The words, in the order you meet them
Updated
Before you make anything
Acidified food: a food with low-acid ingredients brought below pH 4.6 by adding acid. Most hot sauce. Carries federal requirements.
Low-acid ingredient: above pH 4.6 on its own. Peppers, garlic, onion, carrot.
Process authority: the qualified party who establishes that your process makes a safe product.
Scheduled process: the document they issue. Critical limits and the records proving you met them.
Cottage food: a state exemption for certain low-risk foods made in a home kitchen. Generally excludes acidified foods.
Copacker: someone who manufactures your product to your specification in their facility.
Making it
Mash: crushed peppers, usually salted, often fermented.
Equilibrated pH: the pH after acid has fully distributed. The measurement that counts, not the one taken while stirring.
Hot fill and hold: filling at temperature and holding the closed container inverted so the product's own heat treats the closure and headspace.
Headspace: the deliberate gap between product and cap.
Yield: bottles actually produced per batch, which is not what the recipe arithmetic predicts.
Water activity: available water, not water content. Below about 0.85 most pathogens cannot grow.
Acidity and safety
pH 4.6: the line. Below it Clostridium botulinum cannot grow and produce toxin.
Capsaicin: the compound responsible for heat. Oil soluble, not destroyed by cooking, concentrated in the placenta rather than the seeds.
Scoville: a heat scale originating as a dilution test. Wide ranges per variety; a poor label claim.
Batch code: the identifier on the bottle that ties to the batch record. What scopes a recall.
Selling it
Woozy: the standard tapered five ounce hot sauce bottle.
Orifice reducer: the fitment in the neck that doses a drop at a time. Must suit the viscosity.
Neck finish: the diameter and thread specification, such as 24-414. The only thing that determines whether a cap fits.
Liner: the disc inside the cap that makes the seal.
Keystone: the wholesale convention of roughly half of shelf price.
Principal display panel: the label face the customer sees. Where identity and net quantity must appear.