Official Hot Sauce Making Thread

*be still my beating heart*

Glad I found this thread.

*starts data mining the thread*

jgln said:

Did you do that on purpose or was it because you had heat in your head/heat

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I wish it were intentional, just my ADD taking over.

OK, so I made the sauce on saturday night, and it's awesome! I made it a little differently though, here is the ingredients list:

1 dozen unripened hungarian wax peppers
5 ripened hungarian wax peppers
4 ripe habanero
3 ripe super chillis
1/4 cup chilli flakes
2 tbsp cayenne pepper
1 large onion
1 large sweet potato
2 roma tomatoes
5 heads of garlic
2 tbsp thai black bean paste
1/2 cup dark ale
3 large dashes of worchestershire (in lieu of vinegar)
olive oil
salt
pepper

I smoked half of the peppers and tomatoes with applewood, and roasted all of the garlic in the bbq. The potato was roasted with olive oil and skinned. The rest of the ingredients were sweated in a large pot, then food processed. The sauce initially tasted hot enough (it's pretty mild, I want to be able to use copious amounts of it) but needed salt, so I added salt to taste, but then it was lacking something in between, there was the citrusy heat of the habaneros and the roasted garlic/salty flavour. The potato helped meld the flavours together really nicely, but it needed something stronger that had a nice neutral taste. So I raided the condiment corner of the fridge and found the black bean paste. It is usually used to Tom Yum Goong soup and other thai recipes, and I thought it would be good in there. So right I was! It perfectly balanced all the flavours and brought the sauce together really nicely. My gf who doesn't like hot sauces loves it, she can manage to put a few dabs on her food, and it really adds a great smokey garlicky flavour to food. This morning I smothered my eggs with it, and it is perfect; great heat, not enough to make me sweat, but it gives me that nice warm feeling, and the taste is really fantastic!

9am53 said:

I am glad I found this...funny how similar us homebrewers are eh?

I have made many hot sauces using papayas and mangoes, but recently found a chili sauce that I really liked, and though I would make more of a salsa type sauce that I can slather on chicken and eggs in large quantities, that is full of flavour and only medium heat. Quantities of ingredients will be improvised and jotted down during cooking, so these are just ballpark estimates.

1 dozen unripened hungarian peppers
5 ripened hungarian peppers
2 ripe habanero
3 onions
3 large sweet potatoes
5 roma tomatoes
5 random heirloom tomatoes from the garden
3 heads of garlic
dark ale
olive oil
salt

I am planning on smoking half of the peppers, and half of the tomatoes over applewood, half of the onions will be carmelized in olive oil, and the sweet potatoes will be roasted with olive oil. The garlic will be roasted as well. Once this is all done I will throw it all in a pot and add my dark ale to adjust sweetness and consistency. This will cook down, cool, and food process. I thought the roasted garlic and roasted sweet potato and smoked pepper and tomato flavours would be nice and round and robust and would complement the heat and sharpness of the peppers.

what do you think?

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9am53 said:

OK, so I made the sauce on saturday night, and it's awesome! I made it a little differently though, here is the ingredients list:

1 dozen unripened hungarian wax peppers
5 ripened hungarian wax peppers
4 ripe habanero
3 ripe super chillis
1/4 cup chilli flakes
2 tbsp cayenne pepper
1 large onion
1 large sweet potato
2 roma tomatoes
5 heads of garlic
2 tbsp thai black bean paste
1/2 cup dark ale
3 large dashes of worchestershire (in lieu of vinegar)
olive oil
salt
pepper

I smoked half of the peppers and tomatoes with applewood, and roasted all of the garlic in the bbq. The potato was roasted with olive oil and skinned. The rest of the ingredients were sweated in a large pot, then food processed. The sauce initially tasted hot enough (it's pretty mild, I want to be able to use copious amounts of it) but needed salt, so I added salt to taste, but then it was lacking something in between, there was the citrusy heat of the habaneros and the roasted garlic/salty flavour. The potato helped meld the flavours together really nicely, but it needed something stronger that had a nice neutral taste. So I raided the condiment corner of the fridge and found the black bean paste. It is usually used to Tom Yum Goong soup and other thai recipes, and I thought it would be good in there. So right I was! It perfectly balanced all the flavours and brought the sauce together really nicely. My gf who doesn't like hot sauces loves it, she can manage to put a few dabs on her food, and it really adds a great smokey garlicky flavour to food. This morning I smothered my eggs with it, and it is perfect; great heat, not enough to make me sweat, but it gives me that nice warm feeling, and the taste is really fantastic!

Click to expand...

Looks like a lot of work, probably too much for me, but I am sure it is good. Although I don't care for cippolte (sp?) pepper sauce which I believe is made from smoked peppers. I got a couple of shopping bags of ripe peppers sitting on the kitchen table waiting for me. I bet by the end of the season I have at least 5 gallons of hot sauce/wing sauce. Between the peppers and the tomatoes I am really busy.

jgln said:

Looks like a lot of work, probably too much for me, but I am sure it is good. Although I don't care for cippolte (sp?) pepper sauce which I believe is made from smoked peppers. I got a couple of shopping bags of ripe peppers sitting on the kitchen table waiting for me. I bet by the end of the season I have at least 5 gallons of hot sauce/wing sauce. Between the peppers and the tomatoes I am really busy.

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cippolte?

Do you mean "chipotle" aka a smoke-dried jalapeno?

Randar said:

cippolte?

Do you mean "chipotle" aka a smoke-dried jalapeno?

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Yeah, that is why I added the (sp?) meaning I was not sure of the spelling...and too lazy to look it up.

Years ago I remember making a batch of hot sauce with my leftover pepper crop. I let it sit in jars in the fridge for a month with the intention of straining it into bottles. Unfortunately I freaked myself out by reading up on botulism and tossed it out. There wasn't a whole lot of information on the net about it back then, and I had no clue about pH.

Tried another couple of batches over the years, with limited success. Mostly, I just didn't care for the flavor. Must persist.

I would like to make my own again this fall with some home-grown habaneros. Habaneros are fascinating to me because they have such a great flavor. I just need to come across the right recipe!

Chuginator said:

Years ago I remember making a batch of hot sauce with my leftover pepper crop. I let it sit in jars in the fridge for a month with the intention of straining it into bottles. Unfortunately I freaked myself out by reading up on botulism and tossed it out. There wasn't a whole lot of information on the net about it back then, and I had no clue about pH.

Tried another couple of batches over the years, with limited success. Mostly, I just didn't care for the flavor. Must persist.

I would like to make my own again this fall with some home-grown habaneros. Habaneros are fascinating to me because they have such a great flavor. I just need to come across the right recipe!

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Try Trinidad Perfume if you want a similar flavor with no heat, you can always add habanero to up the heat but get that flavor.

Interesting! I don't have any of those planted, so I'm going to stick with habaneros this year, but will keep the Trinidad in mind for next year. Thanks!

Chuginator said:

Interesting! I don't have any of those planted, so I'm going to stick with habaneros this year, but will keep the Trinidad in mind for next year. Thanks!

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Yeah, they kind of look like them both in fruit and plant so they must be related somehow.

Trinidad Perfumes sound awesome. I love habeneros but most of my family can't take their heat. These have the same citrusy flavor with less heat?

Ravenshead said:

Trinidad Perfumes sound awesome. I love habeneros but most of my family can't take their heat. These have the same citrusy flavor with less heat?

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Yes, less the "kerosene fuel" odor as I call it you get with the hababeros, but the flavor you mention is there. Tomato Growers has them if you have trouble finding seed, but once you grow them you can save the seed.

Be careful harvesting seeds from pepper plants you grow outdoors, cross pollination is a big issue with pepper plants. Avid growers use things like tulle in order to isolate flowers from cross pollination. I only use seeds that I know are pure, as I've received seeds from other growers before that they harvested off their plants, and they weren't good anymore.

usfmikeb said:

Be careful harvesting seeds from pepper plants you grow outdoors, cross pollination is a big issue with pepper plants. Avid growers use things like tulle in order to isolate flowers from cross pollination. I only use seeds that I know are pure, as I've received seeds from other growers before that they harvested off their plants, and they weren't good anymore.

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Yeah I know, some won't even germinate due to being hybrids. But I have had no problem growing them year after year same results. I have grown many peppers for many years with no problems, no change in the pepper. I always choose the best peppers to save seed from too, the biggest and the best formed.