I was wondering if anyone made their hot sauce at home.  What do you use and what is the recipe?

I have powdered cayenne pepper and was wondering if I could somehow turn it into hotsauce.

Hot Sauce:
1 tb Salt; plain
1 pt Cayenne
1 pt Garlic cloves; peeled
Distilled white vinegar

I've got some good recipes at home, I'll post them tonight.

I like to use red jalapenos.  The heat is delayed and the color is nice.  Cayenne is a sharper heat, habaneros are extremely sharp.

Kirk

Gonzo's Pinon Canyon Southwestern Hot Sauce.  

For my ARFCOM bretheren, this is a mellow, smooth, Mexican food style hot sauce that initially presents with a sweet peppery flavor and then builds to a near scorching heat.  It is simply amazing as a marinade for beef or chicken (dilute with vinegar to do so), and also works delightfully as a “shake on” addition to almost any Mexican dish.  Its complex flavor is brought out best by serving it with a high quality sharp cheddar cheese.   Works great to add heat to guacamole, ordinary salsa, or as a “drop by drop” addition to the top of nachos.  The yellow bananna hot peppers add a sweet and slightly zinging type of flavor and heat that contrasts nicely with the pungent and raw fire added by the habanero peppers.  Be forewarned.  This recipe takes a long time to make.  You can cut out some of the longer aging steps, but the flavor just is not the same.    

Ingredients:
3 yellow bell peppers
3 red bell peppers
4 - 8 cloves of garlic
6 to 8 yellow “Bananna” hot peppers (more or less to taste)
10 to 25 habanero peppers (both regular orange or red savina variety will work, more or less to taste)
1 medium sized red onion
1/2 of a medium sized yellow onion
1/4 cup of red wine vinegar
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
1/4 to 3/4 cup kosher salt
1 tsp finely ground cumin
1 tbsp cayenne pepper powder
1 tbsp finely ground black peppercorns (use a mortar and pestal)
1 tsp sweet paprika
1/2 tsp Finely ground dried cilantro


Very thoroughly wash (super important), dry (even more important)  and de-stem all of the peppers EXCEPT one of the red bel pepers, and also de-seed the bell peppers and yellow chile peppers.   You can take the seeds out of the habaneros if you have the patience, but it is really not necessary.   Wear gloves if you’re going to handle the habaneros extensively.  Once the peppers are prepared, throw all of them into a food processor and process vigorously, to where the pepper chunks are the size and consistency of oatmeal.  Now, stir in about a 1/4 to 1/2 of a cup of of the kosher salt.  Transfer the peppers to a sterilized glass bowl, rap the bowl against the table to get all of the air bubles out, and use the rest of your kosher salt to create a visable layer maybe 1/4th of an inch of salt on the top of the pepper/salt mixture.  Cover with cheese cloth and a rubber band and put aside in a cool, dark place (50 to 60 degrees or cooler) to age for 10 to 30 days.  Here’s what happens during this time:  The salt in the mixture starts to draw out the essential juices from the peppers and weakens the cell walls which will make it easier for us to further pulverize them later.  As long as you used enough salt and keep the peppers in a cool dry place, you need not worry about spoilage although some fermentation may occur (this is why you need to really wash these suckers good before processing, so that no "bad" bugs can grow during this step).  FYI, the famous Tobasco sauce from Louisiana is aged no less than THREE YEARS at this stage of the process.  

After the aging, use a spatula to remove as much of the salt "crust" as you can from the top of the peppers and disgard.   Next, pour the peppers back into your food processor.  Now take that extra red bell pepper from above and fire roast it till all the skin is blackened.   Let it sweat in a paper bag, then run it under cool water to slough the skin off.  De-stem, de-seed and add to the mash.  Add the garlic, onion, and _red_ wine vinegar and again process vigorously.  Very very vigorously.   The resulting "mash" should be about the consistency of juicy slush.  If it’s not, add some of the white vinegar and continue to process.  At this point, do not try to get the sauce to a fine consistency.  It should, and will, have lots of chunks of the pepper and onion flesh visible.  Do not worry, as you will take care of that soon enough.    The next  step is to let the sauce “steep” for a while.  Transfer the processed mash to a sterilized glass or plastic refrigerator (e.g., tupperware) container that has a lid with a good seal.  Leave this mash in the fridge for about a month or even more.  The vinegars will draw out even more of the flavor from the ingredients, while basically "pickling" the vegetable flesh.  During this time, the mixture is suitable for use as part of a marinade for meats, etc, but you must use absolute care to use only completely sanitized clean utensils when taking some of the mash out of the container to add to your marinade.  No double dipping!

After you’ve done the refrigerator aging/steeping, pour the entire mixture into a non-reactive pan, add the remaining seasonings (cumin, paprika, cayenne, black pepper and cilantro)  and bring the sauce to a vigorous boil, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon.  Have your windows open and send your children, pets, spouse, and neighbors away while you do this.  Contact lens wearers will want to switch to their glasses before this process.  I cannot stress enough that there is no hell quite like having anything involving habanero chile peppers, including the steam from this process,  make its way into your eyes.  Also, do not breathe the steam from the mixture in directly. As soon as the mixture is boiling, reduce the heat and simmer on extremely low heat for about ½ hour to 1 hour or until it reduces a little bit.  

Now, for this last step use either a high-end blender, or one of those neat “wand” mixers (I prefer the later, as it allows you to process the stuff right in its cooking pan).  Take the hot mash, which should now be really softened from the cooking, and completely pulverize it.  At this point, you need to process for as long as it takes for the mixture to reach a smooth and well mixed texture.  Do not worry about the thickness or thinness of the sauce, but rather about the consistency.  

Once you have processed all of the lumps and bits out, pour the sauce back into the saucepan and bring to a boil once more.  At this stage, perform your final adjustment to the thickness or thinness of the sauce by either adding white vinegar to thin the sauce out or by “reducing” the sauce at a low simmer to thicken it.  Do not boil the sause too long, as that degrades the capcascin.  Stir vigorously throughout the process, and never ever allow the sauce at the bottom of the pan to burn as it will ruin the flavor of the whole batch.  As you can probably figure out, reducing the sauce to a thicker continency increases the concentration of the "heat" in it; whereas adding vinegar to thin it out reduces the number of “heat units” per drop of sauce.  In either case, the finished product will be quite hot.

When you're ready, up the heat just a bit and quickly bottle the sauce directly from this last hot stage into sterilized hot sauce bottles (which are available commercially), using the hot water bath canning method.  Cap the bottles immediately after filling and turn them upside down to make sure the high temperature sauce is able to contact the lids.  That helps the sterilization process by killing any bacteria from the air that may have settled on the lids before they were used.

That’s it.  Enjoy!        

Thank you very much!

And I'm looking forward to photokirk's update.

Pili Pili (Piri Piri)
Simple, but hot relish for chicken.

10 habaneros
1/2 medium yellow onion
1 medium garlic clove
juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup olive oil
pinch of oregano

Finely chop chiles, onion and garlic.  Combine all ingredients in blender until smooth.  Will keep for 2 weeks in the fridge.


Harissa
North African hot sauce

4 dried ancho chiles
1/8 cup tomato paste
4 tablespoons olive oil
4 teaspoons ground cayenne
6 medium garlic cloves
2 teaspoons cumin
2 teaspoons coriander
3/4 cup water

Reconsitute ancho peppers in hot water until soft.  Puree all other ingredients except water in a blender.  Remove ancho peppers from water, stem and chop into small pieces.  Add chiles and 3/4 cup fresh water to blender and puree until smooth.  Will keep for several weeks in the fridge.

Thank you very much!  I will take full advantage of all of these recipes.

Got a couple bad ass ones, but you'll have to make your way to Corpus to find out what they are...

I can OC spray + Habanaros.

Quoted: Got a couple bad ass ones, but you'll have to make your way to Corpus to find out what they are...

Are you asking me for a date?

Screw the jalopeno's.  Use Biker Billy's .

Quoted: Screw the jalopeno's.  Use Biker Billy's .

If you want even hotter than that, get Stupid Hot.   http;//www.wildpeppers.com  It's made with Red Savina habaneros and actually tastes pretty good, after the screaming and mind-boggling pain go away.

Kirk

I find this to be the best over the counter hot sause I ever found
The Habanero  stuff.

www.shuttleshopper.com/tabasco.htm

This ought to cover what you're looking for.  Be sure to stock up on ice cream first.  

Home Made Hell's Fire