Does hot sauce need to be refridgerated?

[EdwardBernal]

What say you? At home we keep it in the fridge door. A guy a work that puts hot sauce on everything
keeps it in his desk...he says it keeps fine and the label on the Tabasco bottle does not say to do so as alot
of other food labels do.

 

[cnynrat]

We keep our tabasco handy on the counter without any ill effects

 

[UK4X4]

Hot sauces are usually inherently safe - the chilli eats bugs for breakfast

If you look arround the world the hot humid countries tend to eat hot spicy food

The people who did'nt eat chilli laced food died of food poisenning years ago

I have a home made hot sauce from 2004 in my kitchen its been added too over the years with diferent chillis I've aquired added a little oil and vinegar as its used.

its been shipped in containers on 4 occasions and been in 5 countries....I'm not dead yet !


I have seen issues with the milky based sauces.......maggots and the sugary ones you'd probably have to watch too.

 

[Photomike]

Was actually reading a bottle the other day that stated "To insure the best taste keep refrigerated", nothing about going bad.

 

[EdwardBernal]

Thanks for your responses guys - just read thru the sticky thread @ the top of the page on non perishables and saw that someone listed Sriracha
(Thai / Vietnamese ) hot sauce on there. THAT'S good stuff...

 

[dwh]

<grabs the bottle of Tapatio which is never out of arm's reach>

Nope, label says nothing about refrigeration at all.


As I recall, Sriracha used to be called Tuong Ot Sriracha and the label said it was made with serrano peppers. Last time I looked, they had shortened the name and it no longer mentioned serranos.

 

[Fireman78]

Nope! I used to take a bottle of Tapatio or Tabasco , wrap the heck out of it with ducktape, and keep it in my wildland fire pack all season.

Sent from parts unknown using my Droid Commando

 

[Hafwit]

As a connoisseur of various hot sauces, I can confirm that most of them can be safely stored at room temperature. I will point out that some of them may undergo color changes--such as Tabasco and Sriracha will both turn a darker color. This doesn't seem to correlate with significant flavor changes, and certainly I see no indication that they become "spoiled" with growth of any organisms. As with anything, there probably is a shelf life that you might wish to take into consideration; however it is my experience that shelf life (even if designated by a date on the bottle) is rarely a true indication of when something should be thrown away.

My $0.02

Cheers,
Greg

 

[Toyotero]

I've had hot sauces go "bad"... most recently last fall. I had them sitting on a window sill in the kitchen. It was a particularly hot summer in a rental house with a bad AC system, so they probably got to 100*F during the day (over 100F outside) or higher due to sun exposure. Most of the sauces changed color and a couple of them got stinky. They were not like rotten fruit stinky, more like spoiled oil stinky.

I now keep my sauces in the fridge, but I wouldn't at all be afraid to let them sit out for weeks on a kitchen table.

Generally speaking, I think that most have so much vinegar (such as Tabasco) that they are not hospitable to growth of bacteria. Those that are more water based are more susceptible.

Cheers,

 

[762X39]

I typically keep my hot sauces in the fridge because they seem to retain their potency better. One of the guys in our group is a hot sauce aficionado (carries a case of assorted hot sauces for use out in the field) and I noticed when I was over at his place that he keeps all the opened (about 50 different ones purchased all over the world) sauces in the 2 fridges.Since I consider him to be an expert in this regard, I will continue to follow his lead.

 

[EdwardBernal]

I typically keep my hot sauces in the fridge because they seem to retain their potency better. One of the guys in our group is a hot sauce aficionado (carries a case of assorted hot sauces for use out in the field) and I noticed when I was over at his place that he keeps all the opened (about 50 different ones purchased all over the world) sauces in the 2 fridges.Since I consider him to be an expert in this regard, I will continue to follow his lead.

Yep I will too at home - they dont take up too much space in the fridge. I asked mainly because I want to throw a bottle in my chuck box and wanted to make sure it would still be good when the time came to use it on campouts. I usually have 3 types on hand: Crystal, which is cheap, tasty and i use it most often. Cholula, my favorite "production" HS but a wee bit pricier but tastes GREAT and lastly, I usually keep a potent, habanero version that I rotate brands every so often we the need arises for a nuclear strike. This is the one I currently have in the fridge at home:

 

[dwh]

El Yucateco is so good. On pizza especially...it goes so well with melted cheese.

I like it better than the Belizian habanero sauce made with garlic and carrots that is sold under umpteen different names.

Don't get me wrong, I really dig the garlic and carrots stuff too.

I pretty much only use the vinegar based salsas on fish. For just about everything else I prefer the water based - not a big fan of vinegar at all.

 

[DreamingOfExpeditions]

Check your label. Generally if the first or second ingredient is "Vinegar" your good to go. I've seen some commercial hot sauce manufacture in my line of work and they usually macerate the peppers in vinegar and oak for 1 to 2 years, un-refrigerated. In the whole process there's no refrigeration either. So a couple of days here or there is not going to hurt your home sauce! Keep the lid tight and out of light and it will last a long time. There's enough acid and salt in these things to keep any nasties at bay.

 

[Black Dog]

And plus, do you think the hot sauce they put on the tables at Mexican restaurants ever gets refrigerated?

 

[762X39]

And plus, do you think the hot sauce they put on the tables at Mexican restaurants ever gets refrigerated?

Of course, hot sauce on the tables of Mexican restaurants usually don't last long enough for anyone to worry about refrigeration.