To make hot sauce in bulk, write the recipe by weight as percentages, cook it in a kettle sized to the run, blend it smooth, and check the pH of every batch before it's bottled. Hot sauce is an acidified food, so the bulk run follows the process a process authority set: the same vinegar share, the same pH limit, the same fill temperature, whatever the batch size. Done this way, a hot sauce maker that cooked 20 pounds on the stove makes 200 in a day, and the cost of a 5-ounce bottle falls from $2.77 to $1.30. Below is the recipe at three sizes, the steps, the cook loss, what a bottle costs at each size, and a free scaling calculator.
The short version
- Weigh every ingredient once and turn the recipe into percentages.
- Keep the vinegar share the process set; it holds the pH down.
- Cook in a kettle sized to the run, then blend smooth.
- Check and record the pH of every batch before bottling.
- Hot-fill at the process's temperature, cap and invert.
- Weigh what comes out and use your real cook loss to cost a bottle.
- TaroStack keeps the recipe by weight, takes each batch's ingredients off stock and checks its yield. More below.
The recipe, by percentage
Blue Ridge Hot Sauce, the made-up hot sauce maker in Roanoke, Virginia, I use in these examples, cooked 20 pounds at a time on a stove until a grocer started ordering by the case. The recipe, weighed:
| Ingredient | % of the mix | Kitchen batch, 20 lb | One batch, 100 lb | The run, 200 lb | Cost a lb, bought in bulk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Distilled vinegar, 5% | 40% | 8.00 lb | 40.0 lb | 80.0 lb | $0.30 |
| Red jalapeños and habaneros, stemmed | 35% | 7.00 lb | 35.0 lb | 70.0 lb | $1.80 |
| Carrots | 10% | 2.00 lb | 10.0 lb | 20.0 lb | $0.55 |
| Onion | 5% | 1.00 lb | 5.00 lb | 10.0 lb | $0.50 |
| Garlic | 4% | 0.80 lb | 4.00 lb | 8.00 lb | $2.80 |
| Sugar | 3% | 0.60 lb | 3.00 lb | 6.00 lb | $0.60 |
| Salt | 2% | 0.40 lb | 2.00 lb | 4.00 lb | $0.40 |
| Lime juice | 0.8% | 0.16 lb | 0.80 lb | 1.60 lb | $2.50 |
| Xanthan gum | 0.2% | 0.04 lb | 0.20 lb | 0.40 lb | $12.00 |
| The whole mix | 100% | 20 lb | 100 lb | 200 lb |
The 200 pounds cost $202.40 in ingredients. Vinegar is 40% of the weight and peppers most of the cost. The vinegar share isn't a matter of taste here: it's part of what keeps the sauce's pH where the process says. How the process is set is in process authority letter.
The steps, at 200 pounds
- Stem and weigh the peppers. Gloves on; 70 pounds of stemmed peppers for the run.
- Cook by the kettle. Peppers, vegetables and vinegar simmered until soft, 100 pounds a cook.
- Blend smooth. An immersion blender in the kettle, then the xanthan whisked in for body.
- Check the pH. On a meter calibrated that morning, below the process's limit, and written on the batch; a batch that reads high gets more vinegar and a second reading. How to test is in pH testing for acidified foods.
- Hot-fill. Bottled at the fill temperature the process sets, capped, and laid on their sides or inverted to heat the cap.
- Weigh what comes out. Over three runs, the kettle loses about 8% to steam.
- Label with a lot code. Every bottle from the run carries the run's lot and date.
The run takes one person about 10 hours, most of it stemming peppers.
What a bottle costs at each size
| Per bottle | Kitchen batch, 20 lb | Bulk run, 200 lb |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredients | $0.59 (grocery prices) | $0.34 (bought in bulk) |
| Packaging | $0.85 | $0.62 |
| Labor at $20 an hour | $1.33 (4 min a bottle) | $0.34 (1 min a bottle) |
| Cost of a bottle | $2.77 | $1.30 |
Peppers by the case from a farm and vinegar by the drum cut the ingredients by more than a third, and the labor falls by three-quarters. The bottle, cap and label don't fall much, and become the biggest share of a bottle's cost. Pricing a bottle is in how to price hot sauce.
The pH, every batch
An acidified food is made under a process filed with FDA and supervised by someone trained at an approved school, and each batch's pH is recorded and kept (21 CFR 108.25, 114.10, 114.100). A bigger kettle doesn't change the process; a new recipe does, and goes back to the process authority. The production steps are in hot sauce production process.
Get the calculator
Download the hot sauce scaling calculator. Two sheets: scale the recipe, where you type each ingredient's percentage and cost a pound and the raw mix you want, and each ingredient's weight for the run fills in, with the kettle cooks, what comes out after the cook loss, the bottles it fills and the cost of each bottle; and weigh the loss, where what went in and came out over a few batches gives your average cook loss. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Three sauces, a run every other week, peppers from two farms, and a batch that read high. A sheet can say how much vinegar a run needs, but not which farm's peppers went into which run, what each batch's pH was, or whether the cook loss has crept up.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps the recipe by weight, takes each batch's ingredients off stock and checks its yield.
The recipe in the units you use. A recipe holds each ingredient by weight, with vinegar bought by the drum and used by the pound, and the cost of every bottle comes from what you paid. "What could I make right now" says how many runs the peppers, vinegar and bottles on the shelf allow.
Each run a batch. A run takes its ingredients off stock, records the lots of peppers and vinegar it used, and gets a lot of its own for the bottles, with how much came out good, how much was rejected and the labor minutes.
Yield checked from history. From your own batch history, TaroStack says whether a recipe yields what it claims and which ingredient's quantity is off, so a cook loss that creeps up shows in the numbers. A case of peppers that went soft is an adjustment with its reason, spoiled, and shows in the waste report.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredients for Wednesday's run | Multiply, then check the shelf | What could I make right now |
| Which peppers went into a run | Not written down | Lots recorded on the batch |
| The real cook loss | Weighed now and then | Good and rejected on every batch |
| Peppers gone soft | Thrown out, forgotten | Adjustment with a reason |
Recipes, batches, lots and yield are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.