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making hot sauce class

salsalady

Business Member
Hey Guys and Gals-
Here's some pictures of a local class I did last week about making hot sauces.  This past January and February several local people put on some cooking classes at the Grange Hall for things like making cheeses, pie crusts, layered doughs (like fillo), fermented foods (kimchee etc) and I did one on making hot sauces with a focus on using things that people would have in their gardens around here. 
 
edit- There's been tons of information shared here in all the different forums.  An opportunity came up to share what I've shared here in the interwhebz with people in my community.  So that's what I set out to do.  Give them "some" of what's out there.  I'm editting the last post also to include a fatalii see reference from 5 years ago. 
 
When I first set the date for the class, knowing it would be after the fermentation class, I got 2 ferments going right away.  The only red chiles available at this time of year are typical grocery store red Fresno chiles, so that's what I used.
 
HOT- Fresnos, 7 Pots (frozen), onion, garlic, salt brine, starter brine
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NOT HOT- Fresnos, onion, garlic, apple, red bell peppers, salt brine, starter brine
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A local saurkraut company out of Olympia WA sells unpasteurized brines from their kraut operations, and there just happened to be garlic brine at the store.  I decided to add this as I wanted to make sure it got started right away.
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The 1/2 gallon jar lid's bubbler hole was a little big, didn't have a tight seal.  So I popped the squeeze top off of a dropper (it had a perfect little ridge that fit right into the hole in the lid), cut the top off the dropper off, stuck in the bubbler...Off We Go!
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For the larger crock, I covered it with cling wrap, wax paper and the lid.  It makes a tight enough seal, but the gas can still escape.  Put both the jars on a warming tray as the kitchen was a little cool for good fermenting.  And I finally found something useful for those 2' x 3' Scovie Awards banners....wrapping around the ferments to keep them warm! 
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Can I get a Bump, por favor?  Gracias~
 
Thanks tctenten and hogleg~
 
Everyone signed in and got a little Bling/ chile pepper necklace and we sampled some of the sauces hanging around in our fridge.  I'm sure you'll recognize a few~
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I set up stations with most of the ingredients and a printed recipe for 5 sauces, and we also had the 2 ferments.  We didn't get to the green roasted tomatillo and jalapeno sauce.
 
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baked the bottles ahead of time-
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Getting started-
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I'll be back in a little bit to post pics of the processing and results
 
Here's some more pics of the kitchen-
We divided into Teams to work on the different sauces.  Each team decided how closely they wanted to follow the original recipe and what needed to be changed.  A couple were really thick initially so they chose what they wanted to add to thin it out.  The Pumpkin one was pretty sweet, and one of the gals had a box of white wine in her car, so they brought that in and used it in the sauce.  Of course, we had to sample it to make sure it was up to snuff to be used in a hot sauce...-lol-
 
One sauce was rather chunky and they had a dickens of a time getting it through the funnels and into the woozy bottles.  I had a few 12 oz sauce bottles, which helped, but not enough for the whole pot of sauce.  Just one of those learning things.
 
Cloves of Garlic (left) Carlton Complex (right)
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bottling Cloves of Fire
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Spicy Harvest-
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Paradisio-
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bottling Carlton Complex-
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labeling and packaging- Shrink bands and labels using the names each team came up with.
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The names of the sauces-
Paradisio/Pear-a-disio- pear, ginger, fatalii, onion, garlic, vinegar
Spicy Harvest- pumpkin, dried cranberries, Fresno, garlic onion, vinegar, wine
Cloves of Fire- garlic, Fresno, onion, carrot, apple cider and balsamic vin, black pepper
Fresno Express Sriracha- the NotHot ferment
Gotcha Sriracha- the 7 Pot ferment
Carlton Complex Beyond Hot- [SIZE=medium]2# 7 Pots, 5[/SIZE][SIZE=medium] red bell peppers, 1# carrots, [/SIZE][SIZE=medium]1 large onion, [/SIZE][SIZE=medium]1 cup garlic cloves, 3 cups vinegar[/SIZE][SIZE=medium] [/SIZE]
 
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The Carlton Complex sauce refers to the wildfires in our area last summer.  That sauce was SOOO Hot!  Just running the chiles through the food processor was making eyes water.  And when they put the pot in the sink and filled it with hot water for washing....the fumes cleard out everyone in the kitchen!  One person described it as "a firestorm in your mouth". 
 
 
Divvying up the goods, I think everyone went home with 10-12 bottles.  About half the bottles were 10-12 oz bottles. 
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Special thanks to Rocketman for the Pumpkin Sauce basic recipe.  I'll post the recipes in the next post after a Bump. 
 
Here's the basic recipes we used-
 
 
Red Hot Hot Sauce
2# 7 Pot Chiles
5 red bell peppers
1 large onion
1 cup garlic cloves
1 # carrots
3 cups vinegar
2 LARGE APPLES
3 CUPS WATER
1 Tbsp salt- optional
Yield- about 10 cups
 
Fruit Hot Sauce-Hot
5# pears
1 medium onion
½ cup garlic
2 cup habanero or other orange/yellow hot chile (we used fatalii)
1 Tbsp ginger -4TBSP-
2 cup vinegar- rice
½ cup lemon juice
½ cup sugar- or to taste
Pineapple juice as needed
Coriander, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg or other spices as desired.
Yield- about 14 cups
 
Pumpkin Hot Sauce- Hot
1# Fresh Pumpkin- baked
3# Peppers
 9.6 oz Dried Cranberries
 7 oz Sweet Onion
 2 oz Garlic
 3 or 4 leaves of Fresh Sage
 2 cups rice vinegar
UNDISCLOSED AMOUNT OF WINE
OTHER STUFF?
Yield- about 10 cups
 
Garlic Hot Sauce- Medium
2# carrots
2# tomatoes
1# onion
1# garlic
1# red chiles
½ tsp black pepper
2 ½  cups apple cider vinegar
½ cup balsamic vinegar
Tamari?
Apple juice as needed
Other herbs as desired-
Yield- about 16 cups
 
Fermented Hot Sauce from class- Not Hot
3# red chiles- Fresno,red  jalapeno, etc
4 large red bell peppers-about 24 oz
12 oz garlic cloves- peeled
1 ½ large onion-about 18 oz
3 apples- about 20 oz
Active Brine, Whey, Starter or Probiotic for starter
(the class sauce used 12 oz kraut brine)
Salt- 4% of weight of vegetables- (4.84 oz for above recipe)
 
Wash, trim, small dice/chop all ingredients.  Put into large (2 gallon) jar or container for fermentation.  Cover with culture and water to about ½” over vegetables.  Add weights or something to keep chopped veggies under the brine.  Cover jar to allow gasses to escape, store in warm place for 2-6 weeks.  Check for bubbles.
 
After fermentation is complete, run the mash through a blender until smooth.  An additional step of running the sauce through a food mill will yield an even smoother sauce. 
 
At this point- the sauce still has active cultures in it.  It can be put into a jar and refrigerated, or processed using woozy bottles and Hot Fill/Hold or mason jars and BWB.   
 
Fermented Hot Sauce from class- HOT
1# red chiles (Fresno,red  jalapeno)
2.5 oz or more- HOT chiles- habanero or hotter ( we used Jonah 7 Pot, add more as desired)
½ large onion- about 6 oz
4 oz garlic cloves
1.14 oz salt
Starter culture (the class sauce used 4 oz Kraut brine)
 
Process as described for Not Hot sauce. 
 
 
 
General Rule of Thumb for fermenting chiles-
4% salt by weight
The longer the ferment, the more complex the flavor.
Refrigerate if you don’t want to cook the sauce.
White Kehm yeast may appear.  It will not harm the sauce, but should be removed before processing.
 
I don't know exactly what the class did as they were on their own and did their own tasting and adjusting.  Hot Sauce Recipes are
"suggested uses", not NoDeviation recipes. 
 
Hope everyone can take these recipes and work 'em to their own magic recipes. 
 
Wrap up- something came up, an opportunity for local people to share their knowledge on a variety of subjects.  People signed up, the stars aligned, the chiles were hot, and we had a ton fo fun. 
 
I hope we can do it again. 
 
CHEERS!
 
RM- I just heard from a gal that worked on that sauce.  She really likes it, I didn't get to taste the final version of it, but she said she would make it Spicier. 
 
There was definitely tears and coughing!  :lol:  I had the exhaust fan on, but it couldn't keep up. 
 
Looks like a lot of fun, nice job.
 
I've done similar with teaching how to make Thai Curry pastes, always great to meet people who are enthusiastic about the same things you are.
 
no, the sage was in there. I didn't list all the ingredients in the quick description. It's listed in the recipe. I'm thinking it's a lot sweeter than what you have because of the cranberries (Craisins). When fermented the sugars are all eaten up, but in this fresh sauce, it was still in there. There might also be some sweetness from the pumpkin.
I wonder how it would work to use fresh cranberries instead of Craisins. What do y'all think?
 
Just had a contact from someone at the class in February asking about what chiles were used in one of the sauces. 
 
She said she's made a couple batches of the Pumpkin Hot Sauce and shared it with others and one of her favorite uses is to put the pumpkin sauce on some grilled pineapple.    I could totally see that!  YUM!
 
She said many friends and family love the Carlton Complex sauce, the HotHot one made with Jonah 7 Pots and wants to make some for the Holidays. 
 
 
WIN! 
 
 
This is what it was about, to share our ridiculous passion and convert/corrupt/assimilate others into enjoying the crazy art of hot sauce making.
 
:cool:
 
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