I've been reading up on "approved" hot sauce recipes. many of them call for substantially more tomato than pepper. is there a reason for this? Taste preference in part I think, the popularity of tomato based sauces. But also because tomatoes are much more acidic than peppers so using tomatoes adds an element of safety and shelf life too. Not to mention that many gardeners grow tons more tomatoes than they do peppers. :) Now there might be a problem. None of them are tested for canning as far as I know so I don't know how they (the lids especially) will hold up to the BWB processing. I guess all you can do is try a couple and see. The way the 2 piece canning lids work is as the liquid inside the jar gets hot and expands the air inside is forced out and burps out of the lid and then as it cools the lid is sucked back down to create the vacuum inside the jar. Your bottles and lids probably won't work that way. Try a couple of your bottles just colored water in them and with the lid just screwed on finger tight. Then when you remove them from the pot see if the lid is more loose than when it went in. I think that would mean the air was burped out of the bottles. But keep in mind this is just guess work on my part, not tested. I've been reading up on "approved" hot sauce recipes. many of them call for substantially more tomato than pepper. is there a reason for this? it doesn't seem like any of them would be near hot enough for my tastes, even using really hot peppers. also, all of my sauces are stored in hot sauce bottles (woozy bottles), and my intention is to store at room temp before opening. if I bottle them boiling hot, in boiling hot bottles, would the suggested next steps simply be putting on the caps and tossing them into boiling water for 10-15 min? can anyone suggest a good pH meter for a broke college student like me, with a budget in the $20 range? can I just use test strips? A meter for $20 won't be worth anything. Good ones cost much more. Personally I'd use food grade litmus test paper. It isn't recommended for using on home processed foods because it can give false readings but then so can meters. The litmus test paper (available online and pharmacies) is approved by the FDA for food testing just not by USDA/NCHFP so do it with great care. I haven't tried using it in many years but if i got a reading of say 4.4 or lower i wouldn't have any concerns with eating it. JMO Dave

That looks like a good recipe to me and also does not look too sweet. I might eliminate the white and black pepper, however, and just use more chili. I have a lot of Habaneros in my yard to use. I would certainly use the fresh garlic, and I am okay with onion powder, which I use when I bake bread. I do not consider cumin a pastry spice either, although coriander could be used in pastry, as well as allspice and ginger. I would use fresh ginger instead of dried, since I do not keep dried ginger on hand and I keep fresh ginger in the freezer. It's easier to grate when it is frozen. How would you compare Peach Bhuts to Habaneros? How many Habaneros would you use in the recipe as a substitution? Lars

FOAS, the black vinegar that I have is not made in China - it is Japanese: Rinkosan Kurosu Uchibori, Hamamatsucho, Minatoku Tokyo, Japan. Ingredients: water, rice, salt. However, there is very little salt, as a single serving has 0mg Sodium. It does taste like vinegar, but not at all like European vinegar. Here's the info on the soy sauces that I currently have: As it turns out, I have five bottles of soy sauces in addition to two bottles of ponzu sauce. Four of the soy sauces are Japanese, and one is Pearl River Bridge light soy sauce from China. The Chinese soy sauce has the harshest flavor and is also the saltiest. Here are the ones from Japan: Marudaizu Shoyu, brewed by Yamasa Corporation, Choshi, Chiba JAPAN  large bottle (and was probably fairly inexpensive), ingredients: Water, Soybeans, Wheat, and Sea salt  No preservative added, 1000ml (34 fl oz.). Good mellow flavor, not too salty www.yamasa.com "Marushima" (Shodoshima Shoyu), ingredients: Water, Soybean, Wheat, Salt, distributed by Mitsuwa, Torrance, CA. Very similar flavor to the above, but slightly mellower and a bit less salty. Net wt. 12.70 oz, 360 gr. Seasoned Soy Sauce (Katsuo Shoyu  Maruten Br.) Ingredients: Soy Sauce (Water, Soybeans, Wheat, Salt), sugar, glucose, sweet rice wine, salt, dried shaved bonito, kelp extract, alcohol, monosodium glutamate. This one has a similar flavor to the others, but with a hint of Japanese beer and a bit of sweetness. All of these (above) have mainly Japanese labels with small labels in English pasted on. Shirakiku brand salTless shoyu, distributed by Nishimoto Trading Co, product of Japan. Ingredients: water, soybeans, wheat, alcohol to preserve freshness. This one tastes mostly like Japanese beer, but with a stronger malt flavor. There is also a soy flavor, but different from other soy sauces. I also have some Mitsukan Ajipon Ponzu citrus seasoned soy sauce, product of U.S.A., and one of my least favorites. Ingredients: Soy Sauce (water, wheat, soybeans and salt), water, distilled vinegar, lemon juice, high fructose corn syrup, salt, monosodium glutamate, citric acid, natural orange flavor, succinic acid, sodium benzoate (as preservative), disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate. Mizkan Americas, Mt. Prospect, Il. I have some Kikkoman Ponzu sauce, and it is even worse than the Miskan, but fairly similar in taste and ingredients. The winner of these is the Marudaizu Shoyu, for price and flavor. Lars

I don't marinate when I'm making chicken teriyaki. I simply bbq my (boneless)chicken, slice it, and then top it with a sauce, like we used to do at the Japanese restaurant where I worked. If you made it this way, you could please your son and serve yourself sauce on the side to dip in as you liked (or not.)It also gives any other guests the control over how much sauce they use, which is nice because everyone's taste for salt is different. At the restaurant, they simmered chicken bones in equal parts of sake and soy sauce, with sliced ginger (appx. 4 or 5 thin slices per cup of soy) and sugar to taste. Straining out the bones and ginger slices, they then thickened the sauce to a thin-gravy thickness with corn starch. The owners were from Yokohama, and their sauces tended to be a good deal sweeter than those of many other restaurants. For myself, I tend to water down the soy with some chicken stock as well, as the style of sauce I loved so when I worked there has become really too salty for me now. Teriyaki is a very forgiving sauce, because you can always add a bit more of this or that until you get the flavor the way you like it. Be sure and use a Japanese soy sauce, such as Kikkoman or Yamasa rather than Chinese, because the flavor is different. To make teriyaki sauce into a nice stir fry sauce, add a good amount of finely grated fresh ginger (appx. 1 T per cup of soy). Then stir fry your meats/vegetables/tofu, add the sauce and thicken with a little corn starch slurry. This dish is called Shogayaki (Shoga is ginger).