Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Sterilizing food

Nerro - 27-1-2007 at 12:59

Hi,

For a while now I've been trying to find a properly hot sauce but everywhere I looked the best they had just wasn't hot enough. To rid myself of this frustration I took "If you want something done right..." to hand and took to making my own chili sauce. Some research turned up that usually it's a good idea to use some sweet fruit with hot peppers, sugar and vinegar to create the best sauces. I chose to use 1 Khaki Fruit, 2 halapeño's, 2 habanero's, 4 tablespoons of vinegar (5% HAc soln.) and 1 tablespoon of sugar with a tablespoon of cumin and another one of sweet chili powder.

Now the sauce has turned out pretty good already (made my gf cry :P) but a lot of sites state that it's nessecary to let the sauce stand for a while (opinions vary from a week to a month or even more) but since bacteria are everywhere I figure it's probably a good idea to sterilize or otherwise "pacify" the bacetria in my sauce. I think the vinegar might be holding them back already and perhaps capsaicin isn't good for them either but I'm not convinced that I won't smell the unpleasant odours of putrifaction as soon I open the jar in two weeks time.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I might preserve my sauce?

Levi - 27-1-2007 at 13:14

Does refrigeration defeat the purpose of letting it stand?

UnintentionalChaos - 27-1-2007 at 13:40

Letting it stand just allows the flavors to blend. This will occur in the fridge as well. Since the sauce contains vinegar, simply keeping it in a bottle will allow it to last for upwards of forever. There also seems to be something about hot peppers that makes them exceedingly immune to decay. My uncle is a massive pepperhead and can attest to that. I have some hot sauce in my fridge here at school that is effectively habenaros, vinegar, carrots (instead of fruit), salt, and a bit of lime juice. It is very good. I'm not sure how much this really relates to chem, though.

My uncle's hot sauces last years in the fridge without any decay at all. Commercial hot sauces are often just peppers, vinegar and salt and can last at room temperature for months.

Sugar doesn't work too well in sauces. Honey blends more nicely into the flavor, although I don't find that any is necessary. Another interesting addition is to find "chipotles en adobo" in mexican ethnic markets. They are smoked, ripe jalapenos in a vinegar-tomato sauce and are deliciously smoky in anything as well as fairly hot.

[Edited on 1-27-07 by UnintentionalChaos]

Nerro - 27-1-2007 at 13:44

Well, I have tabasco that's still good after months after being opened which made me wonder if indeed I need to sterilize the sauce at all. And since sterilizing food in general is a useful thing to know something about I figured I'd ask here.

Besides, if I were to ask in some cooking forum all the answers would be supplied by people who should not be allowed to leave the house without supervision or women, at least here one may find sensible people.

UnintentionalChaos - 27-1-2007 at 13:47

I cook better than most people I know, so I wouldn't be caught dead on a cooking forum. Haha. :D

[Edited on 1-27-07 by UnintentionalChaos]

BromicAcid - 27-1-2007 at 13:57

Maybe bring it to a boil if you are really worried about it to kill anything that might have already been festering. I can personally attest to the longevity of hot sauces as most people have already stated they seem to naturally inhibit the growth of bacteria either through salt content, acidity, sugar content, capsaicin, or the combination of these factors together. Be wary though. Be sure to wear proper personal protective equipment though.

Nerro - 27-1-2007 at 14:48

I've been looking into chili's a little more, here's what I found:
Quote:
source: http://www.medicinehunter.com/nfm.htm
Chiles and Foodborne Bacteria– Of the many health benefits offered by chiles, one of the most significant is their capacity to prevent foodborne bacterial disease. In a study published in the March 1998 volume of the Quarterly Review of Biology, researchers tested a long list of spices against thirty different harmful bacteria which can occur in foods. Chiles killed over 75% of the thirty germs in the study. The agent in chiles which appears to kill bacteria is capsaicin. In another study, capsaicin was found to inhibit the rare but sometimes fatal Vibrio vulnificus bacteria, which is found in raw shellfish. Eating chiles is not only a tasty and feel-good experience, but defends your body against nasty microbes as well.


Quote:
source: http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/research/ais/?ID=R/MB-2
Toxicity studies of two natural product antifoulants (NPAs): capsaicin and zosteric acid, were evaluated using both a standard Microtox assay and a static toxicity test. The EC50 values of various fresh water bacteria: P. putida and enriched bacteria isolated from the Lake Erie water, and marine bacteria: V. natriegens and V. parahaermolyticus, were found to the in the range of 3 to 23 mg/L for capsaicin, and 10 to 440 mg/L for zosteric acid. These values are substantially higher, meaning less toxic, than the currently used antifoulants, such as TBT (EC50 < 0.01 ppb).


Quote:
http://www.usaweekend.com/01_issues/010107/010107eatsmart.ht...
Hot peppers cure ulcers

False. Believe it or not, some medical researchers tout hot peppers as a new ulcer "cure." The reason: Bacteria called H. pylori cause most ulcers, and in test tubes, chili's capsaicin stops those bacteria dead. But not in human stomachs, Graham says. He recently fed people infected with H. pylori a meal laced with six sliced fresh jalapeños. The hot stuff had no effect on the ulcer-causing bacteria. Conclusion: It appears hot peppers don't cause, cure or aggravate ulcers.


Quote:
http://www.cosmicchile.com/xdpy/kb/chile-pepper-facts.htmlChilies can make foods safer - they are known to reduce harmful bacteria on foods.


Aside from pepper's apparant antibacterial effects many websites also allude to possible anti-inflammatory effects, positive effects on the spread of prostate cancer, it's ability to boost ones metabolism (to help you burn fat) and it apparently helps to dull pains by numbing the nerves.

@Bromic
"Wear proper protective equipment"?

unionised - 28-1-2007 at 08:00

In general food can be preserved pretty well by vinegar, salt, alcohol or sugar (or a combination). Since this will preserve food I guess it will also preserve chili sauce.
Heating the stuff would kill any bugs that were present and would also destroy some toxins that might have formed already. This doesn't solve all the problems because more bugs will get in each time you use the stuff.

12AX7 - 28-1-2007 at 09:14

Odd, I KNOW I left a reply to this thread, but it does not appear.

Is the forum going flakey again?

BromicAcid - 28-1-2007 at 09:23

Nerro, if this sauce is incredibly potent, the act of simply boiling it can lead to a find dispersion of the sauce as a mist. This mist, should it contact the eyes can lead to incredible pain. Although not a direct comparison I recently pan fried some chili's in oil. The microfine spray that came off them was enough to make me clutch my eyes shut in pain. So goggles might be necessary depending on the strength of the concoction.

On another note this thread inspired me to attempt to make my own hot sauce as well :D Funny thing was though I prefer a tomato based experience and opted to use diced tomatoes as my base, instead of hot sauce my final product was actually a salsa I realized, same consistency and such, still very god though ;)

There are also things you can buy from the canning industry that might be beneficial that contain certain agents that inhibit bacterial growth.

[Edited on 1/28/2007 by BromicAcid]

nitro-genes - 28-1-2007 at 16:24

Frying a large amount of garlic is also a painfull experience, although it doesn't last as long as with chili's.

Never kept my chilisauce in the fridge, I always assumed they stuffed so many preservatives into it that nothing could live on it. Ketchup is the same, keeps for months on end outside the fridge although it contains a lot of nutrients, makes you wonder what they all put inside...;)

unionised - 30-1-2007 at 12:57

"makes you wonder what they all put inside..."
Have you tried doing complex research on this, like reading the label?
just in case the labeling requierments are a bit thin where you live, here's some help.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup

nitro-genes - 30-1-2007 at 16:16

Hehe, nice cynical touch there...

Clearly you can't read the label yourself as well, since the label on my two bottles (important experiments should always be conducted in duplo) of ketchup and the chilisauce mention additions of potassium sorbate (potent anti-fungi and anti-yeast), lactic acid and citric acid (anti-microbial) as preservatives.... ;)

If you don't understand what potassium sorbate is, than here is some good information for you! :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_sorbate

unionised - 1-2-2007 at 12:18

My cynical side gets worse every day, that's why I'm about to point out that you have referred to both Ketchup and Chilli sauce without considering the possible differences.:D
More importantly, I'm suprised that the article on sorbic acid doesn't link to this rather pretty tree from which it gets its name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorbus
those more skilled than me in the art of Wiki edditing may wish to address this oversight.
BTW, I used to use sorbates for inhibiting secondary fermenataion when I made my own wine.

not_important - 2-2-2007 at 03:25

This might be of interest

Antimicrobial activity of some of the south-Indian spices against serotypes of Escherichia coli, Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes and Aeromonas hydrophila
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S1517-83822006000200011&...

It also refernces Chen, H.C.; Chang, M.D.; Chang, T.J. Antibacterial properties of some spice plants before and after heat treatment, which tested onions and chilies as well.

The low pH from the addition of organic acids inhibits the growth of many bacteria, lactic acid itself has additional toxic effects on many bacteria. Sorbic acid, on the other hand, inhibits the growth of fungi - molds and yeasts, cousins to the metazoa.

nitro-genes - 3-2-2007 at 10:08

Quote:
Originally posted by unionised
that's why I'm about to point out that you have referred to both Ketchup and Chilli sauce without considering the possible differences.:D


The point I tried to make was that the storageability from all kind of commercial sauces including chilisauce and ketchup are probably not derived from spices, herbs, vinegar or sugar, but from preserving additives instead. Fungi are much less affected by osmotic or acidic environments and can live of almost anything, were it not for some preserving additives like sorbates, lactic and citric acids, they would rock your chilisauce in no time. I simply named ketchup as another example because it was the first sauce that came to my mind...:P

I bet homemade chilisauce wouldn't store longer than 1-2 weeks in the fridgerator...

[Edited on 3-2-2007 by nitro-genes]