Onions and Garlic
Onions for catsup need not be carefully peeled, as a little peeling will not impart any foreign taste. It is well, however, to remove that part of the peeling which is dry and comes off easily. The finishing machine will remove that portion of the peeling which is left.
The sweet Bermuda onions are not as good for catsup as are the stronger kind, as it takes too many of them to impart a distinct onion flavor. The onions should, of course, be washed if they are not clean when taken from the sack. Some firms use an onion washing and peeling machine and they like the machine very much. A coarse grinding of the onions is sufficient.
Some packers use garlic and some do not. Garlic is treated in exactly the same way as onions but should be ground rather fine. The cloves of the garlic should be removed from the enveloping tissue, but it is not necessary to separate the individual cloves from the hard, fibrous coating which surrounds them.
Onions and garlic should be added as soon as all of the tomato juice for the batch is boiling in the kettle. For a 100 gallon batch, two gallons of chopped onions and ½ lb. of ground garlic are about the right amounts. Ground onions and garlic should not be left standing over night, as they get black and lose their flavor. In cases where some are unavoidably left over, they should be covered with vinegar and salt.
Sugars
The sugars most commonly used in catsup are granulated cane, clarified cane, granulated beet, and raw, unrefined sugars.
The purest of these are granulated cane and granulated beet, which are equally good. There is a prejudice against beet sugar by many people in the east, who think it is not as good as cane sugar, but this is a mistaken idea. Any food chemist will tell you that they are the same, and are equally good. All granulated sugar, whether cane or beet, must contain at least 99.5% of sucrose (pure sugar) to comply with the federal standard. And remember that sucrose is sucrose, whether derived from sugar cane or sugar beet. Almost all granulated sugar will test 99.8% sucrose, which is slightly above the minimum established by the government. This leaves a negligible quantity of impurities, which in the case of beet sugar are derived from the beet, and in cane sugar from the cane. If there is any difference between the two sugars it lies in this very minute quantity of impurities and such a difference can surely not be objected to. Granulated sugar, whether cane or beet, is the purest food article in commerce.
Clarified cane sugar is not quite as pure as granulated, but when used in catsup will make equally as good a product as granulated will; however, as the percentage of sucrose is not so high, a little more of it has to be used. A considerable saving can often be made by buying clarified instead of granulated sugar, but the purchase should be made on polariscope test, so the buyer knows exactly what he is getting.
Raw sugars are slightly less pure than clarified, although there is very little difference between the best grades of raw sugar and clarified. Good centrifugal raw sugar will contain about 96.5% of sucrose. The lower grades of raw sugars should not be used, as they are dark and will darken the catsup to some extent, but there is scarcely any color to the better grades, and they give good results. The use of raw sugars often permits quite a saving on the sugar bill. They should be bought on polariscope test, and when received should be tested against the sample on which they were bought.