Canning BBQ sauce?

[PitRow]

I had been planning on making some BBQ sauce to give away to some of my friends and figured I'd just put them in canning jars and tell them to 'fridgerate it, but last night the fiancee asked "Why not just can them so they don't have to be refridgerated?"

Good question.... I don't know nothing about canning, other than watching my grandma and mom can fruits and such when I was young. Did a little reading on here and figure being somewhat tomato based I could do canning if it has enough acid, but beyond that I'm lost.

I was hoping some of you guys and gals with way more knowledge than me could point me in the right direction as to figure out how much acid it would need and what times/temps/etc that I would need to do this right.

Thanks!

[Mark R]

Someone is going to come along and tell you it has to be a proven recipe to be safe. All the different ingredients change method. My Ball Book has a recipe....
Looks a lot like this;
http://www.freshpreserving.com/recipe.aspx?r=138

It has both lemon juice and vinegar to lower the PH, this is important.
Changing, adding or subtracting ingredients changes the equilibrium ph.

OK, in a nutshell, when you water bath can something, there has to be something that will inhibit germination of C.bot spores. In this case, its an acid, and the equilibrium pH would need to be 4.6 or less. There is no set way to just tell you how much to add. That is why a proven, safe recipe/procedure must be followed, unless you have access to a quality pH meter, and know how to properly use it. That would allow you to work up a recipe, and test it. I would strongly advise against pH test paper/strips. They tend to be erratic, depending on age and storage conditions.

This is from this thread were we
http://www.smoked-meat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16345

There is some good info in there.

[lcruzen]

If pressure canning it won't hurt the end product then I think that is the way to go. I canned green beans over the weekend in pint jars. Book that came with the canner called for 20 minutes at 10lbs of pressure. I would think that since you bbq sauce is tomato based that it will have a lower ph than green bean and the same method would work safely. When we get a run on fresh tomatoes I'll be canning some veggie juice of my own recipe and plan to use the same guidelines. How the end product turns out remains to be seen.

[curious aardvark]

what's in your bbq sauce ?

As a general rule this stuff is very acidic with masses of sugar and just never goes off.
I've got odd bottles (some opened) that have been in the cupboard for years, they just never go off.

The blackjack bbq sauce variant I make won't even freeze :-) Mind you it's got masses of both sugar and alcohol in it, also lots of ketchup so acidic as well.

Basically most well reduced bbq sauce is just not going to go off, whether it's been pressure treated or not.

In a milling years time when theres nothing left on earth but sentient scorpions and cockroaches, they'll be fighting over stores of bbq sauce :-)

[PitRow]

I do have access to a pressure canner if that helps... I doubt it'd degrade the quality any, it's already been cooked down on the stove for hours, so another heat cycle in a pressure canner shouldn't do anything to it I wouldn't think.

CA, i have several different ones I was going to can up, but the general ingredient list is:
Tomatoes (or ketchup)
vinegar
spices
sugar and/or molasses and/or honey
most have alcohol
one has blackberries

Mostly just variants of the amount and kinds of spices and how much sugar.

[IrishChef]

With a pressure canner you don't have to worry as much about acidity. Just be sure to follow proper procedures, and time/pressure guidelines for a similar type sauce.

[curious aardvark]

Basically it's gilding the lily - but can't hurt.

Bear in mind that once the sauce is opened whether it's been canned or not is completely irrelevant.

Low acidity, low water content, high sugar, honey - assuming it doesn't get eaten - it'll last forever anyway :-)

[PitRow]

Spent some time last night perusing what I could find on the internet and with the Ball Blue Book, and it seems that if i treat this as a low-acid mix and heat it with the pressure canner to 240 degrees the only variable is the amount of time needed for the entire mixture to reach 240 degrees to kill the spores and toxins, right?

Since it's a fairly homogeneous mix and not overly dense I'd imagine it'd be pretty quick, not like the hour and a half for meats. The one recipe for tomato sauce that was done in the pressure canner I found said it was only 10 minutes at 10 pounds. I'm thinking 15 or 20 minutes at 10 pounds should be plenty, especially since I'm only doing 1/2 pint jars. Maybe I'll run a small batch and pop one open right afterwards and stick the temp probe in the middle to see what the temp comes out at.

[blues_n_cues]

just pressure can it - i've seen a lot of regional brands do that lately.
a doilie (or however you spell it) between the cap & lid makes it even better.
go to walmart & get some of those adhesive name badges & print out your own label.

[curious aardvark]

all the boiling, acid, water loss etc will have already killed pretty much everything.

Canning can't hurt - don't see it's necessary, but what the hell it ought to cover you for h&s anyway :-)