To strain or not to strain

[AMfood]

Hi guys.
I am just starting into my best hot sauce life and I have noticed something. There are a lot of people who strain out the pulp from their sauce.

I find that I dont get much pulp from my recipes so I keep it in.

Do y'all strain your stuff?

 

[The Hot Pepper]

no strain

 

[dragonsfire]

No Strain.

 

[Malarky]

Dr says straining is no good

 

[HOX Sauce]

Depends on the sauce I'm making. If I'm going for a vinegar/southern style sauce, yes. But most others I don't.

I want to try grinding the pulp on fresh batch

 

[CAPCOM]

I would vote no straining. It removes some of the goodness.
 

 

[The Hot Pepper]

The word pulp is misleading here, because when you make orange juice, you are making JUICE not sauce. So yes remove pulp. Hot sauce is not juice. It is sauce. Like cooking down tomatoes to make smooth sauce. It's really all in the cooking and prep. Remove your seeds beforehand! If a few make it in fine. But that "pulp" is the actual pepper flesh, um, do not remove it! Cook it down. It will break down. Blend it, etc. Some people like the more fresco type sauce and do not want to cook it down so long. In this case I have found blending first is best. So pop those peppers and liquids in the blender, and THEN the pot. It will be smooth in minutes. These are tips to avoid the strainer but if you must, as in, it is simply too coarse or thick, or has hard bits, use a food mill with a medium plate and not a mesh strainer, the horror!

 

[ShowMeDaSauce]

I strain my ripe jalapeno sauce simply because removing seeds before the cook down also removes a lot of the heat. Ripe jalas are already on the milder side. Blending the snot out of it and straining it makes a beautiful smooth sauce. Very little is left in the strainer other than whats left of the seeds.
 
The vast majority of "pulp" just passes through the strainer.

 
This is a 7Pot and apricot sauce that went through a strainer. Its quite "pulpy"

 

[Wiriwiri]

I concur...no straining.

 

[The Hot Pepper]

SMDS, yeah, straining when cooked properly vs. not makes a huge difference! If you push through mesh and all that's left is a few seeds and skins, then it cooked right and the straining was simply a refining process. If you strain and it is full of pulp (aka pepper flesh) you are removing wayyy too much pepper.