Mixing different peppers for sauce

[Torch]

Hi so I'm about to harvest a lot of my peppers for hot sauce. I'm new to this. I have a lot of orange habaneros, a lot of jalapeños ( most red, little green) a lot of chiteplin, a lot of fatelii, a lot of charlston red hots, and a lot of red cayennes. I have only a few 7 yellow pots and a few douglah 7 pots, and a few ghost.

My question is pretty vauge I guess but I'll ask it.

When people add different pepper combos is it to change the flavor or add more heat? For example would you be able to taste the difference between a sauce with all orange habs vs a sauce with 80% habs and 20% jalapeños ( to make this example simple lets just say all other ingredients used will be equal in both sauces)?

In the beginning of this grow season I asked what combos might go well together and most people said you probably should keep each pepper in its own sauce not mixing. I don't want to waste my harvest on guessing so any advice from you seasoned hot sauce makers would be appreciated.

I have no problem making different recipe sauces unique to its own pepper but I was just curious why I see some sauces with 5 different types of super hots in it.

Look forward to hearing from anyone's thoughts on this.

Thanks

 

[DaQatz]

Well really this is more up to your own tastes. Personally when I mix peppers for sauce I target flavor first. Many peppers really shine when they are used more to accent a sauce then they do to define it.

 

[salsalady]

Hi Torch,

Congrats on a sucessful growing season!

Different chiles will "burn" differently. Alabama Jack has a post somewhere about a powder he's concocted that has the "perfect burn". It hits the tongue, the back-o-tha-throat, fast burn, slow burn.... Some folks mix chiles to mix up the burn. I think AJ has 4 or 5 different chiles in his blend.

Some people will mix chiles to jack up the heat. If you have a quantity of red jalapenos, they have a good flavor, but you want some more heat, add a few cayennes or 7 Pots. Or if you have a quantity of red superhots, add some red jalapenos to stretch out the sauce. Most people can't eat straight superhots, so using less hots to stretch it out is a good thing. You get the flavor of the superhot, and still be able to talk after eating the sauce.

Generally, I try to think about the flavor of the individual chile and if it's complimentary to another, I'd mix em! I wouldn't mix chocolate habs with fataliis. That would be a waste of the great fatali flavor! And in general, same colored chiles will go well together.

If you're drying the chiles to make powders, just use the same guidelines and keep the flavor of the chiles in mind.

If you have enough of any single chile to make it work making a sauce, then by all means, keep it a single chile sauce. But don't be afraid to combine similar chiles to get enough to do something with.

Hope this helps, Have Fun, and post pics if you can! In case you haven't figured that out....we luv pics~

SL

 

[Lucky Dog Hot Sauce]

Well really this is more up to your own tastes. Personally when I mix peppers for sauce I target flavor first. Many peppers really shine when they are used more to accent a sauce then they do to define it.

X2

Pardon my terminology as most of it is just how I see things and is not any kind of industry standard description. Hopefully you get my meaning though. So that disclaimer noted, I also find that the more "sharp" the pepper flavor is (e.g. Habanero, 7-Pot, Bhut (which I've only played with once), the more it cuts through the rest.

I'll typically use jalapenos as a "base" - they have a nice flavor, a natural sweetness, and good fiber. they're large and can be roasted easily (which is kind of my thing, always) and I love the qualities they offer a sauce. But if you do (for example) a Jalapeno/Habanero sauce, you'll more than likely come out with something that tastes like Habanero regardless if they are the minority ingredient.

So as DaQatz said, it's all about your personal taste - just know that some of the sharper or more distinct tasting peppers will likely dominate your sauce. So for another example, if you're wanting to make a Jalapeno sauce that tastes like Jalapeno but has more heat you might consider adding some dried chili tepin, cayenne or scorpion powder to heat it up - the powders tend to blend in pretty seamlessly without dramatically changing the flavor (within reason of course, and i can only speak from experience) - whereas I would never try to heat up a Jalapeno sauce with Habaneros because it will become a Habanero sauce (the Hab flavor will dominate a bit)

I'm not the authority on all things saucemaking of course, so by all means experiment a bit! One tip there is to make "micro batches" - like 10 jalapenos, a few varietal hot peppers, and some dried peppers along with your peripheral ingredients (garlic, onion, etc) and see how it is. Be sure to weigh each ingredient in grams so you can recreate/scale out your recipe if it's to your liking. the gram weight really makes scaling a recipe easy, but be careful with the salt - if going from say, 1 mason jar to a 1 gallon pot, scale it out and use 50% of the salt. Then as it's cooking taste a little - if it needs more salt, you can add it incrementally. You can never take it out though, so best to start low and work your way up. You'll be amazed at how much less salt you can get away with using.

good luck!

Hi Torch,

Congrats on a sucessful growing season!

Different chiles will "burn" differently. Alabama Jack has a post somewhere about a powder he's concocted that has the "perfect burn". It hits the tongue, the back-o-tha-throat, fast burn, slow burn.... Some folks mix chiles to mix up the burn. I think AJ has 4 or 5 different chiles in his blend.

Could not agree more - good post (you always beat me by 3 seconds too - how?!? lol)

I find that cayennes tend to burn the lips/back of throat, whereas Habs and "superhots" are a taste bud tickler. Jalapenos/Serranos are a slow burn - you keep eating a good Jalapeno and/or Serrano sauce and start thinking "is it warm in here?" - I've found that Tepins & Pequins have an amazing quality of a really quick, hot mouth burn that fades really fast.

and of course one can use different combinations of these qualities to produce a 'combo' burn - I try to do this with all of my sauces. One bit of feedback I had on my prototype Orange from LGHT was that there was a slightly bitter aftertaste. I tried it with that in mind and damn if he wasn't right. So I went back to the drawing board and experimented a bit - found that adding some mild Cayenne to it gave me a slightly smokey afterburn in the mouth that helped to mask the bitterness. Really kinda neat how you can trick the brain into highlighting desirable flavors and masking undesireables.

 

[Torch]

id like to think i know alot about ph meters in general.

short answer is to just buy a "general purpose" cheap plastic bodied gell electrode and see how long it lasts you. AND buy a real ph meter, not a pen. pens are annoying, and poorly made.

you also need a set of calibration buffers, electrode cleaning solution, electrode storage buffer(an absolute must), and a wash bottle with distilled water. get a cheap lab stand with a small gribber or burret stand, that way you can hold the electrode... ive broken several electrodes trust me. keep in mind your salsas are going to get your probe dirty, if your probe has a shield its probably going to trap crap next to the bulb, when this happens you must wash it away with a jet of distilled water from your wash bottle. if that wont work, work it free with a soft brush or tooth pick, just be gentile with the glass membrane.

if this electrode dosent suite you, then so what you only wasted like 50 bucks. where as you could spend like 300 dollars on a fancy ross type glass bodied probe and find that its way too much hassle to deal with and unnecessary accurate and well built for your purposes.

scour ebay for a good lab quality meter, i bought an accumet ab15 for 100 bucks, it came with a good refillable type double junction ATC elctrode too. the ab15 will auto calibrate to which ever buffer you select and calculate your mv and slope automatically. what that means... is it takes you 1 min to calibrate your meter and not 15.

heres one... not a super deal or anything but what ever. just be patient.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/FISHER-SCIENTIFIC-ACCUMENT-AB15-PLUS-PH-METER-/360463265204?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item53ed48edb4

Ok thanks so much for the explanations!!! They really did help me understand. I'll definitely follow the advice and experiment with mini batches!!! I'll cruise around the forum for some recipes that may go well with my peppers. Yes I will take pictures of this experience and post them. I guess I have to start from somewhere and since this is my first serious year of attempting this maybe my expectations shouldn't be through the roof with perfecting pepper combinations or other ingredients. Thanks I look forward to sharing about my first attempt real soon. Just need to order my ph meter first!

 

[RocketMan]

+1 to all that has been said above. You have answer for some very knowledgeable members who are professionals and no one could put it better and I wouldn't even try but to say that I would say the same thing.

 

[Lucky Dog Hot Sauce]

You'll be surprised at how good your early sauces can be - when I started I had no idea this website existed - so everything was "school of hard knocks", learn as I went. (because I was dumb and didn't search the internets for this place)

You have the benefit of a ton of great instructional topics on here including some basic recipes (and complex ones) as well as folks posting ideas for fruits and other interesting ingredients.

I'd suggest your 1st step should be to browse this forum and read as many of the hot sauce topics as you can. This will give you a huge head start and help you to avoid a lot of trial & error.

Then along with the pH meter you should consider the other equipment you'll need - stainless ladle, a good quality pot to cook in, a means of filling bottles/jars (remember you'll be pouring something that's ~190 degrees), some sort of food processor, a seive if you plan on straining seeds, etc.

I don't know if there's a "hot sauce making equipment list" topic here - might be a good topics if someone's feeling inspired?


I'm sure if youre prepared with the right equipment and the body of knowledge from the many topics here your sauces will be delicious in no time. Best of luck!

 

[jonnyb]

I'm new to growing but want to make a sauce using trinidad moruga scorpion that won't blow my brains out - I can't handle extremely hot sauce well and yet I've heard they have a fantastic flavour, so I'm also growing a heat free Habanero called Apricot (from seaspringseeds) and intended on blending to maintain a Hab/scorp chinense flavour and keeping the proportion of chilli high.

As regards to mixing chilli flavours, I imagine you could mix based on their flavour profiles: ie sweet/savoury/fruity/smokey. I would love to try rocoto and aji panca (savoury mix); tepin and birds eye (tangy and sharp mix); aji lemon and fatalii or bishop's hat (fruity mix).

I was also wondering, does anyone know any chillis or mix of chillis that are good for smoking into an alternative chipotle (other than Jalapeno obviously).

 

[ThePepperManiac]

looks like you got your answer

 

[Lucky Dog Hot Sauce]

I was also wondering, does anyone know any chillis or mix of chillis that are good for smoking into an alternative chipotle (other than Jalapeno obviously).

Pretty much every pepper is good for smoking. With smoking, in my opinion, it's all about how much of an infusion of smoke you want, which correlates to the time smoked and the type of wood - hardwoods (oak, manzanita, hickory, mesquite) tend to be more acrid and stronger while fruit woods (cherry, pear, apple, peach, etc) tend to be a lighter smoke.

I've smoked the following for sauces and had great results:
Manzano
Jalapeno
Habanero
Serrano
7-Pot Jonahs
Anaheim
Yellow Wax

In general my experience has been that the larger peppers are less maintenance - the smaller, thinner peppers like the orange Habs can easily get overcooked, so you need to keep a closer eye on them.

Good luck!

 

[jonnyb]

Thanks Lucky Dog, I hadn't thought of the effect of different woods on the flavour profile. Just recieved some chipotle in the post and love them! (Hope this isn't too much of a distraction from the thread topic).

 

[Lucky Dog Hot Sauce]

Thanks Lucky Dog, I hadn't thought of the effect of different woods on the flavour profile. Just recieved some chipotle in the post and love them! (Hope this isn't too much of a distraction from the thread topic).

It's a dramatic difference. Even between different fruit woods. I enjoy them all, but really like a light mesquite, a heavy applewood, and a light cherrywood the most. But all are worth playing with.

 

[Blang1]

Quote

Different chiles will "burn" differently. Alabama Jack has a post somewhere about a powder he's concocted that has the "perfect burn". It hits the tongue, the back-o-tha-throat, fast burn, slow burn.... Some folks mix chiles to mix up the burn. I think AJ has 4 or 5 different chiles in his blend.

Sorry for bumping such an old thread, but this is a fascinating concept to me that I've also been studying and experimenting with. I'm particularly interested in seeing what @AlabamaJack came up with if he did in fact post that info. I searched through his old posts as best I could and while he talks extensively about the concept, I didn't see any mention of any specific "blend" of any kind.

If anybody has any more information on that (or knows where that post may be hiding), I'd love to hear it! Thanks.

 

[salsalady]

I tried several searches using my phoane, couldnt get a hit.

I hope it is still here...
Mods help?!?!???


It was something like
Ultimate pepper blend
Perfect pepper blend
Dried pepper blend

 

[Blang1]

Thanks so much for the reply.

So funny enough, Searching for "Ultimate Pepper Blend" I found a post from YOU from 2018 asking this same exact question, and you ended up referring to this post:

September 2009 Inventory and 2010 Planning

Now that I am retired and have the time to pay more attention to my plants and planning for next year, I decided to take inventory this morning just to see exactly what I had...then the thought hit me...why in the hell am I growing peppers I won't use so I am simply not going to grow anything...

thehotpepper.com

Where he talks about blending and gets into a little specifics about peppers but doesn't actually specify a blend. He just talks about Tepins, Cayennes, and 7pots/Bhuts being unique/complementary in that regard.

Thanks again!

 

[Downriver]

Where he talks about blending and gets into a little specifics about peppers but doesn't actually specify a blend.

Well, AJ has to keep a few secrets, doesn't he? Gotta keep us guessing. Helps keep the mind sharp! Maybe he'll pop in one day and enlighten us.

I will say that thread you dredged up sure has a lot of old-timers in it. I wonder where they are now? Well, maybe not ALL of them.

 

[salsalady]

Thanks so much for the reply.

So funny enough, Searching for "Ultimate Pepper Blend" I found a post from YOU from 2018 asking this same exact question, and you ended up referring to this post:

September 2009 Inventory and 2010 Planning

Now that I am retired and have the time to pay more attention to my plants and planning for next year, I decided to take inventory this morning just to see exactly what I had...then the thought hit me...why in the hell am I growing peppers I won't use so I am simply not going to grow anything...

thehotpepper.com

Where he talks about blending and gets into a little specifics about peppers but doesn't actually specify a blend. He just talks about Tepins, Cayennes, and 7pots/Bhuts being unique/complementary in that regard.

Thanks again!

Well done Blang1! My search skills are lacking, complete burn is the term I was missing.

I need to Follow that thread to find it in the future.

 

[salsalady]

Well, AJ has to keep a few secrets, doesn't he? Gotta keep us guessing. Helps keep the mind sharp! Maybe he'll pop in one day and enlighten us.

I will say that thread you dredged up sure has a lot of old-timers in it. I wonder where they are now? Well, maybe not ALL of them.

Not sure what still here says about my non-existant social life...

Someone .... (nudgenudgewinkwink) (NOT IT!!!) should start a Perfect Burn Pepper Blend challenge or competition.