Making my own hot sauce

So, every year for Xmas I get my dad whatever strange and interesting hot sauces I can track down. I've found some great ones and some boring ones. He likes really hot food (he put's a good 10 or 12 tablespoons of sambal olek onto anything stir-fry related he eats) but he seems to have maxed out heat-wise with some scotch bonnet sauces I got him, straight up carribean calypso stuff.

Anyways, this year I figured I'd make my own. I want something really hot, but not quite as hot as full blast calypso sauce (but significantly hotter than most hot sauces, by a factor of 10 at least).

Here's my recipe so far, this is sitting on my stove getting another quick boil before going back into the fridge (I've been tinkering with the recipe today so I wanted to pastuerize it).

- A little bit of canola oil for roasting everything (did not pour the excess oil into the sauce after roasting)
- 1x Large red bell pepper (sliced then roasted)
- 2x Large Garlic bulbs/heads/whatever they're called (roasted)
- 54x Habanero peppers (10 added fresh rest roasted)
- 4x medium sized jalapeno peppers
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 cup Apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 cup light coloured honey (good quality)
- 3 tsp paprika powder (not smoked sadly)
- 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar (not the good stuff obviously)
- 1 cup of my very light coloured "Ghost Mead" traditional.

I'm thinking of roasting 4-6 more heads of garlic, I want a much stronger roasted garlic taste (maybe some sauteed garlic would be good to add? I don't want that fresh garlic bite in this sauce though). Right now it tastes like a Carribean sauce with a honey kick, I want something a little more unique. I also wouldn't mind it being more red, so I'm thinking of blending in another red bell pepper, but unroasted this time (should give it some nice freshness too).

Any thoughts? I've never really made hot sauce before.

I'm also wondering how sauces like this do for storage. I'm planning on bottling it in 500ml flip top beer bottles, and I have no idea if I should sulphite it (and how much to use if so) or bottle it hot, or what. If I sulphite it will that help it not go bad after being opened and kept in the fridge?

Or does something like this even need it? It's got some alcohol in it, a fair bit of vinegar, and maybe capsicum is antibacterial/fungal? I really have no clue what I'm doing here!

The aroma is bloody amazing so far, I think I'm going to make several more batches of this with different peppers and slight tweaks.

EDIT: I might also takke a small sample out and try adding a little chipotle. I love chipotle's smokiness to death, but this isn't a very "southern north america" tasting sauce and I'm worried it might ruin it.

It's got some salt, I could add more though - but I find myself that salt tends to accent heat rather than mellow it. I considered citrus, but decided for this one I'd rather go with acetic acid for balancing the sweetness, partially because that's what I like personally, and also to cut down on how "tropical" this whole thing ends up. I think I will add that second bell pepper and more garlic for sure (the mead addition I made today seemed to thin it out and mellow the heat a fair bit).

I've cooked it a couple times now because it's not in a sealed container yet - I could boil it right before bottling it in sanitized bottles. I've never bottled something unfermented though, so I'm a little worried about spoilage, this has to last at least 3/4 of a year before opening I think. I'm thinking a little sulphite might just be safer and wouldn't hurt anything... not really sure!


I'm thinking I'll try another batch of this replacing the jalapenos and habaneros with red Thai/Indian chilis (not sure of the difference between the two, I mean just those small long thin peppers common in both styles) so that it will be more red and less hot.

Displaced Hick said:

You might also considering adding some cumin to the mix, it gives the sauce an earthiness to it. If you can find whole cumin seeds you can toast them yourself and grind them.

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I love cumin, but I don't know if it's right for this particular recipe. I think the paprika has given some earthiness though. It's hard to explain the style I'm going for, trying to stay away from any particular ethnicity and just make something new. I guess if anything could describe what I'm shooting for it's honey-garlic in this one.

I would love to do an Indian style one though with cumin, corriander (leaves and seeds), tumeric, ginger, and cardamom though.

I'm thinking I'll make a whole pile of em, take a trip around the globe with some, and just make up some insane ones of my own!

Thanks for the ideas everyone!

Do you think just dunking the bottles in iodophor solution might work just as well as boiling the jars (or in my case, beer bottles)? I just hate handling hot glass, and whether I kill stuff with heat or iodine it's still dead right?

I'm totally up for boiling the sauce for a minute or two and boiling/sanitizing a funnel to get it into the bottles if you think this is safe.

Any chance I could get bottle bombs if I mess up, or will I just get junk sauce?

fatbloke said:

Well I'd suggest that the issue is what you're actually trying to produce.

A sauce that just happens to have a fair amount of capsaicin so that it blows yer dad's head off, or something like a well crafted sauce with attributes over and above the heat ?

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Definitely option number 2! Part of why I started this thread was to see if anyone had advice as to lowering the heat, because right now the taste and aroma are amazing, but the heat really overpowers and stops a person from using enough sauce to really experience it properly.

So yeah, I definitely want solid heat because both me and my dad enjoy that, but neither of us love pain for the sake of it! I like pleasant heat (I do get sad when I get Indian dishes that aren't as hot as they're supposed to be though, I've got to start specifically requesting that the chef make it however hot they themselves would enjoy the dish).

Chevette Girl said:

In jamming, the reason you want hot jars with hot sauce is so that when it all cools and contracts, it vacuum-seals the container. And the answer to hot glass is tongs and oven mitts... takes a bit of practice but *touches wood* I've never burned myself in two decades of making jam. And I am a class-A klutz.

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Right, I'd forgotten about that. Since I'm going into beer bottles I'll just sanitize them then and pour in the still heated sauce.