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Overwhelmed.. sauce help.

P

pr3ttibrwneyez

I've grown a ton of peppers with the idea to make my own hot sauce, flavored oils and salsa. That being said, there's so much info out there I'm getting overwhelmed and confused and my peppers are just sitting on my counter as i pick them.

I'm of the thought that a beginner should start as easy and simple as possible to get an idea of the process, and what it will taste like vs store bought. That being said, I found a recipe on youtube that called for turbinado sugar, salt and water, sitting over peppers for a week, he covered it with plastic wrap and then added "seasoning" onions, etc. and viola sauce.

I've also seen a few easy looking recipes on chili pepper madness site using fresh peppers.

Then i come here and read about fermentation, and mashes and everything else and I'm so confused, overwhelmed and now afraid if i do it wrong, we're all gonna die! [emoji31][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

I really want a flavorful but hot sauce, my tastes tend to lean toward sweet n hot. I'm wanting to make a sauce using my SRP and datils.. not together necessarily, 2 different sauces would be fine. The peppers I have growing are.

Chocolate habanero, datil, Buena mulata (a purple sauce would be so cool).. Chinese 5, fatalii, SRP, jalapeno, cayenne, filius blue, thai red, tobacco, black pearl

I'm also growing a couple sweet peppers and tomatoes if someone would like to throw a basic easy spicy salsa recipe at me.. or any recipe really. I just don't want to end up giving away or letting my harvest just and waste because I don't know what to do with it.

I have yellow garden peach tomatoes, orange jubilee and a basic red heirloom beefsteak, i also have chocolate wonder, red and yellow wonder and marconi sweet peppers and purple carrots. I also have access to a peach tree.

I would appreciate any help, suggestions and recipes. Please keep in mind I'm a newbie and a little intimidated by this process, so go easy on me for now.

Thanks in advance!

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Hello.  I see you have Datil's on your list!  My wife and I love Datil's.  
We found the following recipe photo on the web of this "relish" recipe and have made it several times now.  Ours came out like a sauce.  More on the thin side.  We reduced all of the ingredients to make the amount we wanted.  You could add more sugar/honey or whatever you like for the desired sweetness.  
It is a very basic recipe but it is also supposed to be authentic St. Augustine.  I couldn't vouch for that as I am from VA but have read that ketchup is a popular ingredient.  Maybe someone actually from St. Augustine will chime in and give us the "facts"!  Recipes too.  We won't spread them around! :liar:
We have also substituted Scotch Bonnets and it still made a good sauce.  Like I said, it's pretty basic.
Anyway here goes:
 
Datil Pepper Relish 2.jpg

 
If you have an exhaust fan for your oven, use it.  Open windows if not.  It didn't bother me so much but our dog didn't seem to like the vapors very much. 
 
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pr3ttibrwneyez - first things first... Grab some zip lock bags and freeze all the pods you have sitting on your bench. It doesn't make much of a difference whether you ferment or you don't. Don't freeze the tomatoes - that's never going to work - too much water in the fruit cells. (You can check out the National Center for Home Food Preservation - https://nchfp.uga.edu/ - the site is not chili related, but it's a great start for many of the concepts.)
 
Then read the two threads:
After that, decide whether you want to make a fermented hot sauce or a cooked sauce. The terminology is not great because best practice is to cook a fermented sauce and can, as in canning techniques. There's the acidity level to take into account for one. So if you're keen go and buy a handheld pH meter. For example I have a Hanna HI98100, but there others. Without this, you're flying a little blind whichever sauce you make. If you plan to keep it in the fridge, and use it within a shorter time frame, then fewer things to worry about.
 
Then: I can maybe offer some other practical advice - but it will be in the coming days - from a 'couple year veteran of making hot sauces, know some things, still basically a novice, and learning something new every day...'
 
If I'm wrong I'm sure someone will chime in. I'm hardly the most experienced hot sauce maker in this neck of the woods...
 
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I definitely agree to freeze your pods if you aren't ready to go.  It's a good way to accumulate them over time for a bigger batch too.  I'd suggest considering a non-fermented sauce first, or even a few of them. They're simpler and faster to make, so you can make several smaller batches quickly to experiment with flavors and tweak recipes and such.  I'm a big fermentation fan, but they take time and can go bad and just bring a bunch of other variables into play that might make things slower and more complicated at first - that's not to say they're difficult though.
 
I'll leave the recipe suggestions to the many better cooks on this forum.
 
Good luck!
 
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Welcome to thp!

The biggest mistake I think new sauce makers make is making things too hot. If the ratio in the sauce is 80-90% habaneros and 10% everything else, most people cant eat it. I've found that 2-3 habs in a gallon of sauce makes a gently medium sauce that 80% of people can eat. You have to find where you and your family are in that spectrum.

Use lots of fruit, tomato, onion,garlic, carrot, ginger, fruit juice and an appropriate vinegar that complements the other ingredients.

Start small...like a 2 cup batch...take good notes so if you like it, you can do it again...and if you dont like it you will know what not to do next time and wont have wasted a lot of ingredients.

Good luck and have fun! Post pics if you can and +++ what ^^^ said about freezing. Use a large zipper bag and just throw more in as they are harvested.
SL
 
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This is a direct copy from SmokenFire:
 
When making sauce I weigh ingredients (by ounces or grams) rather than counting by pepper because there are so many variables regarding thin or thick walled peppers, varying sizes of peppers from the same plants, etc.
 
So if you have a recipe that calls for say, something like 2 cups of peppers (with some note about 2 cups is usually 16 peppers) you can use more of your smaller jalas to equal that 2 cups in the recipe OR you can use whatever amount of your smaller heat punch packing jalas and then cut those with some sweeter bell peppers (of any color) or whatever.  Totally depends on what kind of flavor profile and heat level you're aiming for.   
 
For a general base type recipe I am usually looking at 1 pound of peppers, 1 cup of vinegar, a couple cloves of garlic and perhaps a bit of onion, along with maybe a cup of water.  Add it all to a sauce pan and bring to a nice simmer for 5-10 minutes and then hit it with the immersion blender.  Once it cools a bit I'll taste and add salt or honey or whatever to bring everything into balance. 
 
Be sure to check out the hot sauce 101 and the fermenting 101 threads - LOTS of great info there.  Above all welcome to our spicy corner of the interwebs.   :)
 
from this thread:
 
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/72112-hot-sauce-small-jalapenos-advice/
 
You'll find a lot of info here. But or me, it was easiest to start simple. Not to worry about fermenting etc and just start experimenting. Before I went that route my first couple of sauces sucked. I used half a pound of habaneros and cooked my forehead while boiling them and looking down over it :) Forget about leaving vinegar and water soaked peppers covered for a week etc. Use the link Salsa Lady put up, find a sauce that piques your interest and let er rip!!!!
 
Good Luck!!!
 
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Thanks a lot! First thing I did was take all the peppers that have been sitting on my counter.. some for a week sadly, and put and them in a bag. From reading all your replies, I think I'll try a couple easy go in the fridge sauces and as it's football season, pull them all out during the games for trial. Initially my goal was to make some that would last like 6 months or so in the fridge.. or longer.. I want some nice medium to hot sauces.

I'll buy a ph meter and I have an immersion blender but I was just gonna use my nutri bullet rx, is that a bad idea?

Thanks again guys! I'll read those threads and take notes!

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Whatever blender you have, just use it. Might want to give that bullet an extra wash before making weekday smoothies.....

Just sayin'.... ;)

SL
 
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You can get a 900watt Nutribullet cheap. Well under $100 and its great for small batches. The 1200watt model is right around $90-100. Ive used my 900watt a bunch for hot sauce. That Nutribullet Rx is a 1700watt and will be just fine.
 
Probably 90% of my vinegar based sauces are around 50/50 vinegar/water. Adjust ratio for kind of vinegar and finish with fresh lime or lemon juice AFTER its cooled and aged a few days in the fridge. I highly suggest all final adjustments are done after it sets in the fridge a few days. A sauce can taste ok the first day and really excellent after 5 so just be patient.
 
Cook down, cool, blend well, toss in the fridge and finish off.
 
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