buying empty hot sauce bottles in bulk?

Anyone know where I can get my hands on 60+ empty hot sauce bottles? I've decided to make some hot sauces for holiday gifts but I'm having trouble finding a large quantity of bottles. Ideas?

Freund Container.

http://www.freundcontainer.com/

DAMMIT!!!!!!
I was looking for a few of these a few months ago. Went to the container store, and paid way too much for way too little. This will surely be handy next year for the next batch.

Again, American Science & Surplus In particular, the little triangular bottles (you can buy rubber corks there as well) are really cute, very gifty.

Although Freund container is located in Lisle, their warehouse is down in Streator (La Salle County). To save on shipping costs, they will allow you to pickup any size order at the warehouse. It is a good excuse for a weekday field trip to La Salle county.

@d4v3 Thanks for the tip! I may just have to place my order and take a short road trip.

@seebee Totally too much $$$ at the container store. I need to make ~20 gift packs with three bottles each. I love my friends but dropping $200 BEFORE buying the ingredients just isn't gonna happen.

peter and seebee --

I'd be curious to know your recipes/process for making hot sauce, if you don't mind sharing.

I'm a newbie. This year was my 1st batch, and did NOT use a recipe at ALL. I made 5 bottles, and have about a quart leftover. I gave it to five friends who all want more already. I'm kind of a hot pepper hound. I also make giardiniera every year, and every year, the people I give it to want more. I will put my giardiniera up against ANY.
My "recipe:"

This year, I grew habaneros and serranos. My CSA grower had a bumper crop of serranos and jalapenos which he practically gave to me for free (in return for a btl of said hot sauce, and two jars of giardiniera for himself along with a few more for some of his other customers.)

So, serranos, jalapenos, and habaneros. Quantity unknown, but I'd say the nearest other ingredient in terms of volume would be vinegar, and the ratio of peppers to vinegar was at least 5:1.
Vinegar
Salt
Onion powder
garlic powder
Cumin
paprika
ground chipotle
ground ancho
ground pequin
And I blended it all to be damned, adding water, and vinegar until it got to a slightly thicker than Louisiana, but thinner than Dave's Insanity consistency. Adjusted the salt content to having a good "tang" to it, but not SALTY. Once fridged overnight for flavors to meld, I adjusted again with garlic and onion powders, and salt.
Bottled it. (KEEP REFRIGERATED)
Got rave reviews for a first time batch. All reviews were basically the same. "It's good and hot, but it actually has FLAVOR."

I noticed that Freund now charges a $15 fee on orders under $75. Here is another company out of NY that I have ordered from that doesn't charge that fee, but their prices are a little higher, and they do have a $10 minimum shipping charge. I have gotten the 5oz. "Woozy" bottles for hot sauce from them, but they don't have the 3oz. "tabasco" style bottles.

http://www.sks-bottle.com/340c/fin18.html

Take a look at

www.chilipepper.com

They may have ads for suppliers of packaging, as well as sauces and peppers.

Are you guys canning the salsa in these bottles (e.g. when finished, will they be shelf stable?) or just using them as containers? If so, can you explain that process?

d4v3 wrote:Freund Container.

http://www.freundcontainer.com/

Ditto. At my place of business, we buy from Freund and dealing with them is always pleasant. While we don't buy glass bottles, we do buy several of their poly products and they hold up very well. Lids seal effectively and we have experienced very few breaks or cracks. Pricing is excellent; Freund usually comes in below most of their competitors for identical items. Customer service is courteous and responsive.

=R=

As far as recipes go, I've been playing around with some I found on http://www.chefnorm.com/hotsauces.html for a while now. The Volcanic has kept for months and still tastes pretty good in the 'fridge. I'm planning to make that one.

I also make a tomatillo-garlic-jalapeno one that, like seebee, has no real recipe (what's in the fridge today?) except for about a 4:1 or 5:1 radio of veg to vinegar. Interesting to note that if you mince a carrot (I run it over my microplane) and add it to a hot sauce, it adds texture and sugar, so you can sometimes skip adding white sugar. I usually find I need to add a bit of sugar along with a bit of salt to round out the sauce.

I'm undecided what my third one will be for the gift pack, but I've got some time to get it together. I have a giant bag of chili powder from a kimchi project I did (turned out delish) along with way too much brick chocolate, so I'm sure I'll figure out how to use them in a new sauce. Will post the recipe when it comes together.

As far as bottles go, glass Woozy are the easiest for me. I have a few and have had no trouble filling them. The mock tabasco ones are nearly impossible to fill at home. The top is just too small to be practical.

I'm not planning to process any of them. I've found that sauces with lots of acid (vinegar) keep well in or out of the 'fridge. My dishwasher also has a sterilize cycle, so I'll run them through that and be done with it. Haven't had any problems thus far, but YMMV.

If the hot sauce has a high enough vinegar content, it should keep. The bottle caps have a foam insert that seals pretty well. I usually heat the sauce up very briefly before pouring it into the bottle, which makes it seal better when it cools. You can also get shrink bands to seal the caps. The main problem is that without preservatives, the sauce tends to lose color and separate over time, which makes it look very unappetizing. I have a very small funnel that fits the 3oz. bottles fine, but those bottles are best suited for thin sauces.

Bumping this thread because I'm looking for a small quantity of bottles, no more than a dozen, and I'm hoping to find them tomorrow (Sunday), as I just harvested all the peppers I have and have time tomorrow to make sauce.

The Container Store doesn't have any bottles less than 12 oz, nothing at Ikea, Hobby Lobby has only plastic bottles with screw-on caps (used for sand art), nobody else has anything other than ball jars.

I'm thinking the Oil and Vinegar shop in Old Orchard...
Any others?

Seriously - AS&S

Mhays wrote:Seriously - AS&S

I realized I'd neglected the previous post in this thread that suggested American Science and Surplus right after I hit "Submit"
Looks like a drive down to Milwaukee & NW Highway tomorrow morning.