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 Post subject: Red pepper paste?
PostPosted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 11:58 pm 
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Location: Portland, OR
Folks,

How would you jar red pepper paste? I make this a fair amount for Turkish/Bulgarian food, and it takes a long time (about 4 hours). I'd really like to make a very large batch and jar it, but I'm afraid as a low-acid food it would be unsafe. It's basically just peppers, garlic, salt and caraway. Thoughts?

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 Post subject: Re: Red pepper paste?
PostPosted: Fri Jan 23, 2009 6:10 am 
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Location: New York outside NYC
The canning police will tell you it can't be done safely because there is no food extension approved method (that I can find anyway). I personally would freeze it in small baggies. In the amount to be used.

That said, there is a method for canning sweet peppers, flat pieces not paste, which involves 25 minutes in a pressure canner and lemon juice. Look for Putting Food By 4th edition Rev. or later.

Note: Try this on an unwelcome guest first.

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 Post subject: Re: Red pepper paste?
PostPosted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 1:44 pm 
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NTSC,

Yeah, I have a copy of PFB. I was trying to avoid a pressure canner; if I have to get one of those, I'm simply not going to bother jarring the stuff. It's been my experience that PFB is seriously paranoid when it comes to canning safety -- I was wondering if I could get away with breaking their rules. If I use Ball jars, won't the lids pop if anything contaminates them, even botulism?

I suppose I could freeze it, if I had any room in the freezer (no). Oh, well, I have until next August/September to figure something out.

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 Post subject: Re: Red pepper paste?
PostPosted: Sun Jan 25, 2009 2:43 pm 
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My understanding is that it is possible for what appears to be a perfect jar to be contaminated with botulism. Not likely, but possible. The spores need to be heated to 240 F in order to kill them. The toxin itself can be destroyed by boiling the contents of the can for 10 minutes before consuming.

If you really want to perserve this stuff, you might look into how much salt it would take to render the paste inhospitable. If it's going into food, you may be able compensate by using less salt in the overall dish.


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 Post subject: Re: Red pepper paste?
PostPosted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 5:40 am 
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Location: New York outside NYC
PFB is the least paranoid of the books I use, they even give instructions on how to create your own receipes. In this case the paranoia is justified.

The Ball site even has one regular poster, he comes across as site staff but isn't, who tells people any variation is unsafe and should be not used. This includes variations explicitly listed in the instructions. He is unable to explain what the criteria are for food safety and why Ball is an acceptable site on canning, but no other commercal site is.

The dome of the lid being down indicates only that the jar still has vacum, botulism doesn't care and will give no indication of taste or visual, and is a nerve toxin.

There are some, by no means all, pressure cookers, that will can. Presto makes at least one, but a normal canner is a bulky object about the size of a 20 qt stock pot. Of course it will work as a big stock pot. That is why I suggested freezing.

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