Canning question

[BetsyS]

I've always done my canning/preserving using tested recipes only.  I do take food safety very seriously, and I don't want to make anyone sick.  :)

However, I've got a family member that wants some of my barbecue sauce.  He lives 10 hours away, so canning it seems to be the best way to preserve it for him.  It seems that it would be safe for canning, but how do you know?  Is there a site that can help you figure out if a non-canning recipe can be preserved?  

The sauce is made of half ketchup, half vinegar as a base, with plenty of sorghum, worchestershire, hot sauce (made of vinegar), and spices.  So pretty acidic, which is what makes me think it would be okay.  But, I'm just not sure where to start looking to double check.  Any ideas?

[Adaline'sMama]

That can be canned for sure. Pretty much anything with a half vinegar as the base is going to be able to be safely canned. Honestly, ketchup is the only thing that would go bad outside the refrigerator anyway. Sounds yummy!

[kitchensqueen]

I've recently started to break out into untested recipes as well, and it's exciting and scary! I think Adaline's Mama is right in that it can be safely canned. If you're on FB, check out SB Canning's page. She's great and is super experienced and devotes a lot of time to helping canners get started, as well as answering questions. I believe she's a MFP so she knows her stuff. She comes from a follow-the-tested-recipes mindset too, so I feel the safety off her untested recipes is good. 

[cristeen]

Honestly, I wouldn't even bother canning that.  We never stored ketchup in the fridge growing up, and with the amount of vinegar in that, it'll probably keep just fine for quite a while.  Unless you're planning on shipping it, in which case I would at minimum seal the lid to avoid leaks. 

We used to make our homemade bbq sauce with a ketchup base (no vinegar), and store it in the pantry for as long as it lasted - up to a year.  It never did anything untoward (growing mold, fermenting, etc.). 

But to answer your question, if half your volume is undiluted vinegar, I wouldn't hesitate to hot water bath it.  Even my pickles (cucumber chips in a dilute vinegar solution) don't use that much vinegar. 

[Arduinna]

I can my homemade bbq sauce. I just follow the time in the Ball canning book for their recipe. Which IIRC is 15 minutes BWB method. I'd need to double check though to be sure of the time. 

[BetsyS]

Thank you everyone.