any glaring issues with your process though.

Some questions. How many batches has this happened to? Also, % of bottles effected. This is weird.

One thinking outside the box would be are some of the peppers you are using getting old? There are some pathogens that cant be boiled off. Just asking since you asked about only using dehydrated peppers. You should not have only use them if you are going to 200 for 20 minuets.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
What do you mean by "blowing up"? Like a geyser of hot sauce? Or does it bubble up and over? How high do you fill the bottles? Negative pressure from the hot sauce cooling could cause it to burp when you open it and if its filled to the top, up and out it goes!
 
Barring that, I suppose you could always calculate the appropriate number of Campden tablets to add to the sauce. Maybe crush them up  and mix them in right before bottling to kill of every possible thing. Used all the time in fermented alcoholic beverages.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Thanks- I’ve pretty much deduced that I need to increase vinegar and step up my sanitizing game. I’ve had both high-pressure geysers and a small bubble up-and-over the bottles. 
 
AzJohn, you mentioned
”Negative pressure from the hot sauce cooling could cause it to burp when you open it and if its filled to the top, up and out it goes!’”

Is there any way around this or a method to decrease it?  THANK YOU!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Oh man. You know, I just reread what I wronte. It would be really weird for it to explode out unless there is pressure. What could be happening is you have little air pockets in the sauce that, once you get a suction, compress and then expand when you open the bottles.
 
But if your acid is wrong, that's where I would start.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I think you’re right...my Vitamix is great for getting the texture I want, but it creates a lot of air.  I’m researching vacuum mixers now to eliminate air.

What do you mean by “get a suction, compress and then expand when you open the bottles”? 
 
I’m open to try anything to remedy this!  Thanks for all the help!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
It's your process. Has to be. Soooo many people use Vitamix and theirs don't go all Old Faithful because of air pockets.

If it were me I'd make sure I'm doing my process correctly before changing recipes.

Have you ever had a batch not do that? If yes, then what was different?

Are you inverting in your hot fill process?

Maybe change bottle brands?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top