Its all that water/liquid in the tomatoes. It could be a misprint in that the tomates should be drained. Running any of this through a food strainer like a Villaware/Roma, will force out every single drop of juice too. 8 cups of undrained tomatoes will give you about 64 ounces to start with, unless everything is cooked down a lot. Do the math, 8 cups of 8 ounces for each cup, is 64 ounces!

Ha! I am terrible with math! I was just telling my husband my problem and we were talking about the possibility of a misprint! So, I hope the misprint is the yield, not the undrained part!

Thanks,
Shannon

Shannon,

Did you use 1 1/2 cups of jalapenos instead of 1 1/2 cups serranos? There's no problem with that. (Using 2 larger jalapenos instead of two smaller serranos would be a problem, but most good recipes specify weights or volumes instead of fruit quantities.)

Using store-bought canned, diced, undrained tomatoes should be an ok substitute for home-canned, diced, undrained tomatoes. If anything, I would think the firmer texture of commercial tomatoes would leave more solids behind in the food mill compared to home-canned tomatoes. You measured the 8 cups in a measuring cup, right? 64 ounces by weight (can size) shouldn't be exactly 64 ounces by volume.

Since the vinegar goes in before the sauce is put through the mill, I don't think it matters if a little more or less of the solids are pushed through. They are acidified.

I don't see how 64 ounces of tomatoes plus 32 ounces of vinegar is ever going to come out to only 32 ounces of hot sauce. I think the recipe yield is wrong, and they meant 4 pints.

I want to say NCHFP recipes are prone to this problem, but I can't remember. I hope someone else will weigh in too, but I think your hot sauce is fine.

Are you happy with how it tastes? I hope your gift recipients love it.

Melissa

I don't see how 64 ounces of tomatoes plus 32 ounces of vinegar is ever going to come out to only 32 ounces of hot sauce. I think the recipe yield is wrong, and they meant 4 pints.

I agree with Melissa that the yield amount is wrong - it should be 4 pints or 8 - 1/2 pints.

In fact this very recipe came up for discussion in one of our canning classes a couple of years back. The volume amounts/math were questioned then just as you have. The explanation offered by the instructor was that (1) measure the canned tomatoes, don't go by the can oz. weight, (2) the mill processing can result in more or less liquid (depending on the type of mill used and the amount of elbow grease applied) and (3) the cooking down process that many do to intensify the flavor will also remove some of the excess liquid.

Since it is a highly acidified recipe it is still quite safe just the way you did it. But for future reference, IF you find the flavor is not as intense as you might like or that the sauce is too thin/watery, you can cook down the liquid substantially longer than the 15 mins. called for in the recipe before jarring it up.

You can also, as I mentioned in your other post on this issue, leave out the tomatoes completely and instead use 9 1/2 cups of chopped seeded hot peppers of mixed varieties. Now that is HOT! ;) Or you can go 4 cups of tomatoes and 5 1/2 c of peppers - any combo as long as the total amounts (9 1/2 cups) remains the same.

Hope this helps. ;)

Dave

Dave- Thank you, I would love to sub all the tomatoes for the peppers! What a tasty sauce, to be used sparingly!

Melissa- From what I could tell so far it tastes great!

Actually, the recipe as-is is good for general gifts. The super hot version I will make in a couple of weeks, those ones will go to a select few that I know can handle it.

Shannon

I feel much better about my first canning experience now that I know I am not going to poison my friends and family this year!

Shannon, glad to hear it.

Dave, why is it ok to substitute a low-acid ingredient like peppers for a borderline ingredient like tomatoes in this recipe? You are generally conservative on substitutions, so I'm just wondering why this recipe is different.

Melissa

Hi Melissa - yeah you are right, I am VERY conservative on subs.

In this case it comes from the extension classes wife and I took that addressed this recipe specifically. That class was a very "pepper-oriented" group for some reason. ;)

Explanation given us was because you are eliminating most of the extra liquid that the tomatoes put in the recipe - the peppers aren't near as soupy - so there is little dilution of the vinegar and after processing what you end up with is a very pepper-flavored vinegar solution - a liquid pickled peppers so to speak.

Made sense to us and we have made it using habs and jals but I don't think I have never run it by anyone here before so any thoughts are appreciated.

The NCHFP recipe for pickled hot peppers calls for 7 lbs. hot peppers, 5 c of vinegar and 1 cup of water so this recipe with its 9 1/2 cups of peppers to 4 cups of vinegar and no water sure seems proportionately safe.

What do you think? Does it sound safe to you?

Dave

Dave, I do think it sounds safe, for all the reasons you say. But consider it this way...it is a bit less acidic than the NCHFP recipe for hot sauce with tomatoes, and it is thicker than pickled peppers (in terms of convection in the liquid), so either way the tested recipe (hot sauce or pickled peppers) is getting a less-safe change (rather than an equal change such as peppers for onions, or a more-safe change such as extra vinegar for water).

I do think subbing all peppers for the tomatoes is probably fine, and I would eat sauce made that way. I was just wondering, because sometimes when people post discussions on tested recipes with multiple substitutions, you feel it's too different from the tested recipe. Nothing wrong with that opinion, of course, and it surely matches the official food safety opinion from the USDA. I just like to think scientifically about whether the changes really affect safety - whether each substitution affects acidity, oil content, heat transfer within the product, etc. I usually have no problem with combining 4 or 5 substitutions that are individually approved, but I did, for example, think it was questionable to sub a lot of garlic for onions in the roasted tomato salsa thread.

One thing I really like about this forum is the way we conduct reasoned and thoughtful discussions on the issues, so it's nice to have different opinions around, and to be able to talk respectfully. I wasn't questioning the pepper substitution, Dave, just wondering how it fit into your food safety views. Hearing it from an extension class seems like a pretty good approval to me.

Melissa

I don't think that the pepper substitution was a problem due to all the vinegar. There was probably plenty of acidity for canning.