Hot sauce

[gunzo]

Earlier this week I unknowingly or maybe not thinking hijacked a thread pretty bad by posting a pic of some hot sauces I had. The thread subject drifted badly as so many folks here are interested in, & use various sauces. So why not a HS thread. One thing that surprises me about HS is how so much different they can be. Not just the heat, but also the flavor profiles. I've found that many seemingly similar may not work for a certain food where other might excel. More on that later but meaning few sauces are "all the same" just hot & hotter. Not so.

Talk about scarce or expensive sauces if ya like, but mainly think here of the mostly available stuff across the board as that benefits the most folks here I think. Not trying to be a thread nazi, just thoughts.
The thread drift pic, that's ever evolving;

 

[M118LR]

Hot Stuff Man on Treasury Street in St Augustine is the spot to sample Sauces. JMHO YMMV.

 

[gunzo]

THe habanero sauce. for me a little dab or 3 will do just to kick things up a notch or 3(see what I did there). Keeping it simple, I like the green in green sauces & the red for the red.

Redhot, a staple here, wife had it in the house when I met her. It simply won't work for a lot of stuff as I've tried, but great for original style buffalo wings that we enjoy often. Hence the magnum bottle.

To be cont.

 

[themousethatroared]

I think I mentioned something about tomatoes, peppers, buckets, and inspectors...
I really like hot sauce, and they had a whole aisle of REAL hot sauces it in the grocery store, like Yucatan Sunshine, about 20 years ago, but they shrunk it down to four bottles, and a big section of wing sauce, so I started growing peppers and learned how to make my own hot sauce. I like Frank's RedHot, and it's better than Panola or any of the thin Louisiana style sauces, but my addiction moved past Cayenne to much harder peppers a couple decades ago.

Left to right:
Bele-G Belizean Habanero Sauce. (Milder with carrots, a copy of Yucatan Sunshine.)
Bele-G Red Chili Sauce. (Cayenne and Ancho; a pretty good copy of Bruce Foods Louisiana Perfect Spot Brand but thicker. Really good to carry an insanely hot sauce if you want the flavor without the pain.)
Bellett GT-R Hot Smokey Habanero Hot Sauce. (Similar to El Yukateko and something a relative sent me with the name of a bar down in south Florida that I thought had a picture of an alligator on it, might have been Jardine's.)
Bele-G Green Jalapeno Sauce. (Less successful attempt to copy Bruce Foods Louisiana Perfect version.)
Bele-G Red Jalapeno Sauce. (Works better cooked down to thicken and added to Catsup to copy Melinda's, than as a hot sauce.)

These were car themed for the Japanese car club guys.

I never could get a Jalapeno sauce to come out right except when I got a smoker and made Chipotle.
Not much luck with a straight Cayenne sauce, either. Tried for years to replicate RedHot, and never succeeded.

I used the Bellett GT-R logo for the hotter sauces because that's the fastest and sportiest trim level. Trinidad Scorpion, Carolina Reaper, and Ghost Pepper. Also Tabasco-Habanero that is great on Cajun food and has more heat and a better flavor than Tabasco brand regular.

Basically: peppers, water, vinegar, salt, sometimes lime juice and sometimes garlic. I stopped cooking from fresh peppers because it doesn't have as long a shelf life. I started using aged peppers, and don't add salt or vinegar when cooking, just depend on the salt and vinegar from the aging.

Carolina Reapers; bumpy with the little tails.

Trinidad Scorpion, bigger, smoother, really cool color change from top to bottom as they go green, orange, red. My favorite. Hotter than Habanero with a really good flavor.

Ghosts. I only grew them two years. They try to cross pollinate with the Reapers and Habaneros. Reapers are just a cross of a Ghost with Habanero.

Jalapenos. Can't grow them every year because they try to cross with the Cayennes.

Cayennes.

The tag on the seedlings at the nursery said "Ecuadorian Devil's Breath". Not sure if that's correct because I can't find anything with a similar color with that name. They're hotter than Habanero and have a really bright orange when ripened that cooks up into a great orange sauce......that stays that color for a day and a half before it turns brown and tastes like crap. I have some aged and am not brave enough to see if the sauce will stay orange long enough to use it.

Habaneros. It took a few years to find some good, thick skinned, opaque Habaneros. They make a good, thick sauce. Nothing like those translucent orange peppers at the grocery store.

Tacos are just a hot sauce delivery device. If you don't have sweat rolling off your forehead and running into your eyes while you are eating them, then you haven't put on enough hot sauce to fully enjoy eating them.

 

[jimbo1096]

I never did like really hot things. So my vote goes to chipotle Tabasco.

 

[Taterman]

I think I mentioned something about tomatoes, peppers, buckets, and inspectors...
I really like hot sauce, and they had a whole aisle of REAL hot sauces it in the grocery store, like Yucatan Sunshine, about 20 years ago, but they shrunk it down to four bottles, and a big section of wing sauce, so I started growing peppers and learned how to make my own hot sauce. I like Frank's RedHot, and it's better than Panola or any of the thin Louisiana style sauces, but my addiction moved past Cayenne to much harder peppers a couple decades ago.

Do you refrigerate your hot sauces? How can you tell when they go bad?

 

[krw]

We keep 2 in the fridge. Cholula and Valentino's. They cover my hot sauce needs quite well

 

[Mobuck]

I don't do 'hot sauce', it just upsets my stomach. I don't have anything against someone else using such but sometimes question this usage.
I have a theory about the need/use of this type of condiment. Look at where these 'sauces' originated. Most/all came from areas that are warm most of the year. In pre-refrigeration times, it was difficult to keep meat from spoiling so the 'hot sauce' was a way to cover the taste/smell of putrid meat in the food.

 

[Gwitness]

Hot Stuff Man on Treasury Street in St Augustine is the spot to sample Sauces. JMHO YMMV.

I love this stuff...

 

[41Dude]

Valentina also comes in a black label.
Hotter than the other label. It does not take much to add the heat.

 

[gunzo]

Wow, I'm just a sampler. themousethatroared is a true connoisseur. I tip my hat to you sir.

 

[themousethatroared]

Do you refrigerate your hot sauces? How can you tell when they go bad?

The two main ingredients are salt and vinegar, so it shouldn't need refrigeration. The store bought product has preservatives like Xanthum Gum, which should make them even more resistant to spoiling.

I refrigerate the smaller bottles I am using out of.
I usually make it in batches over a quart. I used to make a couple gallons of each when I was doing large numbers of gift boxes. The batches go in plastic bottles, gallon, half gallon. or smaller, and are not refrigerated,
The recipes I was working from called for fresh peppers and said that sauce had a shelf life measured in months. I was counting out a couple years before the sauce changed to a darker color, lost spiciness, and lost the fruity flavors of the pepper. It's more obvious if you have some you made, then make a new batch with the exact same recipe, and compare the taste side-by-side. It seemed to happen more if the bottle was half full and there was a lot of air for the sauce to react to.
Aging the peppers in salt and vinegar is like pickling and fermentation. From what I'm reading, it converts sugars, which I would guess are part of what causes sauce made with fresh peppers to go bad more quickly. I've been having good luck with the aged peppers for the last several years. But since my minimum quantity to use is a jar, and not everything I am picking off the plant at the end of the season, I can make smaller batches and make a new batch whenever I run out instead of once a year.

@Mobuck
It's strange talking to people and finding out who likes or doesn't like hot sauce, because it's really random. Sauce can be made from milder peppers, and it carries a lot more flavor without the overwhelming heat. That Red Chili with the Cayenne and Ancho peppers is one I use a lot of. There was a Roasted Bell Pepper sauce I liked a lot and never had the courage to try to replicate.

I sat through a lecture on passive cooling techniques and the lecturer pointed out that hot sauces are popular in warmer climates because they cause a person to sweat, and the sweat evaporating off your skin cools your body.
There was a news feature story on talk radio years ago that said people who like hot sauce have damaged taste buds causing everything to taste bland, and hot sauce was the only way for them to enjoy food. I'm not sure if it was another story or some thinking, but there seemed to be something about if a person brushed their tongue and the roof of their mouth along with their teeth, and the abrasion on the taste buds dulling them down.

Peppers are spicy as a defense mechanism to keep animals from eating them so they will survive to grow another generation of plant the next season. So it's poison. Ghost peppers were grown in India to keep the elephants out of their gardens, and then some insane westerner decided they wanted to eat the elephant repellent.
Some animals have a genetic mutation that causes them to enjoy the poison, and that defeats the plant's defense mechanism. In this case, those animals are humans. We're keeping the peppers from going extinct by growing them in our gardens.

 

[peachhead]

I like Frank's. Tobasco is almost sour to me.
I tried a lot of hot sauces over the years. These days I prefer flavor over heat.

 

[Johnny-Baseball]

Apparently, there's an interaction between cigarette smoking and tolerance for hot peppers/sauce. I smoked for 60 years (I quit 6 months ago - for the 5th time). During my smoking years I could tolerate HOT peppers and hot sauces. But whenever I stopped smoking, my tolerance declined dramatically (my tolerance for salty corn chips is similarly affected).

My theory - cigarettes so damage the tongue and inner walls of the mouth (they are essentially cauterized) that they become less sensitive to peppers. Once the smoker stops smoking, his tongue and mouth begin to heal, and during the healing process the tongue and inner walls of the mouth are hyper-sensitive to peppers. Of course, during this healing process, taste buds and sense of smell also begin to function normally, and tear ducts again properly irrigate the eyes.

I'll find out if "not smoking" for a year or more restores my tolerance to hot peppers. I hope so. But until then, sampling the peppers is, for me, a fool's errand.

Too bad...I am a forever Tex-Mex addict (including in my youth before I started smoking), and hot peppers are an integral ingredient to fine Tex-Mex.

 

[Gwitness]

for those visiting Seattle...Mt. Lake Terrace north of Seattle has Double DD Meats, that carries the largest selection of hot sauces on the west coast.

 

[gunzo]

Valentina. Mild heat with a different flavor profile than most of the rest. I like it on pork. Thinking some mexicans look at it like we do catsup. A one quart bottle of it is always on the staff table at a local mex restaurant.

The tobacco's. Never big on the red for much but it does work well for a homemade spicy Bloody Mary so I keep it around in case I were to run out of the powdered spice mix I now use. Boss stopped at a Qdoba one day & I stood in line to get their fat custom order burrito. The thing was as bland as hospital food. Green tabasco saved it, so it gets a space on my shelf.

Cholula, the red doesn't do much for me & it cost 2 times more than many others. Guess that wood ball on top is expensive. The green OTOH is really good. Works for me on fish tacos & a seafood omelette.

 

[gunzo]

Jungle Jim's international market in Cinci Oh. An unbelievable place, in a building that's likely larger than a Costco.

They have a ~12x16' room with nothing but hot sauces. A big rack in the middle makes for 5 rows , floor to ceiling hot sauces. A sight to see.

 

[jav]

I always have Frank’s in the fridge

 

[sfhogman]

I can't think of a hot sauce that I DON'T like. The only one not in my cupboard right now is Tabasco; my wife finds it to be like hot vinegar water and I think she's not too far off. Right now our standards seem to be Cholula, Valentina and Huy Fong Sriracha.
But truthfully, I like 'em all.

 

[gunzo]

I've added Tapatico & Texas Pete as keepers. The former has a good heat without too much & the later is with pleasing flavor to me & really nice to splash on a plate of white soup beans.

Huy Fong Sriracha,,, could just about deserve it;s own thread. While it just flat don't work for some things, it steals the show with others. Had been trying to re-create a Japanese spicy beef dish I'd had in a Toyota cafeteria & it never worked out. Something the red hot couldn't do. Then one day after learning of Sri. I decided it might be the obvious choice. Bingo, it worked.
I'd tried about all the stuff sardines came with & finally started buying them packed in water, draining it & adding various sauces of my own. Finally trying Sri. For my taste buds it was a marriage made in heaven. Not sure I've ever seen any two things go together so well.

I've blabbered enough for now.

 

[crstrode]

Frank's is my favorite. I put that sh!t on everything - Frank it up!

Some folks don't refer to it as "Frank's", instead they call it by the product name; "Red Hot".

A cousin from Minneapolis said he'd never heard of "Frank's" - However, "Red Hot" was his favorite . . . go figure.

The first time I tried Frank's was because I had a cat named Frank. Frank was wild and snarly - much meaner than Frank's Red Hot.

 

[gunzo]

Franks did get bought out some years ago & they removed the Franks name for a time. Reality hit that Franks was bigtime name recognition & they scrambled to put Franks' back on the bottle.

 

[deac45]

I never did like really hot things. So my vote goes to chipotle Tabasco.

A favorite of mine also. I use it in soups, chili and Brunswick stew. Been known to add a few splashes to a ham or turkey sandwich.

 

[Kevin]

I’ve always loved the green hot sauces. They are still mildly spicy but I think they have lots more flavor.

I do like Franks. Equal parts Franks and butter is Buffalo sauce. But I think they make a Buffalo flavored hot sauce. I also like their sweet and spicy chili sauce. But sometimes it’s too sweet so I don’t buy it that often.

I agree with the Tobasco being too sour or vinegar-ry. Long long time ago I went to Avery Island down in Louisiana. We toured the factory.

Interesting side note. The Tobasco is a pepper variety. But they somehow got a trade mark on it. So if another hot sauce uses Tobasco peppers, they can’t say so. Stupid lawyers!

 

[jav]

I've added Tapatico & Texas Pete as keepers. The former has a good heat without too much & the later is with pleasing flavor to me & really nice to splash on a plate of white soup beans.

Huy Fong Sriracha,,, could just about deserve it;s own thread. While it just flat don't work for some things, it steals the show with others. Had been trying to re-create a Japanese spicy beef dish I'd had in a Toyota cafeteria & it never worked out. Something the red hot couldn't do. Then one day after learning of Sri. I decided it might be the obvious choice. Bingo, it worked.
I'd tried about all the stuff sardines came with & finally started buying them packed in water, draining it & adding various sauces of my own. Finally trying Sri. For my taste buds it was a marriage made in heaven. Not sure I've ever seen any two things go together so well.

I've blabbered enough for now.

Speaking of sriracha if you guys have a Trader Joe’s they just got their sriracha bbq sauce back it’s to die for

 

[Track14]

Earlier this week I unknowingly or maybe not thinking hijacked a thread pretty bad by posting a pic of some hot sauces I had. The thread subject drifted badly as so many folks here are interested in, & use various sauces. So why not a HS thread. One thing that surprises me about HS is how so much different they can be. Not just the heat, but also the flavor profiles. I've found that many seemingly similar may not work for a certain food where other might excel. More on that later but meaning few sauces are "all the same" just hot & hotter. Not so.

Talk about scarce or expensive sauces if ya like, but mainly think here of the mostly available stuff across the board as that benefits the most folks here I think. Not trying to be a thread nazi, just thoughts.
The thread drift pic, that's ever evolving;
Valentina is the only one that we have none of in our refrigerator.

 

[jkingrph]

I never did like really hot things. So my vote goes to chipotle Tabasco.

My favorite, use it for most things. I always keep a spare bottle on hand.
I also like the original Louisiana brand hot sauce and sometimes Crystal.

 

[gunzo]

Has anyone had Aardvark sauce? A bud had some & knowing him, he likely bought it for the novelty, but I tried it & it's pretty dang good. The original red is made with habanero & now they offer others. They offer 2 greens, one with hab & serrano & the other is just serrano using roasted tomatoes.

It's not available in my town so I don't use it as a staple. I won';t go chasing all over for things like that & most of the time mail ordered food is very expensive compared to an off the shelf item.

 

[gunzo]

Irony

This morning wife & I were discussing plans for supper. We tossed a lot of ideas around, we both like to eat. Then it was almost a palm smack to the forehead moment,,,,,, I asked, how bout hot wings. Without hesitation she said YES!

They was goooood . If Franks isn't used for anything else around here that's OK as it's great for wings.

 

[M118LR]

Irony

This morning wife & I were discussing plans for supper. We tossed a lot of ideas around, we both like to eat. Then it was almost a palm smack to the forehead moment,,,,,, I asked, how bout hot wings. Without hesitation she said YES!

They was goooood . If Franks isn't used for anything else around here that's OK as it's great for wings

Stouffer's. Chicken enchiladas, black beans and saffron rice. Hot sauce to taste. Don't forget Spanish Black Olives.

Best rotisserie chicken beans and rice was in Puerto Rico. Chicken Jose.