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Superhot Concentrate

AlabamaJack

AlabamaJack

eXtreme
I had to figure a way to preserve my superhot harvest over the past two weeks and I decided to simply add a little vinegar and salt to the blended peppers and pressure can them...

I ended up with 14 8 ounce jars of concentrate. The fresh taste of the pods remains and I can use this various ways including making hot sauce with them...

A pic of the jars...2 Dorset Naga, 2 Trinidad Scorpion, 3 Yellow Trinidad Scorpion, and 7 7 Pots...

This will get me thru the winter I am sure...thank you Billyboy for the recipe...

100 grams pepper
60ml vinegar
pinch of salt
1 Tbsp sugar

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no problem Jess...threads have a tendency to stray but eventually get back to the subject...

I like your recipe you used and am going to try it my first batch of concentrate I make with this years first good harvest...I got a few pods ripening now and within a week or two, I should be able to start "preserving" them...
 
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AlabamaJack said:
no problem Jess...threads have a tendency to stray but eventually get back to the subject...

I like your recipe you used and am going to try it my first batch of concentrate I make with this years first good harvest...I got a few pods ripening now and within a week or two, I should be able to start "preserving" them...
Click to expand...

Ill second that !!! Sounds tasty !

AJ what is your most favourite additive with your preserved chilli (apart from other chilli ;)) Herb,spice,liquor etc ?
 
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chilliman said:
Ill second that !!! Sounds tasty !

AJ what is your most favourite additive with your preserved chilli (apart from other chilli ;)) Herb,spice,liquor etc ?
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for my basic concentrate...nothing other than my recipe...I use this as a base for mixing and matching other stuff...I know a lot of people don't like tomato based sauces, but I love them...so I would say tomato and onion...I use a little cilantro in a lot of my stuff...it just all depends on what I am going to use the sauce for...thats why I keep the concentrate as pure as possible so I can mix and match taste to what I need for the meal I am cooking...

and Quad is right...every sauce has to have a little garlic in it...it wouldn't be right without it..
 
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AlabamaJack said:
for my basic concentrate...nothing other than my recipe...I use this as a base for mixing and matching other stuff...I know a lot of people don't like tomato based sauces, but I love them...so I would say tomato and onion...I use a little cilantro in a lot of my stuff...it just all depends on what I am going to use the sauce for...thats why I keep the concentrate as pure as possible so I can mix and match taste to what I need for the meal I am cooking...

and Quad is right...every sauce has to have a little garlic in it...it wouldn't be right without it..
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i tend to agree with you here AJ. Every time i crack a jar i thank you again for posting this. I have used the concentrates as the base for all my recent sauces. Once it's prepped, just crack a jar and mix with your sauce base as needed (read: keeping pouring until it hurts and add a bit more). my cilantro thi syear is killer so i'll finally have some good crop for the sauces. I still need more scotch bonnets to make my two-tone hot sauce.
 
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Talljess said:
to confirm or deny any doubts this is me month 8 during my last rotation in iraq
sexyman.jpg

Sorry Aj didnt mean to go astray in a very valid topic
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Oh no!!! More DickT ammunition...

AlabamaJack said:
no problem Jess...threads have a tendency to stray but eventually get back to the subject...

I like your recipe you used and am going to try it my first batch of concentrate I make with this years first good harvest...I got a few pods ripening now and within a week or two, I should be able to start "preserving" them...
Click to expand...

AJ I think this year I am going to use some of your ideas for concentrates and also dry more peppers for powder. I'm going to try that plum sauce again since I think last years went bad when I sent it to you. (After that I threw the rest out as I didn't want to take any chances)
 
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Best thread ever!

Since I know nothing about cooking I started with an experimental batch of concentrate - not with superhots but with what I got. Didn't measure everything or add sugar, just peppers salt and vinegar, then cooked it for a bit. WOW! did the habaneros turn nice and fruity smelling. In no time at all the house was filled with that delicious aroma. I only had maybe 9 of them, mixed red and orange, for this test. Then I did all the lemon drops I had leftover from other projects into another jar of concntrate. Since I was on a roll I did some of my fresh salsa too, just to see what happens to the flavor and heat after it gets simmered for a while. I still have to do pH testing and stuff for anything I want to put away for the winter. These jelly jars are going in the fridge.

concentrate.jpg


So... how much of the heat of the peppers are lost doing this? Or in reduction - and how are we defining that term? The fumes that come off are powerful decongestants, so I have to assume something noxious evaporates.
 
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great looking stuff Carol...great looking...have you tasted it yet?

I don't know how much heat they lose, but when I opened a jar of Chocolate Habanero concentrate from last September the other day, the aroma was just like fresh and the heat seemed to be where it should be for the chocs..
 
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Nope, haven't tasted it yet - it's still cooling. And I want to try the salsa first since I can do a direct comparison to the fresh batch it came from. Then my taste buds will have settle for a while before I dip into the hab.

Have you figured out how much concentrate to use to equal 1 pepper's worth of flavor/heat?
 
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seems with an average size orange hab ( about 5-6 grams ) I used about 13-17 for 100 grams of pepper...and it takes about 2 batches to make an 8 ounce jar...so I am looking (round numbers) at about 30 peppers per jar...so if there are 240 ml in an 8 ounce jar, there would be approximately 8 ml per pepper or about 1.5 tsp...

very rough, quick calculations Carol
 
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Thanks AJ. I guess different sized peppers are going to have a different conversion ratio. How do you figure this stuff when you're doing recipes? Just make up a whole new amount of ingredient for when you're using concentrate? Same for powders too right?

Anyway...
I did taste some of each of the concentrates and they mellowed out the flavor a bit. Especially the lemon drop which is not great to eat raw IMO. Next time I think I will add some sugar to the lemons.
Now that I think of it, can I do a direct substitution of lemon and/or lime juice instead of the vinegar? Or will this throw the preservation off? No I don't own a pH meter - yet.
 
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caroltlw said:
Thanks AJ. I guess different sized peppers are going to have a different conversion ratio. How do you figure this stuff when you're doing recipes? Just make up a whole new amount of ingredient for when you're using concentrate? Same for powders too right?

Anyway...
I did taste some of each of the concentrates and they mellowed out the flavor a bit. Especially the lemon drop which is not great to eat raw IMO. Next time I think I will add some sugar to the lemons.
Now that I think of it, can I do a direct substitution of lemon and/or lime juice instead of the vinegar? Or will this throw the preservation off? No I don't own a pH meter - yet.
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Yes ma'am...each pepper will have its own ratio depending on the weight...that is one reason I weigh them out in 100 gram incrememts (so I can tell how many goes in the jar)

as far as the recipes go...unless you know the above proportions, I don't know how you would tell unless you just use the taste test...

I can't answer the question about lemon/lime juice versus vinegar...the 60 ml vinegar/100 grams pepper usually gives me a pH of about 3.6-3.8
 
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I have never canned anything and had a few questions before I gave it a go. I have reviewed the thread and got most of the info, but wanted to be sure first before I screwed anything up. The post about blowing up the pressure cooker and sending metal throught the house has me a bit concearned.


1) I need special jars that seal when put in a pressure cooker?

2) I need any old pressure cooker to seal or I can boil them in water to create the seal.

3) When they are stored in the jars they don't have to be refredgerated.

4) Can the peppers be fermented first THEN canned?

5) The recipe of 100 grams pepper, 60ml vinegar, pinch of salt, 1 Tbsp sugar, should be brought and cooked at a boil of 20 minutes before putting them into the jar.

6) When canning the pepper concentrate this is only if I wanted to store them for a LONG time. If not I can just make the concentrate and use it for a hot sauce or salsa as needed?
 
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LGHT said:
I have never canned anything and had a few questions before I gave it a go. I have reviewed the thread and got most of the info, but wanted to be sure first before I screwed anything up. The post about blowing up the pressure cooker and sending metal throught the house has me a bit concearned.
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Blowing up a pressure cooker is definitely something you need to be aware of however, if your pressure cooker is set up properly, it has a "pop-off" valve that is a little rubber plug that will blow out if the pressure gets too high...once I have my pressure up to 10 psig, I decrease the heat to just keep it at 10...


LGHT said:
1) I need special jars that seal when put in a pressure cooker?
Click to expand...

you do need good jars to can in...I used some quart jars I get spaghetti sauce in that have mouths that you can fit bands and lids on...you always want to use a new lid..

http://www.canningpantry.com/barebawidoli.html

LGHT said:
2) I need any old pressure cooker to seal or I can boil them in water to create the seal.
Click to expand...

Hot water bath canning and pressure canning are used for two different food types....hot water bath canning is used for low pH foods and pressure canning is used for high pH foods....I have not tried hot water bath canning much...most of the stuff I put up is pressure canned

LGHT said:
3) When they are stored in the jars they don't have to be refredgerated.
Click to expand...

if they are pressure canned, you are correct, you don't need refrigeration...can't say about hot water bath canning..

LGHT said:
4) Can the peppers be fermented first THEN canned?
Click to expand...

don't know why not, you can pressure can anything...

LGHT said:
5) The recipe of 100 grams pepper, 60ml vinegar, pinch of salt, 1 Tbsp sugar, should be brought and cooked at a boil of 20 minutes before putting them into the jar.
Click to expand...

yes, I like to reduce my mixture by about 1/3. When I check the pH, it is usually around 3.8

LGHT said:
6) When canning the pepper concentrate this is only if I wanted to store them for a LONG time. If not I can just make the concentrate and use it for a hot sauce or salsa as needed?
Click to expand...

I have a bunch of 1/2 pints I canned last year and they are still good on the shelf...opened one of my 7 Pot concentrates this past weekend to use for bloody marys...let me tell you something, if you have never had a 7 pot bloody mary, you need to try it...the 7 Pot flavor melds exquisitely with the bloody mary spices...

I use the canned concentrates for cooking or, making salsas, sauce...use it for adding heat to my popper stuffings, etc...many uses...
 
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2. you can pressure can or water bath, but for sauces you only really need to hot pack ph'd sauce into sterilized jars. This means you bring the sauce up to temp(?not sure exact temp at the moment) and place in a canning jar that has been boiled or otherwise sterilized. You don't want to boil the sealing lid but it should be hot to loosen the rubber seal a bit.

4. Fermented sauces are pH'd already and aren't always heat processed
 
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Thanks for the help on the canning. Not sure if I will have enough, more than enough, or too much, but I just put 20 plants in the ground and have been enjoying the early fruit already. I have another 30 or so to plant up and really think I over planted, but i've been using bigger pots and going with 2 per container and gave a few away so time will tell.
 
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2. you can pressure can or water bath, but for sauces you only really need to hot pack ph'd sauce into sterilized jars. This means you bring the sauce up to temp(?not sure exact temp at the moment) and place in a canning jar that has been boiled or otherwise sterilized. You don't want to boil the sealing lid but it should be hot to loosen the rubber seal a bit.

That's what i do and it works. I store mine away in the pantry for maybe 2 months after a water bath. Then when I need it i'll put it in sterilized bottles and give it another water bath for maybe 7 to 10 minutes.
 
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