I make my own too. Pretty small company, not always good. 😏 I’m a big fan of hot sauces in general. I don’t like it much hotter than 400,000 Scoville units though.
Discussion
I am too but I’m more about flavour and not really a fan of obnoxious levels of spiciness.
The use I’ve found for peppers hotter than habanero is to make spicy high fat foods with it. Cheese for example seems to make short work of the sensation of heat in a habanero, but you can taste the ghost pepper just fine. This is one of the reasons the scorpion Tabasco was a pleasant surprise, great flavor and a pleasant heat delivery. I think their fermentation and aging processes are the key component.
I should try to making some hot sauce myself, I’m sure it’s not very difficult.
My experience is that it can be as simple as blending ingredients into a base and and an acid, or it can involve soxhlet extraction of various compounds in varying food grade solvents and numerous fermentation and aging schedules to achieve consistent exacting results. My techniques combine both approaches, I enjoy the variation and nuance natural ingredients bring to the flavor, as well as the terroir natural fermentation offers, all working along side with consistent levels of extracted capsaicin. So, difficult? Perhaps. It really depends, but yes I think you absolutely should make some. I recommend you buy a pH meter if you don’t have one, proper acidity is important for safety. You want to land your sauce with a pH below 4.0. 😁
Hmm well thanks, maybe I’ll give it a shot this week!
If you don’t mind, let me know how it goes? I like the taste of black pepper but not the consistency so I extract that. Puréed carrots make a great base, and apple cider vinegar can supply the acid. Jalapeños for flavor and habaneros for heat, garlic (extracted) and onion. It’s a pretty decent sauce on its own, you can customize from that. Smoked paprika, basil, rosemary…goodness!
Thanks for the tips, I was going to ask if you had a link to a guide or book or something. But yeah, I’ll lyk. I actually love habanero but it’s too much sometimes, I feel like I can make a nice blend with other stuff.