Plum Sauce - Smacking myself in the head!

Last year, I took the puree from the jelly bag after making plum jelly and turned it into a wonderful plum sauce. As usual, I researched several variations of recipes and threw together and adjusted as I went since none of the recipes call for plum puree, but for whole plums. The plum sauce turned out amazing - dark, smoky, sweet, spicy, salty, garlicky and a hint of ginger - better than barbeque sauce. It's even a nice dark BBQ sauce brown.

This year, I got smart in terms of the puree production and used a Kitchen Aid attachment to get all the pulp out of the skins and mush - I got quite a lot of pulp: 24 cups!

So, I started putting together the plum sauce - 8 cups of puree and 3 chopped white onions, and then started scouring my blog, bookmarks and print-outs for which plum sauce recipes I consulted. I came up with very little that indicates what inspired last year's delciousness and so far, the sauce isn't turning out quite the same. I'm simmering it down now - and I may add more plum puree and adjust it a bit more.

Here's what I have so far:

• 10 c plum puree
• 3 chopped white onions
• 3 T finely minced garlic (use the garlic press)
• 3 T finely minced fresh ginger (mini-food processor)
• 3 t Chinese 5 spice
• 1 small cassia cinnamon stick
• 4-5 star anise pods (unbroken - fish them out later)
  
• 1 t salt
• 1 c apple cider vinegar
• 2 c Sucanat
• 1/4 c (wheat free) soy sauce

Re-reading other forums and recipes, it seems like they all call for a lot more sugar and vinegar - I don't remember using so much last year. In fact, it seemed rather simple and I just wish I could dig up my recipe. I'll let it simmer for a while and then cool it down so I can taste it properly against last year's version - welcoming any advise on recipe adjustments.