re: Fav. Hot Sauce?

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I recommend picking up a $20 pH meter. You're probably fine, but you never know until you know. 4.6 is pretty critical. I test all of my hot sauces because I give a lot away and don't want to be the one responsible for someone else getting ill.

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Thanks for the heads up. I've given away probably a couple hundred pints over the years and nobody has ever gotten sick that I know of from using my pepper sauce, but it doesn't hurt to be safe.

I know I'm real fussy about stuff that is not set in a brine but canned in water. I will only do that in a pressure canner for safety reasons.

A friend of mine, who was totally unfamiliar with the canning process made a large batch of soup one day and called me the next day with a question.

He put the soup in Ball canning jars and secured the lids, put it in a boiling water bath and let them cool overnight, but the lids were bulging the next afternoon. I had to explain to him that processing that type food in jars requires pressure canning to keep bacteria from forming and spoiling the product. Lesson learned and he bought a pressure canner.