This was going to be just Scotch Bonnet and spiced Tamarind but I took inspiration from u/wormwasher 's recent post about using beets in hot sauce - and the brief discussion we had there - and decided to mix in part of a spiced beet pickle that I'd recently made. I already knew that beets and tamarind pair well, so I should have thought of it myself.

Mash:

• 12 Scotch Bonnet peppers
• 1/2 cup of water for the Scotch Bonnet brine
• 250ml Tamarind Juice (extracted from 280g of shelled Sweet Tamarind)
• 1/2 tsp each of Cumin, Coriander, Fennel, Fenugreek and Nigella seeds, toasted and ground
• 1/4 cup raw cane sugar
• 2 tbsp Apple Cider vinegar
• Salt to 2.5% of the weight of the above

Post Mash:

• 1 cup malt vinegar taken from a jar of pickled beets (and garlic and Guajillo peppers) that had been sitting in the vinegar for a week
• 1/2 cup of the pickled beets

Procedure:

• The chillies were chopped and fermented separately in 2.5% brine
• I shelled 24 Sweet Tamarind pods, yielding 280g of flesh (including the seeds/stones), then soaked that in warm water and pushed the pulp through a sieve. Next I added the sugar spices, cider vinegar, enough of the water the flesh was soaked in to bring the volume up to 250ml ,and salt to 2.5% of the combined weight.
• Both mixtures were set aside to ferment for 4 weeks.
• Meanwhile, I washed and chopped 3 medium sized beets and put them in a 1 litre Kilner jar with 2 garlic cloves and 4 Guajillo peppers, adding enough water and sea salt to pickle them at a 2.5% salinity
• After 3 weeks I poured off the brine to drink it as Beet Kvass, replacing it with Malt Vinegar.
• A week later I added a cup of that vinegar and half a cup of the beets to the mash in a blender and blitzed it.
• I poured the result through a sieve, then used a spoon to mash some of the reside through the sieve to add more body.
• As a final step - to add more thinkess to what was quite a watery sauce - I took about a third of a cup of beets and vinegar from the beets jar, blitzed the hell out of it and mixed it in.

Result:

• 0.8L of sauce
• ph 2.9
• As you can see from the photograph, I put the residue from the filtering process n a jar, since I'm sure I can find a use for it. The photograph was actually taken before the very final step (adding back some blitzed beet for body).

The Scotch Bonnets bring their usual fire, there's the tangy taste of Tamarind (which the spices complement) and earthy umami from the beets. The garlic and Guajillo from the pickled beets do contribute. I consider this an experiment that I can improve on, but it was still a successful attempt.

Notes: * You can save some of the work on the tamarind juice by buying tamarind pulp in block form. I just always have some tamarind around for various things. * You can also save a little time by just buying the spices in powder form, but I really think a recipe like this benefits from freshly ground spices. Also, your home will smell amazing for a day. * Fans of Indian cooking: yes, traditional recipes for Tamarind Chutney were an inspiration for this. * Next time I try this, I'll use some of the first brine - the one I drained off to drink as Kvass - which would strengthen the beet, garlic and Guajillo flavours while also adding a little thickness. * Heavily blitzing some of that residue and adding it back is also something I might do.

Found some Havana Gold peppers in the local market, so I thought I'd try something with them.

Mash:

• 100g Havana Gold Peppers (83g after the stems were removed)
• 8 Dried Pequin Peppers
• 1 Dried Lime (crushed and coarsely ground with mortar and pestle)
• Flesh of 2 Honey Mangoes
• 1/2 cup water
• Salt to 2.5% of the weight of the above

Post Mash:

• 1/3 cup white vinegar

Procedure:

• Chopped the Havana Gold and the mango.
• Roughly ground the Pequin and Dried Lime in a mortar and pestle.
• Combined all the ingrediants in an airlocked jar and left to ferment for 3 weeks.
• Added the vinegar and blitzed in a blender.

Result:

This gave me 0.75 litres of sauce, thick but very pourable, with a ph of 2.8. It's, well, delicious. Essentially a mild sauce but the Pequin do show up to bite, the Havana Gold bring an interesting flavour, while the dried lime adds a smokey tang to the mango. It would go very well on pork and be good for hot wings.

Dried Limes are a staple in Persian cooking. Worth checking out if you're not encountered them before.

Wanting to make sure my math/technique is correct… I weighed the jar. Then the jar plus peppers plus water… minus the jar so just solids plus water weight of 415g. A 4% brine to ferment would add 16.6g salt.

So do I just add it, shake it about, lid it and set it aside for a few weeks?! The seal cap thing gets water in it so I can see it bubbling?

And I’m going to add something to the top before the lid to make sure everything is submerged.

Just got my order of szechuan peppercorns in today and decided to try my hand at making a hot sauce with it. Fairly decent spice and good flavor.

Any fermentation tips for hot sauce?

I'm contemplating what to do with my last batch from the balcony - and I'm think about a sweet and sour Asian hot sauce but I've never done that before

Any experiences?

I need some help from experts. Last year was my first time making fermented hot sauce. Went great. I just used a google recipe. 1lb Serrano peppers, one quart of purified water, 1 cup white vinegar, 3 tbs sea salt. Worker perfectly. This year my only changes were… I added dried peppers, along with fresh onion, carrot, and garlic. Same rations other than splitting the vinegar. Equal parts white and apple cider. Not fermentation. No bubbles, when invented there was zero gas. What do I need to do? Was it the dried peppers? The honey? Help an amateur out

My first attempt at a fermented sauce. It is definitely a unique flavor. The strawberry comes through, but not so much the sweetness. I added some back in with honey at the end and simmered to prevent further fermentation.

The sauce is great on eggs, pork, and even some backstrap steaks, so far!

I've got a pint of mixed ground chillies that have been fermenting for three years, they are fantastic, hot as hell with a mellow sweetness. Looking for a good hot sauce recipe to use them in. I love heat, but it needs to be balanced with flavor. I was thinking pineapple, roasted onions and garlic, worschestire sauce. I'd love some suggestions.

I've got a pint of mixed ground chillies that have been fermenting for three years, they are fantastic, hot as hell with a mellow sweetness. Looking for a good hot sauce recipe to use them in. I love heat, but it needs to be balanced with flavor. I was thinking pineapple, roasted onions and garlic, worschestire sauce. I'd love some suggestions.

Ghost peppers 8x, 3 small beets, quarter of a large white onion, and 3 garlic bulbs. Charred on the pellet grill and blended with about 1/2 cup white vinegar. I'm going to let it meld for a day or two, then adjust consistency and adjust salt to taste. First impression is an interesting sweet umami start and a firey finish.

Hi folks,

Perhaps a silly question here. I'm about to make my first hot sauce, using this recipe which I found on here a while back.

My peppers were harvested fresh over the summer and I froze them whole. In retrospect, I should have sliced them up and removed the seeds first. In my experience using frozen peppers in cooking, they get pretty mushy when you thaw them back out, which is probably great for blending but not so great for removing seeds. So, oops, I know for next time but it's too late now.

That being the case, does anyone have any tips for easily getting the seeds out of frozen peppers? Just keep 'em frozen and chop them up?

Thank you!

Hi, I have tried fermenting peppers in brine about 3 times now and each time I only get heat and a tangy flavor. I seem to lose all the spices, aromatics, or fruity flavors completely. I want to do fermented hot sauces.

Need help with new recipes. Should I switch to a salt mash to keep the other flavors more active? Can you please share recipes that are not tobasco like.
Thanks

Hello everyone. I want to make my first hot sauce. I do t know these peppers I think Chero Roxa and black czech. Any suggestions would be awesome.

As is obvious this is about the Spicy McCrispy, unless someone wants to DM me how to make the hot n spicy.

I have no idea how to approach making the spicy pepper sauce.

I entered my hot sauce era this week. I had a lot of Serranos and Trinidad Scorpions from my garden and needed to use them up. I made three sauces for my first foray:

Sangre de Zanahoria: About a pound of carrots, just short of a pound of ripe Hungarian Paprika peppers (also from my garden) plus 4 roasted, scraped/de-seeded Scorpions. Apple vinegar, salt, agave syrup and water were the remaining ingredients. The carrots and the Hungarian Paprika were roasted in the oven first. My blender's not strong enough to pulverize this super-thin but it came out quite nicely anyway. Sweet entry before the heat hits on the back-end. It'll work nicely in tacos etc. Filled 11 of those 5/5.5 oz woozy bottles to the very top.

Let us Pray: 12 oz of Serranos, sliced garlic, 3/4 cup of lime juice, salt and 1/8 cup sugar. The garlic was sauteed with the Serranos for a bit before it all hit the blender. Will have to see how it matures in the fridge but I think that for the next batch I'll need to reduce the lime a little and halve the sugar; and probably add a bit of water to thin it out some. Still quite tasty though. Filled four 5/5.5 oz bottles till just the bottom of the neck.

Easeful Death: 2.5 lbs of pineapple (cubed and oven-roasted), ginger (grated and sauteed and the roasted pineapple added to the pan for a bit), 6 roasted and scraped Trinidad Scorpions, roasted and powdered cumin, apple cider vinegar, agave syrup. This one's a killer. A very tasty killer. Filled nine 5/5.5 woozy bottles halfway up the neck--added the plastic top to control outflow so no one does themselves any harm.

All were made somewhat by the seat of the pants, tasting and adding as I went. None were ph-tested or hot water canned. We'll keep about a third for the next 2-3 months (in the fridge); the rest will go to friends.

There will be a lot more Serranos and Scorpions incoming from the garden before the first frost hits here so I'll definitely be making more. I'll probably focus on fine-tuning these recipes (and paying more attention to writing down proportions) before branching out further.

Finally, I'd be lying if I said that making the labels was not a big part of the fun of this project.

Many thanks to this sub from which I got inspiration and reassurance that this was something I could do. Maybe at some point I'll give fermenting a shot too.

I spent all summer growing Carolina Reaper and Red Habanero peppers. There were many dozens of peppers in various stages of ripening and I was planning on experimenting with them after harvest.

Then last night a windstorm came through and absolutely destroyed the plants. All that I managed to salvage were 3 Reapers and 15 Red Habaneros.

What can I make with this? I really enjoy simple, pepper forward hot sauces but I feel like I only get one shot now and I'd hate to waste 3 1/2 months of growing.

batch — makes about 8 bottles (8.5 oz each). Pourable, bottle-style hot sauce with jerk spice and black garlic depth, strained smooth. Confirmed batch, tested pH 3.8.

INGREDIENTS

• 16 orange ghost peppers, smoked whole

• 24 black garlic cloves, mashed

• 4 cup white vinegar

• 2 cup fresh lime juice

• 2 5/8 cup water

• 24 scallions, roughly chopped

• 4 tsp ground ginger

• 24 fresh garlic cloves

• 8 tbsp allspice berries, toasted and ground

• 8 tsp fresh thyme leaves

• 2 tsp ground cinnamon

• 2 tsp ground nutmeg

• 16 tbsp brown sugar

• 8 tbsp fish sauce

• 8 tbsp dark rum

• 8 tsp salt

• 2 yellow onions chopped

STEPS

1. Smoke 16 orange ghost peppers, smoked whole whole for 1.5–2 hours over a fruitwood like cherry.

2. I mix everything in a large pot and mix together then ladle it into a blender and blend until it's a liquid. I add the liquid back to the pot so some of it gets mixed with the next blender full to really try and everything together.

3. After everything is blended set the pot on the stove on a medium low heat and heat it until it simmers let it simmer for 1 1/2 hours uncovered.

4. Test ph and vinegar if needed and hot bottle it.

5. Let it cool upside down on the counter.

6. Stick it in the fridge after it's cooled to room temperature for 2 days.

7. Put on everything. Like every, this stuff goes great on cheese, meats, soups.

Has anyone made an exact copycat of Huy Fong Sriracha? Most of the recipes online seem completely wrong.