Hot Sauce Making

The path

1. 1
   Level 1Free

   First Bottles

   Fresh sauces and a fermented signature

   15 Steps, about 31 minutes each. Anyone who puts hot sauce on everything and wants to make their own. No fermenting experience needed.

   1. Chapter 1: Fresh sauces. Peppers tasted, three fresh sauces made, and a feel for balancing heat, acid, salt and sweet.
   2. Chapter 2: Ferment. A pepper mash and a brine ferment started, checked daily, and your first fermented sauce bottled.
   3. Chapter 3: Your signature. A signature sauce designed, fermented and bottled, labels made, and bottles shared.

   1. 1
      Meet your peppers

      Three peppers of different heat tasted side by side, with notes on flavor and heat.

      Every hot sauce starts with knowing your peppers. Each one has two qualities: flavor and heat. Habaneros are fruity, jalapeños are grassy, poblanos are earthy and mild. Learning these differences is how you start to design sauces.

      Heat comes from capsaicin, which sits mostly in the pale ribs inside the pepper, not the seeds. Heat is measured on the Scoville scale. Jalapeños are roughly 2,500 to 8,000 units; habaneros are 100,000 to 350,000.

      The detail beginners miss is gloves. Capsaicin stays on your skin for hours, even after washing, and touching your eyes or face later can be very painful. Wear gloves whenever you cut hot peppers.

      Here's an example tasting. Gloves on. A thin slice of poblano: earthy, heat 1. Then jalapeño: bright and green, heat 4. Then a tiny sliver of habanero: fruity, then a hard, rising burn, heat 8. Notes written after each one.

      Taste from mildest to hottest, and use tiny pieces of the hot ones. Milk or yogurt calms the burn far better than water, because capsaicin dissolves in fat. If you have a medical condition affected by spicy food, keep the tastes very small or skip the hot pepper.

      Pepper Geek
      Show your group
   2. 2
      Quick blender sauce

      A fresh, no-cook hot sauce blended, tasted and bottled.

      Andy Cooks
   3. 3
      Cooked Louisiana-style sauce

      A cooked, vinegar-forward red sauce simmered, blended and bottled.

      Pepper Geek

   See all 15 Steps

   1. 4
      Green sauce with fruit

      A green sauce using a fruit or vegetable for body and sweetness.

      Pepper Geek
   2. 5
      Taste panel

      Your three sauces tasted side by side with other people, and notes on what to change.

      Chili Pepper Madness
      Show your group
   3. 6
      Start a pepper mash

      A salted pepper mash packed into a clean jar and set to ferment.

      Chili Pepper Madness
   4. 7
      Start a brine ferment

      Chopped peppers and garlic submerged in a 3.5% brine, fermenting.

      Wilson's Orchard & FarmFermenting for Foodies
   5. 8
      Kahm yeast or mold?

      Both jars checked for bubbles, cloudiness, film or mold, and handled correctly.

      Fermenting for Foodies
   6. 9
      One-week tasting

      A small taste of your brine ferment, and a decision on how much longer to go.

      Pepper Geek
   7. 10
      Bottle your first ferment

      Your brine ferment blended into a finished sauce, pH checked, bottled and labeled.

      Pepper Geek
      Show your group
   8. 11
      Design your signature

      A recipe plan for your signature sauce: peppers, fruit or veg, aromatics and a name.

      Chili Pepper Madness
   9. 12
      Ferment your signature

      Your signature sauce ingredients packed into brine and fermenting.

      Chili Pepper Madness
   10. 13
       Finish the mash

       Your pepper mash blended with vinegar into an aged-style sauce and bottled.

       Pepper GeekPepper Geek
   11. 14
       Labels and storage

       Labels made for your sauces, with name, date and ingredients, and a storage plan.

       Fermenting for Foodies
   12. 15
       Bottle and share

       Your signature sauce bottled, labeled, and given to friends to try.

       Chili Pepper Madness
       Show your group
2. Level 2Unlocks after Level 1

   Sauce Lab

   Smoked, aged and fruit-forward sauces

3. Level 3Unlocks after Level 2

   Small Batch Seller

   A tested recipe ready for a market

Where it ends: your own signature hot sauce

Free lessons in First Bottles come from Pepper Geek, Andy Cooks, Chili Pepper Madness, Fermenting for Foodies, Wilson's Orchard & Farm, Oregon State University Extension. We link to their work and never copy it.