Across the world, people eat a broad range of meals accompanied with sauces. Do a 5-minute walk through any modern retail store, and you must encounter them. Scores of glass sauce bottles will glare back at you with tasty offers.
Many top brands use rugged glass sauce bottles for their sauces. But not all consider how to avoid contamination after opening the bottle. The Ikea glass sauce bottle is a notable bottle designed for pouring soy sauce. There are other glass bottles Ikea-like in standard, or near enough. They have caps and features that reduce contamination, and are easy to pour.
Do you look towards making sauces for home consumption or for sale? Get some recommended tips to prepare, bottle and preserve sauces in this article.
Sauces - What Are They?
A sauce is a food additive with some fluid consistency. A sauce should never be runny; rather it should cling to food. As such, it has a thickening agent as its base. Any agreeable combination of condiments, vegetables, fat, and broth can go into it. Corn, potato, rice, and wheat flours are common options for thickening agents. Aside from these, gelatin, arrowroot, melon seed, and agar are also useful.
Sauces help to incorporate enjoyable aromas, textures, and tastes into meals. Which makes it necessary to prepare several sauces at home. Like gravy or tomato sauce.
Quite often, we can use cold sauce straight from the bottle. Getting one from local stores reduces the need to make your own sauces. Like Worcestershire, soy, cocktail, sweet chili, BBQ, bechamel, Hollandaise, mustard, and fish sauces. Tomato ketchup, teriyaki, mayonnaise, chutney, french and salad dressings are very popular sauces.
Sauce recipes continue to evolve and multiply over the years. Now, there are hundreds of them. It is quite convenient to prepare and keep your favorite or signature homemade sauce. We recommend keeping them in glass bottles Ikea standard, or other high-quality types. This will lengthen its shelf life.
Recommended Bottles Types for Sauces
Clamp-lid glass jars and glass bottles are both useful for storing sauces. You might be able to buy superior glass bottles Ikea-like in standard. But custom-made glass sauce bottles exist. Such bottles are transparent and thick. They also come in sizable quantities for people to consume fast after purchase. They must also use airtight caps and informative labels.
The most popular types of bottle for commercially-made sauces are:
- Woozy bottles
- Wide-mouthed Woozy bottles
- Flasks
- Boston round
- Stout round
The Woozy bottle is cylindrical, with an extended neck. It is the most common of all. They often contain 5-ounce measures of sauce. A variation of it is the wide-mouthed Woozy bottle with a shorter cap.
Flasks have two flattened surfaces good for labeling, and short necks. Though less popular for sauces, they can hold up to 7 ounces.
Boston round bottles are another version of Woozy bottles. They have stout bodies and short necks. The Stout round is a sturdy and voluminous version of the Boston round.
For How Long Can Sauces Last?
Most commercially-produced sauces come in glass sauce bottles. The reasons are clear. Glass does not react with, or affect the quality of materials in it.
Thus, sauces sealed in quality glass bottles ikea grade may last for a year. And they remain in good condition at room temperature. It is wise to check the expiry date on the product packaging. The usage and storage instructions are also vital for your safety. But once you open any sauce, it is time to refrigerate it.
Opened bottles of each sauce below can stay fresh for the indicated period. This depends on its acidity - the more acidic, the longer it stays:
- Mayonnaise: 2 months
- Salad dressing: 3 months
- Ketchup: 6 months
- Typical hot sauces: 1 year
- Fermented hot sauces: 1 year and above
- Mustard: 1 year
While homemade sauces may remain unspoilt for between 2 weeks and 3 months. They must be well-sealed and resident in a refrigerator. Otherwise you cannot guarantee their freshness. In this regard, commercially-made sauces have an edge over homemade ones. Because they use better preservation techniques.
In any case, always check for moldy growths, slime, unpleasant odours, or taste. If you notice signs of contamination inside or over your sauce, ditch it fast. Better to stay safe than risk eating poisoned food.
Food Safety Tips for Bottling Sauces
Before you package sauces for sale, plan towards extending their shelf life. To prevent contamination:
- All your preparation tools must undergo careful washing and sterilization.
- Check the bottle quality. We advise that you get glass bottles ikea-like, or other sturdy ones. They should be heat resistant and have tamper-proof caps.
- Sterilize the glass bottles in any of the 3 ways below:
- 25-minute oven treatment at 175 degrees Fahrenheit
- 15-minute treatment inside boiling water
- 1-minute dip in sanitizing solutions
- Research and choose a suitable preservative for the sauce. It will increase the acidity, and stop microbes from feasting on the sauce. They include:
- lemon/lime juice
- vinegar
- citric acid
- salt
- sugar and
- sodium benzoate.
- Sauces need to undergo pasteurization. This 15-minute procedure entails immersing the bottled sauces in boiling water. Use tongs to pick the hot bottles from the pot. Then allow them to cool off at room temperature. This will wipe out every microbe and enzyme from the bottled sauces.
Conclusion
Sauces improve the texture, and add great flavours to food. There are hundreds of sauce recipes - both homemade and commercially-produced.
Aided by acidic preservatives, sauces can maintain their freshness for many weeks. Again, it is vital to keep sauces in sturdy sterilized airtight glass bottles or jars. And pasteurization will blot out every remaining contaminant.