sauce - refrigerated or not?

What about the ketchup sitting on the table in your local restaurant?????

the sauce will be safe depending on the acidity... I forget what the metric is, but it must be above a certain level, I think... I can look it up in the food safety book if you want...

If it has lotsa vinegar and or tomato not to much can grow in it due to the acid! I have kept mine in plastic milk jugs for over 6 months before. Almost as good as new accept that mine thickens because I use dehydrated onions. I just add a bit of water and off we go!

I took a sample of my sauce to a bottler to check the ph for bottling and it came much below the danger of about 4.0. I think mine was 3.4.

Also, hot peppers help with stability. When in doubt, throw in some habaneros...LOL

maybe I'll just fill all the bottles with Dave's Insanity Sauce to be safe. no germ would come within a hundred miles.

thanks, all.