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Simple Habanero Sauce

Phil

Phil

Habanero Peppers - and lots of them! About 150
A handful of cherry sized roma tomatoes...6 or so.
Vinegar
Water
Salt
Sugar
 
All tossed in the food processor and whirled until smooth-ish.
 
Cooked until boiling, then boiled for 10 minutes.
 
Bottled in 1.7 oz. woozies. Only got a dozen out of the batch, so each bottle is packed with pepper
 
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Then instead of throwing the strained pulp in the garbage, I spread it out in a casserole dish and put it in the electric smoker.
 
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The pulp is the pepper flesh and should be a part of the sauce, so you basically juiced some peppers here.
 
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Doubled down on that, huh? lol. Yep! Pepper juice! I was shooting for a simple "tabasco style". I'll make the relish sauce with my fruitier peppers!
 
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Tabasco is not strained, they just have a high vinegar to mash ratio. So how does the pepper juice taste? :D
 
My bad

This pepper mash is then blended with premium white wine vinegar, strained and bottled as a small batch of TABASCO® Pepper Sauce.
 
Still, it's fermented so much more potent.
 
Hope it tastes good.
 
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LMAO! Don't make me JayT you, yankee!
 
They mix the pulp in vinegar for 3 weeks to help break up solid, and THEN...... wait for it...... they send it through a mill to remove the remaining pulp solids and seeds.
 
All I did was skip the three year ferment and 3 week vinegar mix. But I did learn something here..... they don't cook it at all. I was wondering about that.... if the pH below 4.6 is supposed to be low enough to keep out "baddies", then what's the need for the pasteurization? Seems kinda like a needless step.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgWk4nhwHNY

Ah, just saw your edit. Yep, theirs is much more refined, so I don't expect miine to be anywhere near as well done, but I was just going for the style. And what really sucks is that I don't have any shaker tops to fit these little bottles!
And I haven't tried it yet. Gonna wait for it to cool and marry first. I hope so too! If it is, I'll send ya a bottle!
 
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I corrected it already. Hehe.
 
Personally I just don't strain anything. That's all the goodness. The pepper. You can thin it out, and cook until it is super smooth, repeat... until desired consistency, but everyone does it different.
 
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Yep, saw it. I like some that way too.  I made a naga sauce last year with tomatoes and garlic that I left everything in, and it was awesome! I just went for a splasher juice on this one. Can't wait for my bhuts and scotch bonnets to make a good thick one!
 
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It looks really nice, and with those smaller 1.7 oz bottles, you should be able to "splash" it without the reducer. 
 
What's the plan for the tailings?
 
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Thanks SL! I'm not sure about that yet.... but a mortar and pestle keep coming to mind. Add a bit of salt, grind it up.... or just put it in a shaker and use as a seasoning flake. Any ideas?
 
The sauce is plenty hot, and has a strong pepper flavor.... maybe a bit too strong. And it's quite thin. The one thing I would change is more sugar and a little corn starch to thicken it up a bit.
 
Okay, that's two things. But who's counting, right?
 
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+1 on no straining. just blend, w/ 2:1 peppers:vinegar and some salt to taste. i prefer "himalayan pink salt" (said in the most blue blooded voice i can muster)  :party:
 
edit: btw, i don't cook the sauce, either. the vinegar is gonna kill anything in there, and preserve it for years. love hot sauce! especially my own!!  :dance:
 
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birdfather said:
+1 on no straining. just blend, w/ 2:1 peppers:vinegar and some salt to taste. i prefer "himalayan pink salt" (said in the most blue blooded voice i can muster)  :party:
 
edit: btw, i don't cook the sauce, either. the vinegar is gonna kill anything in there, and preserve it for years. love hot sauce! especially my own!!  :dance:
Click to expand...
 
Yeah, I just started thinking about the cooking part not too long ago. I was thinking "wait a minute..... if the pH is the key, then WTH do I need to pasteurize for???" Cooking might make sense for garlic or other ingredients, but a straight up pepper sauce shouldn't need it!
 
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for the tailings.....depending on yor heat tolerance...some kind of a 60/40 and up to 40/60 blend with salt:tailings. Throw in other tings like garlic, onion...whatever you think sounds good! Definitley would be a good table seasoning.
 
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Phil said:
Yeah, I just started thinking about the cooking part not too long ago. I was thinking "wait a minute..... if the pH is the key, then WTH do I need to pasteurize for???" Cooking might make sense for garlic or other ingredients, but a straight up pepper sauce shouldn't need it!
Click to expand...
 
You definitely need to hot bottle it in the least to kill any nasties. Tabasco does not because it is 3-year fermented mash, vinegar, salt and they do not introduce anything else. But you have produce... peppers. Or keep it in the fridge!
 
And cooking is more than pasteurizing. Sauces are usually cooked. Think of pasta sauce. You cook the tomatoes down into a sauce. If you just blended them and served it raw that would not taste the same. Even if you have just peppers, you'll want to cook it for a smooth consistency. All of that pulp would have broken down and become liquid gold!
 
Tabasco only strains to remove remaining pulp. The mash process breaks it all down well. You removed most of the pulp by only boiling for 10 minutes and straining. That was all peppers. A slow simmer would have cooked it down. And you still could have strained if you wanted but it wouldn't have removed all that. But I cook it down until smooth.
 
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We don't really know how McIlhenney's does their actual processing,the sauce might be heated to 180F before bottling, the same process for hot fill-hold. To be safe, it's best to follow the hot fil methods or keep it refered. I have sauces that are below 3.5pH and they are still told to be hot packed.
 
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And we don't know what they do for "process control" for pH level monitoring etc, it's up to them and their licensing agency to follow an "approved Process" which could include the fermentation process.



The other 96.342% of people should probably follow thehot-fill-hold for food safety or refrigerate. :)
 
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Yep. I'mm going to continue to hot fill just to be on the safe side. I'd really hate to get anyone sick. I just do it for a hobby, so my sauce goes strictly to friends and family.... not that it would matter less if a stranger were to get sick.
 
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