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My First Sauce (Help me avoid disaster)

Stemwinder

Stemwinder

Hello hot heads, I'm brand new here. I've never made home made hot sauce before, but I'm excited to get started.

I want to start with a light-tasting sweet sauce for fish, chicken & pork. I've decided to make something like a Jamaican jerk sauce. After reading several recipes I've come up with my own mix. Let me know what you think. If there is something that obviously won't work, or should obviously be there but isn't, let me know. Thx.


3 habanero (My home-grown are still light greenish-yellow on the vine. Should I get yellow or red ones from the store instead?)
3 pineapple rings (I thought about grilling them first, but I probably won't go to the trouble)
3-4 Campari tomatoes
1/2 red onion
1/2 orange bell pepper
3 tbs spicy brown mustard
3 tbs white vinegar
2 tbs brown sugar
1 tsp Jamaican allspice
.5 tsp thyme
.5 tsp ginger
.5 stick of cinnamon (added to the crockpot after mixture has been blended)


Here is my plan. Hopefully it works...

I'm going to simmer the habaneros, bell pepper & onions in a little bit of water for about 20 minutes and then add the brown sugar and caramelize it. I will then add the cooked mixture to a blender with the remaining ingredients. After blending it down to a thin sauce I will pour it into a small crockpot. I'll cook it in the crock for 4 hrs. If need be, I can run it through a blender again. Once it cools I will use a turkey baster to fill up a bottle.

Any suggestions? It's good to be here. I've already learned a lot from cruising the forums. More importantly, I'm already having fantastic pipe-dreams about making and bottling my own sauces. LOL. Thanks!!!
 
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Ingredients sound good. Only thing I see is that there isn't much acidity there, you may want to add some lime juice or something like that. Also, I'd refrigerate it unless you have a ph meter to check that out.
 
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JayT said:
Ingredients sound good. Only thing I see is that there isn't much acidity there, you may want to add some lime juice or something like that. Also, I'd refrigerate it unless you have a ph meter to check that out.
Click to expand...


Indeed. I forgot to put that on the list but I have a lime that I'm planning on using. Thanks for reminding me. :)
 
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Sounds like a good sauce. Where is the Jamaican allspice from? I havent seen that before? What all is in it? Ive had Jamaican Jerk Seasoning from the Alaskan Spice Co. Had it for years, just about out. Been looking to find something close to it.

Not sure what your preference is on sauces, but have you tried any with wine vinegar? Thats what I use from time to time. I have some Bhut Jolokia infused red wine vinegar I will actually just take a spponful of every now and again.

Hope it goes well for ya. Let us know how it goes.
 
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JSKaiser said:
Sounds like a good sauce. Where is the Jamaican allspice from? I havent seen that before? What all is in it?
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Allspice is in allspice, lol. It's also known as pimento in Jamaica.

It's one spice that tastes like many, hence, allspice. A staple in jerk cooking (and the wood they cook with is pimento wood).
 
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OK... Got it cooked and blended. I decided not to cook it in the crockpot after blending. I don't think it needed to be cooked again since I already cooked the habs, onion & bells. I ended up putting in 2 tbs of allspice and 3 tbs of spicy brown mustard. I also added the juice from the can of pineapple. :)

I have two chicken breasts marinading in it right now. I'm waiting for the coals on my grill to burn down. I'll report back!
 
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Just had dinner. It tasted GREAT. I'm surprisingly impressed with my creation. The heat is at about 3/10. I could have used a little more spice. My wife was glad it wasn't any hotter. Not very spicy, but enough to give your taste buds a workout. The sauce has a pleasant smokey flavor. The first thing I taste is the yellow bell pepper, followed by the sweetness of the pineapple and a zing of habanero. I made enough for two full bottles. I'm glad I did. This won't last long. It's going to make a great marinade for pork & chicken. :)
 
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Stemwinder- good job for your first attempt! Make sure you write down what you put in and especially if you added more. Make notes of what you want more of next time.

Aside from the lime juice which just wasn't listed, I was thinking garlic! It sounds like a really sweet sauce and maybe could benefit from some other pungent flavors. But if it tastes good, don't mess with a good thang!


One other note, and you may have done this, but I can't tell from your description- Make sure to bring ALL of the ingredients up to boil before bottling. It says you cooked the habs, onions and bells, but I can't tell if you brought it back up to boil after the rest of the ingredients were added. Food safety thing~~~


Well Done!

And Welcome! :welcome:
 
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It's the process to kill any nasties that might be lurking about. Dry spices usually aren't known for harboring nasties, but you need to play it safe.

Boil the sauce and hot pack it into sterilized bottles. And since we don't know if you are using new lids or recycled lids, and also because of the pH as JayT said, keep it refrigerated.

There are some good threads in this "making hot sauce" section. I'll see if I can find another one for you to read.
 
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There are several threads re bottling/packing in the "bottling, packaging, and marketing" forum in the Industry section. good reads~

http://www.thehotpepper.com/forum/24-bottling-packaging-and-marketing/
 
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EEEEnnnnteresting. After sitting in the fridge overnight, the sauce has really gotten better. The ginger is much more noticeable, the sweetness is less harsh, and it now leaves a lingering smokey flavor in my mouth. It's perfect with cheese & crackers. :)

Now that I've successfully completed one batch, I'm ready to make another flavor!!! Uh oh, I'm hooked!
 
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You are almost fully assimilated into the ChileContinuum...Continue With your Mission!


heehee
 
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Do yourself a favor and before you go gangbusters read up on a few threads to make sure you do it safely. You seem to have a knack for flavor combinations, but there may be a few safety practices that you might want to learn just to be safe as far as bottling/packaging. God, I sound like my mother. I need a beer.
 
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JayT---NagNagNag :lol: ~~~~ beers for all :beer: and it's all good!


all kidding aside, JayT's post is true.
 
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I've been doing some reading. I'm not sure the sauce I made the other night would be safe to give away, but I refrigerated it and I'm going to be the only one eating it. So if you don't see any more posts from me this weekend it's probably because I've gotten food poisoning. Just kidding... although food poisoning is definitely no joke. :( Fortunately, the sauce tastes pretty good and I've been putting it on EVERYTHING so I doubt it lasts long enough to go bad. :)

I'll be ordering some woozies soon and next time I'll boil it and bottle it at 190 and turn it upside down. I didn't do that the other night because I was worried the glass bottle might explode. Thanks for the help!
 
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You're doing it right, reading and learning. Keep it refrigerated and it should be good for a while as it does have some citrus for acid in it. It sounds like it'll be gone before long anyway.


Just noticed you're in Muncie! Went there for a high school theater conference a couple (haha) years ago. Nice place, if it hasn't changed TOO much~
 
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