First, I need to clarify, I've tried the Ball Thai chili sauce recipe and it's truly horrendous. The best recipe for an authentic sauce I have found is found at this link: (http://wheatfreemom.com/blog/recipe-gluten-free-thai-sweet-chili-sauce/). I would really love to adapt this into something I am able to can safely.

So, my dilemma: It's my understanding that peppers have a low pH like tomatoes, where acid would need to be added. However, I was reading this page from UC Davis (http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8004.pdf) on canning peppers and none of the listed recipes say anything about adding lemon juice or citric acid. In fact, most of the recipes are basic water-bath canned and not even pressure canned (although there are a couple pressure-canning recipes too).

I suppose I'm just a bit confused. Again, I understand food safety is important, and I think that if I just follow the recipe and water-bath can it for 15 minutes (very low altitude) it will be okay. I'd just like some second opinions to make sure I'm not making too many assumptions here. If anyone has any comments or suggestions i really would appreciate it!!

The Thai Chili Sauce recipe from the blog calls for cornstarch - that's a no-go in canning. There's also too much water and not enough vinegar but here's the list of ingredients (just pulse the peppers in a food processor and boil for 5 minutes, I didn't copy the instructions b/c there were photos inserted). Maybe someone can help you get the acid to a safe level for BWBing (I'm assuming that's what you're looking for).

1 Tbsp minced fresh garlic

3 red chili peppers (she needs to specify size, this could be a Tbsp or a cup!)

1/2 cup sugar

3/4 cup water (decrease to 1/2C?)

1/4 cup white vinegar (increase to 1/2C?)

1/2 Tbsp salt

1 Tbsp cornstarch (omit)

2 Tbsp water (omit)

I do mine with 50/50 water/vinegar; That will be darn acidic, under pH of 3. Cook it, blend it, strain it and BWB jar it. You can add any number of dried herbs spices, sugar, salt etc according to your taste. JUST FOR THE FLAVOR. They will have no bearing on health /safety issue. You can also replace water with fruit juice, like pineapple if you like fruity flavor. I do that to.

Sweet Dried Chili Sauce

1 T. garlic, minced
3 medium dried chilis or 3 fresh chilis (adapt for the type of heat you desire)
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup vinegar (5% acidity - either white or cider will work)
(Cider will give it still sweeter taste)
1/4 t. kosher salt

2 T. Clear jel (NOT Sure-Jel)
4 T. water

In the blender, small food processor, or magic bullet mix the peppers with the 3/4 cup of water till blended. You can leave the seed in if you want the spicier flavor.

Add the chili mixture, garlic, sugar and vinegar to a saucepan. Heat to a simmer for 3 to 5 minutes.

Combine Clear Jel and 4 tbsp water in a small bowl and mix well. Bring chili mixture to a boil and whisk in the Clear Jel continuing to stir for one minute.

The sauce will thicken quite quickly. Remove from heat.

Fill jars with mixture to 1/2" headspace. Remove air bubbles with rubber spatula and refill to proper headspace if needed. Using a wet papertowel wipe the rims of the jars. Add hot lids and rings. Place in water bath canner and process once the water comes back to a full boil for 15 minutes.

***Not USDA approved***, but she did increase the vinegar and used Clear Jel instead of cornstarch.

I'm guesstimating the fresh chili peppers should be about 1/4 - 1/3 cup total. They are usually pretty small. If you wanted to use dried ones, I'd re-hydrate them in vinegar before blending. Then you could remove seeds or leave them in, depending on the heat level you want.

I'm tinkering with trying to recreate a Ginger Chili Sauce for canning (we seem to go through a lot of it, and at $6/12 oz. bottle, it gets expensive).

A couple of ideas to increase the acidity - I'm using dried minced garlic instead of fresh garlic, and re-hydrating it in vinegar instead of water. Even though I have 75 heads of fresh garlic from this year's harvest, I experiment with dried garlic.

I'm experimenting with the flavor of rice wine vinegar (4.2% acidity) instead of the water. It's pretty mild tasting, but adds acidity.

You could add fruit juice, like the pineapple juice that was suggested or lime juice in place of the water, but that would change the flavor a bit.

You can always thicken with cornstarch (and pour into a narrow-necked bottle if wanted) when you open a jar. I haven't found any local sources for Clearjel and it's not really worth buying online unless you use a lot of it.

Reducing the water would make it "thicker", but you don't get that silky saucy mouth feel without some type of thickener (meaning things like Clear Jel, cornstarch, arrowroot, etc.) I'm weird about texture in foods - I could like the taste, but if the texture doesn't appeal to me, I can't eat it.

I would think you could use Pomona Pectin as an alternative. Just a bit to slightly thicken the sauce. I'm tinkering with using golden syrup instead of sugar, too. I like the taste and it retains its viscosity even when heated.

@ajsmama: I did forget to mention that I plan on using clearjel instead of cornstarch!!

@malna: Thank you for that link!! (I couldn't figure out how to get the links to work in my post...) I was really having a hard time finding any recipe for canning, again, aside from Ball recipe.

I have both a pressure canner and a BWB, I'm just looking for a way to make this stuff (like malna said, I also go through a lot and it gets expensive to buy!!) safely! So it SHOULD be safe if I increase the acidity and BWB can it? Or should I just go ahead and pressure can it to be safe?

But if you increase the vinegar to 50:50 ratio, then you could safely BWB as in the sweet pickled pepper recipe, 1 Tbsp garlic is about 6 cloves, that's a lot for 1half pint (?) of sauce but you don't have the 7 lbs of peppers either. Maybe cut down the garlic?

The Ball recipe uses 36 cloves for 9 half pints - not as much as the recipe above. Do you object to the red pepper flakes and prefer to use fresh chiles? Or is it too vinegary? As malna said, the garlic is the thing that makes it hard to acidify.

Ball Thai Chili Sauce (from freshpreserving.com):

1/2 cup finely chopped garlic (about 36 cloves)
1 Tbsp salt
6 cups cider vinegar
6 cups sugar
1/2 cup hot pepper flakes
9 (8 oz) half pint glass preserving jars with lids and bands

Directions:

PREPARE boiling water canner. Heat jars and lids in simmering water until ready for use. Do not boil. Set bands aside.
COMBINE garlic and salt in a small mixing bowl. Set aside.
HEAT vinegar to a boil in a large saucepan. Add sugar, stirring to fully dissolve. Reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Add garlic mixture and hot pepper flakes, stirring well.
LADLE hot sauce into hot jars leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Wipe rim. Center hot lid on jar. Apply band and adjust until fit is fingertip tight.
PROCESS in a boiling water canner for 15 minutes, adjusting for altitude. Remove jars and cool. Check lids for seal after 24 hours. Lid should not flex up and down when center is pressed.

I'm hoping Dave will weigh in.

awesley's posts show some basic misunderstandings about pH, acidity, and safety that could easily lead to problems but that is a whole other discussion. And we are making several apples to oranges comparisons too that only add to the confusion.

So sticking to the original question you can make the modified recipe malna posted and just accept the remaining risk, or you can balance the water to vinegar ratio and make it somewhat safer or you can make the recipe of your choice and freeze it (which is what the guidelines recommend).

Dave

Commercial Thai Sweet Chili Sauce is merely peppers, salt, sugar and vinegar. Basically a hot pepper jelly without the pectin. It would be very easy to construct such a recipe safely using a standard jelly formula. Or make a pepper jelly using more than 50% honey. That won't jell regardless of commercial pectin.

I especially don't understand the need for water which raises the pH and dilutes the flavor.

Carol

So as long as the pepper mixture has the correct pH balance, and I process it for the correct amount of time, I SHOULD be in the clear? Again, I do understand that there is some risk since those recipes (aside from the recipe from freshpreserving, which is a truly terrible sauce IMO) have not been tested or approved... I hope I'm understanding this correctly! I'm still a beginner!

Could you add garlic when you open it?

%%%%%%%%%%%%%
pH of garlic is about 5.8.
That is considered acidic NOT basic, Although low acidic. But still acidic. Anything with pH of under 7 is acidic to various degree. In other words it is more acidic than your tap water (in general).

Take the extreme case, just treat garlic like water.
How much vinegar you will need to bring down the pH of neutral water to 3.8 ? ANSWER : Less than One part Household vinegar to 60 parts of water(approx). Now considering the higher specific gravity of garlic being solid ,lets us say that it is 3, even then a One part Vin to 20 part Wa. will have a pH under 3,8.

I wonder if there is somebody here with a reliable pH meter, to verify the above numbers.

But when you are using a 50/50 (vin/wat) solution (pH = 2.6), there is no way that a few extra garlic cloves can raise the pH to unsafe territory.
On top of all that, you are boiling it, cooking it. and jarring it !?

Well, in the final analysis, do what you want to do and follow any safety instructions that you want to follow.

If a food is above 4.6 pH it must be acidified to be BWBed, and garlic is particularly prone to carrying botulism spores.

That's why the few recipes for pickled garlic call for soaking, boiling and straight vinegar. The garlic is the issue in the Thai Chili Sauce, not a few (small?) chili peppers.

None of that is applicable here. In home food preservation pH has very different paramaters that need to be observed.

Dave