Sounds like something I need to try, thanks!

This sauce is dedicated to Sampson, who always helped me start my seeds and plant the seedlings, including the ones used for this sauce. I miss my little helper.

This sauce is dedicated to Sampson, who always helped me start my seeds and plant the seedlings, including the ones used for this sauce. I miss my little helper.

The combined consistency is perfect. I do add a bit of xanthan gum to keep things homogenized, but not enough to really affect the texture. Also since xanthan gum is hard to blend smooth in water but mixes easily with oil, I use this opportunity to use very flavorful black truffle oil.

Each part has a different consistency. Fermented and smoked chili sauce is thick and luscious, fresh sauce is thin.

Altogether I made 4 quarts of hot sauce. This is about double my previous record of 2L. I do have a dedicated chili garden bed now, so...

I have reserved the solids for another use.

With these I removed as many of the seeds as I could and the difference was striking. Almost no solids remained after milling. The seeds leave space for the good stuff to hide within.

The smoked and dried chilies were rehydrated in an amount of barely simmering water based on the weight they lost. Left this longer than I meant to and had to add more water before blending. Salt and vinegar were also added.

Introducing yet another variable, I decided to go straight to the blender this year. Previously I've used (and almost broken) a food mill attachment for my stand mixer. I do think starting in the blender is the way to go, but straining was difficult and I ended up using my hand mill.

It was a long day and posting progress updates would have made it longer, so I'll summarize after the fact.

First batch in August was fermented, September smoked/dried, and October added fresh.

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Yesterday I spent the day near the kitchen with my laptop while I slowly dehydrated the sauce at 225°F (convection). Managed to reduce the weight by about half in a little over 4 hours. It's in the freezer while I figure out next steps.

Cooked for 7 hours until significantly reduced, probably by about 1/3. Just milled it to remove skin and seeds and ended up with a bit less than 2 quarts of puree. I'm tuckered out so I put it in the fridge for the night, I'll need to reduce this further, probably in a sheet pan in the oven all day.

Managed to fit them all in the pot, it was pretty close. 😅

There was no 2024 hot sauce 😥 but I've been thinking about it until I finally got some in the garden this year. I've simplified the process: ferment a batch, smoke and dry a batch, and when I'm ready, I'll combine the 3. This simplifies the timeline and means I can do the smoking in cooler weather.

That year was also when I realized I could add fresh chilies, more out of necessity than anything because it was *too smoky*. I have a draft for 2023's Firefruit Elixir I never finished writing, but the gist is that I fermented 1pt with 1pt reconstituted smoked, then blended with 1pt fresh+vinegar.

In 2022 I experimented with different concentrations of smoked chilies in the sauce. This was the first time I reconstituted them before fermenting, and I did a ferment of only smoked chilies. That batch was super acrid, I don't recommend it.

crockoftime.com/logbook/fres...

I first experimented with smoking chilies in 2021 for hot sauce by adding them directly to the the bulk ferment. I knew I still had some tweaking to do but I haven't skipped smoking chilies since.

crockoftime.com/logbook/fres...