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I made my first sauce. I need some help/advice.

I've grown peppers for a long time, but I finally made my first sauce.

The result is TBD.
1/2 cup carrots
1 cup yellow bell pepper
1 cup yellow onion
2 cups pineapple
2 cups Aji Pineapple peppers
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1 cup water

I boiled it all together and then pureed it. Then simmered for an hour and strained.

The color is good, I'm not sure on the taste yet. It has a sweet start and then the heat comes. The heat is to my liking.
Might have a bit of a bitter taste along with the heat.

I have it in the refrigerator so I can try it tomorrow and make some changes if needed.


Here are my questions.
If it is bitter, what can I use to reduce that?
This sauce is thicker than I like. I'll be using water to thin it out some. But in general I like thinner sauces.
My guess is that to make thinner sauces I shouldn't be using other vegetables or fiberous fruit, or at least not so much of it. Is that correct?

Thanks in advance for your help.
 
I bet a food mill would have it thinned exactly how you wanted it.....a touch more salt could decrease some bitterness
 
oxo-good-grips-food-mill.jpg
 
I don't boil my sauces on the stove but an hour seems like a whole lotta time. I think you can go considerably less, still kill nasties, and it wouldn't have reduced so much.

For the bitter, did you ever have to scrape the bottom of the pot while cooking....was it considerably thicker on the bottom opposed to the product at the top of the pot. Appears you have enough sweet to counteract any bitter, so I wonder if it got "burnt"? Probably a whole mess of things that could cause bitter here but your recipe doesn't give many clues.

Maybe some agave would help but you don't wanna get all sweet city I hope. Btw, maybe more vinegar or even pineapple juice instead of more water.
 
That's a lot of pineapple. That will make it thick. Boil time of an hour will make it even thicker.

Distilled white vinegar is pretty bitter to me. I use Apple cider vinegar. Try using various vinegars in your next couple batches. I've used champagne vinegar, apple cider, distilled white, rice, white wine vinegar and always go back to apple cider.

I'd put a bit of honey/agave/brown sugar in it to counter the bitter.

You strained? With what? A colander? With a cheese cloth? An old sock :)? Get a food mill at some point. You'll use it. For now if it's too thick put some pineapple juice in it. Thin it out.

Hit us back with a progress report.
 
Thanks for the feedback.  Especially the tip to use an old sock for straining my sauce :rofl:
 
I used this to strain the sauce, the old sock may work better.
images.jpg

 
It got all of the seeds and some pulp.  The food mill is on my Christmas list.  I need to have something for my wife to get me.
 
I also thought I may have used too much pineapple.
 
I'll experiment with other vinegar types in the future.
 
It did not burn on the stove, I only had it simmering for the hour.  Mostly to really soften up the ingredients hoping that it would help it be more smooth.
I'll also try thinning it with water/more vinegar.
 
 
Thanks for all of the ideas.  My bottles should be on my front porch today so I can finish it up.
 
 
 
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