Hot Sauce & BBQ Sauce

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Dextersmom

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Location
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So I love hot sauce and i also love bbq sauce. I've been looking all over for resources on creating these for my cooking but have been falling really short. I've found a book here and there that lends a small tip or a recipe, but nothing going into any real depth. I've been lucky enough to find a great site for home brewing :mug: and through this site I was able to find yet another great forum on pizza and bread making which leads me to wonder if there is a forum on hot sauce / bbq sauce.

I'm interested in learning about the proper process to age and ferment peppers to create pepper mash to be used in hot sauce and even bbq sauce.

Can anyone out there lend a hand? Perhaps its been covered here at some point and I just didn't notice it.

I'm gearing my garden this year towards sauce making of several kinds. I'll be planting peppers (bell, cayenne, tobasco, habanero, and jalapeno), plum tomato, cilantro, scallion, flat leaf parsley, basil. Hopefully I'll be able to learn enough about what i'd like to make before my harvest.

Thanks in advance for any help / advice.
 
The unfortunate hing about BBQ sauce and hot sauce is that there is so much pride put into "secret ingredients" and "old family recipes" that it doesn't exactly lend itself to open discussion and innovation. Good luck, though
 
The unfortunate hing about BBQ sauce and hot sauce is that there is so much pride put into "secret ingredients" and "old family recipes" that it doesn't exactly lend itself to open discussion and innovation. Good luck, though

you're 100% on the nose there. I was figuring I'd have to make this an uber trial and error endeavor.


mosquitocontrol: pizzamaking.com and thefreshloaf.com are both awesome resources...homebrewtalk.com of their own craft
 
Proper aging of hot sauce is worse than mead. Louisiana Hot Sauce (my preference) is three years in the making.

(Not good. Their site is no longer in the DNS tree.)
 
What kind of bbq are you looking for?

well pretty much looking for the basics on tomato, vinegar, and mustard based sauces.




thanks for the mash links i'll check them out. I'm not looking to mash peppers for three years like tobasco and other companies do although i might make a project at some point if my garden yields enough this year and try an extended age.
 
oh you were a smart person. I gotta start saving my bottles. I was actually just gonna preserve any hot or bbq that i make in canning jars like i do with jelly or anything else i preserve during the year.....but bottles....they're authentic.
 
oh you were a smart person. I gotta start saving my bottles. I was actually just gonna preserve any hot or bbq that i make in canning jars like i do with jelly or anything else i preserve during the year.....but bottles....they're authentic.

Yeah they are cool...what I do is use a syringe or jam a tiny funnel in the hole to flush it out with hot water, then I just drop them in the bin I usually have with oxyclean and water that's soaking beer bottles in them...And just like beer bottles the labels just slide off and the oxy-bubbles help clean out the lingering sauce.

I was just reading that pdf that Shortdrive posted. He mentions wanting to to age it in an oak cask....I got to thinking, what about "oaking" the mash like I do with some beers...using some Jack Daniel's Oak smoking chips sanitized in some more jack....

Oh this sounds awesome....Just gotta get me some peppers...
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If you got a cask and used it for hot sauce instead of beer I would probably have to drive to your house just to back hand you!!! :D
 
I posted this in another thread so I just pasted it here, but this is how I make a fast sauce that I believe is as good as any aged sauce and I am a big hot sauce person. This is just how to make a plain pepper only sauce but you can add onions, garlic and such in the pot along with the peppers if you like. Sometimes I do that but I really like plain hot sauce. I make gallons at a time.This really works, try it.

One thing I should mention is when you are separating the seeds and skin from the sauce you need to rotate the ladle on the sauce in the strainer and within a minute you will only have seeds and skin in the strainer and sauce in the pot below. Only do about 2 cups at a time though otherwise the seeds and skin will clog the strainer and it will stop going through.


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I don't really follow a recipe. I just wait until I have enough ripe peppers to make it worth doing, usually enough to fill at least 2 big pots. I cut the peppers up (seeds and all) in fairly good size chunks, just to make them easier to cook down. Oh yeah, I cook them down. Some people make sauces that are "fresh" but to me that takes more time and is more like salsa.
So once in the pot I add some vinegar so they don't stick or burn and also for added liquid as peppers don’t have much. I also add some salt at this time. After about a half hour to an hour they have turned to a mush and I add more vinegar as needed to keep it liquid.
At this point I take a hand held blender and puree all the peppers. I then strain the liquid into another pot using a basket strainer and a ladle. I ladle in a few scoops and use the ladle to work out and separate the pulp and seeds through the strainer. This done right takes about 30 seconds each small batch with little pulp to throw away. Make sure you use a fine but large WIRE strainer.
Once all the pulp is removed and everything is back into pots I add more vinegar and salt to taste and bring back to a boil and then cook for another 15 minutes or so on medium heat stirring so it won't stick or boil over.
At this point I do one of two things depending on how patient I am. I either can it right then and there while it is still hot or I let it cool and sit overnight for the flavors to blend more. Then the next day I boil again and then can. This aging makes a better sauce.
That is about it. I am not big on recipes, I mean it's just hot sauce and I am not selling it so no big deal if one batch is a bit different from the other. I also noticed the older the peppers the better the flavor. Last year we had so many ripe peppers I couldn't keep up with them and they got real deep red and soft and "chewy" on the plants. I used them anyway and they made the best sauce yet with the reddest color yet.
Last year I think we counted about 80 hot peppers plants of 5 types.
 
Thanks for posting it Jgln!!!!

This is getting me uber excited...I'm thinking now about playing around with some fresh habs, and a blend of some dried poblanos/anchos, some chipotles then "age" over some bourbon soaked oak chips (with the bourbon tossed in for good measure.)

Maybe blending it after a couple weeks with some vinegar to sauce it.
 
I made some really nice hot sauce the other day, it was equal parts BBQ, Adobo (from a can of Chipotles) & Sriracha sauces. Made a really good burger sauce.
 
I recall seeing a show on Discovery or some such show that detailed making hot sauces and they went in depth on the Tobasco operation showing everything they do. I also recall they were dried in a salt, and later put into a vinegar solution.

Try looking at you tube, or just googling making tobasco.
 
Thanks for posting it Jgln!!!!

This is getting me uber excited...I'm thinking now about playing around with some fresh habs, and a blend of some dried poblanos/anchos, some chipotles then "age" over some bourbon soaked oak chips (with the bourbon tossed in for good measure.)

Maybe blending it after a couple weeks with some vinegar to sauce it.

This is actually the same method I use to make tomato sauce with some variation, needs to cook down longer and I don't use vinegar, tomatoes have plenty of their own juice. I wish I was more audio/visual capable, it would be much easier to explain the straining process and how easy it is.

I have made several gallons of pure habanero sauce that is well over a year old in canning jars in the basement. We still have it because of the amount and it is just way too hot to eat on wings, at least most of the time. Once in a while we kill ourselves with that stuff.

We grow so many hot peppers I can't process them all. Last summer I gave away 2 kitchen trash bags full of hot peppers to guys at work. I found seed this year for peppers that taste and smell like habaneros but with little heat. They are going to be great on burgers and sandwiches.
 
oh you were a smart person. I gotta start saving my bottles. I was actually just gonna preserve any hot or bbq that i make in canning jars like i do with jelly or anything else i preserve during the year.....but bottles....they're authentic.


You can buy them, just do a search on the internet. I make so much sauce I like the canning jars better. That is also a better size for making up a big batch of wings. Our wings are always floating in hot sauce.
 
This is actually the same method I use to make tomato sauce with some variation, needs to cook down longer and I don't use vinegar, tomatoes have plenty of their own juice. I wish I was more audio/visual capable, it would be much easier to explain the straining process and how easy it is.

I have made several gallons of pure habanero sauce that is well over a year old in canning jars in the basement. We still have it because of the amount and it is just way too hot to eat on wings, at least most of the time. Once in a while we kill ourselves with that stuff.

We grow so many hot peppers I can't process them all. Last summer I gave away 2 kitchen trash bags full of hot peppers to guys at work. I found seed this year for peppers that taste and smell like habaneros but with little heat. They are going to be great on burgers and sandwiches.

I'm actually no stranger to the straining process, I use it all the time. I do a porkloin braised in pear necter a ton of garlic cloves, onions and rosemary, after the braising it all gets strained (using your method) into a really smooth sauce.
 
After reading this I decided to order a specialty sandwich from the local deli. Hot pepper turkey, hot pepper ham, hot pepper shooters (cherry peppers stuffed with cheese) and long hot fried peppers in oil.
 
After reading this I decided to order a specialty sandwich from the local deli. Hot pepper turkey, hot pepper ham, hot pepper shooters (cherry peppers stuffed with cheese) and long hot fried peppers in oil.


Came with pepper cheese too. It was so tasty and not as hot as I thought it might be (at least not right now ayway :D).
 
After reading this I decided to order a specialty sandwich from the local deli. Hot pepper turkey, hot pepper ham, hot pepper shooters (cherry peppers stuffed with cheese) and long hot fried peppers in oil.

that just sounds incredible.
 
You can buy them, just do a search on the internet. I make so much sauce I like the canning jars better. That is also a better size for making up a big batch of wings. Our wings are always floating in hot sauce.

oh man i think we should go bowling...and by bowling i mean make lots and lots of wings with some really hot sauce.
 
sorry revvy here let me change the subject.

I've been doing all kinds of research on mashing peppers. Found some resources but not a great deal, and the little info I do find is differs slightly from one another. Because there is a risk of botulism with mashing peppers I want to be sure I know what I'm doing here. Anyone mash their own peppers and have a step by step procedure that they tend to hold to every time?
 
:off: Where might one find the recipe for such a fine-looking brew?

Caveat

This is still in the experimental stage, just remember that...The author (me) make no statement on whether anyone will like this recipe. Brew at your own discretion. :D

Actually one of my friends love it. She surprised me on St Patty's day when I was having a pre pub crawl homebrew tasting. And she doesn't usually like "flavorful" beer, especially jet black ones.

Here's where I last posted it.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/1163001-post6.html
 
This is still in the experimental stage, just remember that...The author (me) make no statement on whether anyone will like this recipe. Brew at your own discretion.
No such thing as bad beer, Revvy - only seasonal specials. :D

Thanks for posting. I've been wanting to make a Mole Porter for ages. :mug:
 
No such thing as bad beer, Revvy - only seasonal specials. :D

Thanks for posting. I've been wanting to make a Mole Porter for ages. :mug:

Remember that recipe is scaled for a 2,5 gallon batch..., cut the lactose, and up the chocolate disks in the recipe and it should be better than this batch...which is good...just not what I want...I'm also gonna try my had at first wort choclating next time as well.
 
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