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Why do my hot sauce taste like soup

I'm trying to develop my own recipe for hot sauce but it always ends up tasting like a soup, I use chilli, bell pepper, onion, garlic, vinegar and some spices to "add flavour" but it ends up tasting like a dull soup with a little bit of heat
 
Onion/carrot/bell pepper is a soup/stew base called mirepoix. You might consider removing the onion/bell until you get your sauce right and try adding one at a time later. Also add more peppers, so it is pepper-based, and not just a flavor you are adding. Another thing is watch your consistency.
 
Do you have access to another milder chilli that has a similar flavor? Add some of that chilli along with it the scotch bonnets in place of some of the veggies. And maybe bump up the vinegar to kick it over to a more hot sauce flavor.

Good luck and keep trying. No one ever won the gold medal on their first race.

Salsalady
 
Depends on how hot is desired. If the recipe has a small amount of scotch bonnets, is the right heat level, but tastes like soup....I'm suggesting using other lesser hot peppers, to bump up the pepper flavor, keep the scotch bonnets for the heat, less mirrorpuox.....


It's a lot of small batch r&d. We can offer suggestions, but the end result is a lot of test batches.

Are you looking to make what is your own personal best flavor ever? For your own personal use of and Christmas giveaways? Or a great commercially likeable sauce?
 
The Hot Pepper said:
Damn... I'm getting rusty... need to make a sauce myself...
 
That's something I look forward to seeing. 
 
Superhero, try playing with flavors and ingredients as others have mentioned here already. Looking up sauce recipes and/or the ingredients of a sauce you already like will put you in the right direction. Don't be afraid to experiment, and as always, note everything down so you can tweak afterwards. Just remember to give a sauce a few weeks or more for the flavors to meld.
 
Shorerider said:
 
That's something I look forward to seeing. 
 
Superhero, try playing with flavors and ingredients as others have mentioned here already. Looking up sauce recipes and/or the ingredients of a sauce you already like will put you in the right direction. Don't be afraid to experiment, and as always, note everything down so you can tweak afterwards. Just remember to give a sauce a few weeks or more for the flavors to meld.
So I've seen a few posts mentioning waiting a few weeks after bottling, is this primarily for fermented sauces or a cooked sauce? It would make sense that both would benefit but most posts I've seen mention it are ferments.
 
I've been making sauce for abut 3 years now and what you are saying Superhero is on the ball. They do have a soup smell to them. However just like that he others have said. Wait some time a week or so and then taste it again. Letting the flavors blend is key. Also r member your nose can only take but so much smells at a time. While you are cooking blend and bottling it you are also smelling it. You nose is overwhelmed with good and those receptacles are block so you only smelling a sort of chemically aroma. It's actually you rouge using its 5 basic taste buds pods. Sweet sour bitter salty and umami.
 
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