Sorry for the late reply to your post, I got tied up with something
else.

> Hah - up near the Scottish border, ar' ye? We have a couple correspondents
> over the water there. Here's hoping they'll chime in.

Scotlands about an hour and a quarter's drive, Londons 3 to 4, were a
VERY small country, on a map it looks like were close to Scotland, but
we never really think of it as such.


> Actually you and I have a similar problem. Please google back in this
> group for my message "On Single Use One-Piece Jar/Lids" .
Yes, i think we do have the same problems, i think I've "cracked it"
with them, and once I'm satisfied it works as planned, will post here
the way i do it.

> I haven't used any yet, been sick, but I plan to use them the same way I
> would use one piece lids, being esp. careful to leave enuf room so the jars
> don't clank together. I feel that the mechanical business of the seal should
> go as planned. When one uses boiling water bath processing, clean hot jars
> & lids are all that's necessary, as the bwb will sterilize the insides &
> product & all. We mostly find it useful to store our clean jars for a batch
> in the big stockpot we use for the bwb with perhaps the lids simmering in a
> smaller pot on the back of the stove.


Similar, but not the way i plan to do it.

> The very most important thing here is for you to decide whether to bwb or
> pressure can your product. The acid reading is very important. I believe
> there are enuf brewers on the Isle that you should be able to purchase a
> brewer's pH meter (with calibration supplies or service). It will be worth
> your life. The worst (most lethal/severe) of food borne pathogens, botulism,
> needs a no oxygen, lower acid, room temp enviornment. Yes the cupboard full
> of home canned stuff.

Yes, a decent pH meter is planned.

> So. Hot pack was used for years and continues to be used for high acid
> fruit products (not all fruits are high acid!). But it is not recommended by
> our US Dept. of Agriculture, nor us. There are also molds that can invisibly
> infect the wax seal business that also was used for years. It's not just the
> mold, but the leetle mold feelers that you can't see that can make some
> people extremely sick.
> And never, never bwb veggies or meat. Y'all just asking to see The Pearly
> Gates.

Hmm, my recipie uses veg (onions, peppers), I hadn't planned to
pressure cook them.



> Pressure canning (and not the pressure cooker necessarily) is a horse of a
> little different colo(u)r we will get into if you want.


I think i may have to.

> Feel like posting your recipe? It may be alike enuf that we could *advise*
> you what we would do. Most of us here are just experienced and not real food
> scientists with buckets of test equipment. I would venture to say that your
> chilli sauce and *my* chile sauce and some other Texan's chile sauce are all
> very different things.

Yes, my chilli sauce is different from just about any other, not just
the ingredients, but the heat.

In the UK we have a lot of "Indian" restaurants, I'm not sure if you
have as many (or even any) in your country, but over here most towns
have a number of restaurants, and an even higher number of takeaways.

They are renowned for making hot curries, a vindaloo is generally
considered the hottest most people will try, but for the total sadist
there is something even hotter (at least in our area) called a "Phal",
generally these are only (attempted to be) eaten by a) idiots, b)
drunks , c) true chilli heads

One of my friends falls into category C, and only ever eats a "Phal",
he tells me that my Chilli Sauce is of a similar heat.


> How'd I do?
Hey, not bad .

> Edrena