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Canning hot sauce

7 years ago

Looking for a suitable mango hot sauce to either pressure or water bath, and I'm having trouble finding a recipe to work with that is "canning safe". They all seem to be freeze or refrigerate only.

Does this seem to be something that could work?

2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, minced
1 orange bell pepper, minced
4 garlic cloves, minced
3 habanero peppers, including seeds!
2 cups mango fruit, chopped
¾ cup vinegar
¼ cup honey

Comments (11)

annie1992
7 years ago
That seems to have sufficient acidity for the vegetables, but canning with oil is generally a "no-no". Do you intend to puree that, or cook it down? Density is also something to be aware of.

No one can guarantee you that it's safe, of course, unless you use a recipe from a trusted source that has been tested for home canning.

Why do you need oil in hot sauce anyway? I've made several kinds and none of them have had oil in them.

Annie
tnoort85
Original Author
7 years ago
I could easily do away with the oil, as I had planned. I've never used oil in hot sauce either, but maybe that's helps give the thicker texture. As for the method, I was thinking just puree. Although, cooking it down would be nice for the onion, I'm thinking i could get roughly the same results with puree.
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I am sorry to say this is an unanswerable question unless you are willing to pay someone to test your sauce. There's no way to eyeball your list of ingredients and determine if it's sufficiently acid or not. Though most of your ingredients are high-acid, it's like using a ouija board trying to determine by guesswork if there's enough acidity to compensate for the peppers. A lot of universities have small enterprise departments which work with people interested in marketing small batch food products. Some of them will test items for a fairly nominal fee; others don't. But it wouldn't hurt to check any state institutions that have food science programs. We have a couple of times had members who have taken that path with products they market. Carol
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When I assess a recipe for its "cannability" I consider more than safety. I also consider quality and economy. In this case I think both recipes fail on those counts. Both are easy to make year-round with commonly available ingredients (barring the habs) so in that regard the time and considerable expense of canning is a waste. Add to the waste the fact that such ingredients as peaches, molasses and mustard are already processed and preserved, so you're basically re-canning a mixture of preserved foods spiced up with habs. Secondly, the application of heat, particularly the heat of pressure-canning, is going to flatten the flavor. Peppers don't like excessive heat and neither do mustard and many spices. In the second recipe in particular you might be unpleasantly surprised at the flavor profile once that spiced mixture has sat on the shelf a while. My inclination would be to freeze or dehydrate the habs or can just habs in vinegar BWB (many recipes available on this forum for peppers in vinegar as well as at the NCHFP) then mix up the sauces "on demand." For gifting sauces like these could easily be made some weeks ahead and refrigerated. To answer the original question, the second sauce, Bob's, is probably fine for BWB and wouldn't require pressure canning. You have higher-acid peaches, yellow mustard and a good amount of vinegar. The problematic ingredients are the molasses and the peppers. But this is a guess and even if it were possible to can this I wouldn't for the reasons given. Canning stuff like this is a costly luxury. Carol
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melikeeatplants, you're correct, the live beasties are pro-biotics, good for you, and a live culture will live happily in your fridge until you consume it. I always keep a couple of 'live' quarts in the fridge then boil and can the rest. I should have clarified that boiling is kind of an essential step prior to canning or you end up with a real mess on your hands with jar contents going everywhere. Ask me how I know ….:) scott123456, Thats an interesting question. Botulism poisoning is extremely rare, I think there were 4 cases in North America last year. ,Almost all the cases here stem from non-acid canning with too low temperatures/times - its usually something pretty head-slapping like trying to can salmon using a camping stove, or water-bath canning your Great Aunts' asparagus, mushroom, and potato casserole dish from the 'Olde Country'. From Google, the last case was from prisoners trying to make home brew. You wonder what they were doing, can't find out the details. I've never heard of a case arising from home fermented food such as traditional brine home pickling, sauerkraut, kim chee, baking bread, making beer, wine, etc. The closest we can get to fermented pepper is following the standard process for making sauerkraut - which is officially approved by the very strict gurus at the USDA (or where ever they reside). Not that it couldn't happen, I suppose. However, according to the World Health Organization, heating any food at 180ºF for 5 minutes will destroy the toxin, the USDA suggests 20 minutes at normal boiling temps, but then they follow a different and far stricter statistical standard than elsewhere in the world. Which, IMHO, is a bit of overkill. I think they cater to the lowest denominator. Point being if you're worried about it, your 10 minute boil would destroy any toxin. Or 20 minutes if you're more comfortable with that. I've linked to somebodies blog who discusses the issue - hey, its the internet and somebody's blog. Try a google of 'botulism and sauerkraut', 'botulism and fermented foods'. Probably scare you off - I hope not. My personal opinion is that an exaggerated fear of the minuscule threat of botulism poisoning is keeping people from enjoying a lot of great food. My sister won't can peaches, for example, which is about as low risk as it gets. Statistically, you're far and away more likely to get food poisoning or botulism from a package of hamburger at the grocery store or eating in a restaurant. Edited to add that this is one reason to add kefir - you inoculate your mash with the good guys, who proceed to multiply so fast that the bad guys never have a chance. Here is a link that might be useful: link This post was edited by david52 on Tue, Aug 5, 14 at 17:04
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The cilantro does not get rotten any more or faster than the habaneros. If your sauce is acidic enough, it will be fine.
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digdirt2
7 years ago
The problem one gets into with puree is the unknown length of processing time needed. Density becomes an unknown then dealing with puree vs. diced/minced.Most of the approved recipes call for 15-20 min BWB processing but they contain more acid too.

This will be a do-at-your-own-risk recipe.

Dave
tnoort85
Original Author
7 years ago
So as far as a sauce of this type goes, you recommend I stick to the freezer/refrigerate? Don't try to can unless I'm open to getting sick?
digdirt2
7 years ago
Yes, sorry. Mangoes are not acidic fruit to begin with so it is hard to 'get by' using them vs. most other fruits. So when using them, plus all the other low-acid foods, that is likely why, as you said, most all the instructions are for fridge/feezer only.

Dave
tnoort85
Original Author
7 years ago
The low acid is why I was thinking pressure canning may be an option, and even more so with the added vinegar. I was really going out on a limb with this I guess.

Is there a limit on freezing time for something like this? I'm new to food preserving, we have always used or distributed for immediate use out of our garden, so this was never really something that was a problem until the garden expanded.

Thank you for all of the help.
digdirt2
7 years ago
Pressure canning might be an option but the problem is the amount of time needed has never been calculated. Closest I can think of would be peaches for 10 mins @ 5-10 lbs depending on altitude. But we don't know what the effect of PC would have on the mango quality in the end. Can't think of any mango PC recipes to even make at guess at it.

Freezer time - again a guess based on other fruits - would likely fall into the 6 - 9 month range. But that is based on the decline in color (darkens) and texture when thawed, not any safety issue. So safety wise it could easily be 1 year+.

Since you are new to food preserving please do keep in mind that the #1 rule in safe home food canning is that you cannot safely reserve your own recipes. Unlike with cooking there is too much science involved in canning to use recipes that are not first tested and lab approved for canning. So many thousands of approved recipes are available that it really isn't worth the risk of using unapproved ones.

Take the time to explore NCHFP (the canners primary source) for all the details.

NCHFP

Dave
tnoort85
Original Author
7 years ago
Luckily, I found this to be able to ask questions and get reliable answers from real people. I think I will continue to search for this sauce in a canning recipe. I will keep note of all of this for future reference, and really get into studying the source you sent.
annie1992
7 years ago
tnoort85, I think it's a very good idea to keep looking for a canning recipe that's similar, especially since you are new to canning. As you get more comfortable you'll find more recipes to try. (grin) At least that's what happens to me, I start looking for a recipe and find a dozen more!

Annie
tnoort85
Original Author
7 years ago
The sauce is about the only thing I haven't had any luck with. We are about to start the Apple butter in about an hour, just finished peach/blueberry jelly... Way better than store bought, we didn't know what we were missing, and my pickled hot peppers are already becoming my neighbors favorite. This canning thing is a ton of fun, and can't wait for the next. Now to start using the pressure canner.
annie1992
7 years ago
Yup, it's an addiction, and a delicious one!

The pressure canner will open up a whole new world, from soup to beans, meat, fish, all kinds of goodies. And then there will be more recipes, LOL.

Happy canning, I just took my yearly Fair entries in and this year we included Beer Jam made by my granddaughter, we'll see how that goes.

Annie

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