The story about how I got interested in hot sauce is one of my favorites, as re-told here. After consideration of this year’s abundant hot pepper crop, that post deserves a sequel, namely a destination story that brings us to the present.

Where did that 1977 enamoring of all things hot pepper and capsaicin lead me? In part, it led to today’s kitchen garden.

I long felt I could not grow enough jalapeño peppers. This year I remedied that by devoting adequate space and picking several varieties that produced green, thick-walled peppers. I planted six varieties in all, and have been pressed to use them fresh. The result has been almost a dozen different jars of refrigerated hot sauce, relish, and condiments.

This year’s peppers include Anaheim, Santo Domingo (a hybrid of Serrano), Cayenne, Jalafuego (a large form of jalapeño), Craig’s Jalapeño (a large pepper), and Pantera (another large jalapeño). There was no shortage of peppers this year. In addition, I grew tomatillos, garlic, onions, and tomatoes, so the possibilities seemed endless. The limiting factor was the amount of room in the refrigerator. To make some space, I used hot peppers, daikon radishes, and fennel that I had pickled last year. One batch was made by rehydrating a variety of dried chilies, including store-bought guajillo chilies along with versions of everything else I had grown and dehydrated in previous years. Basic sea salt and my apple cider vinegar went into the mix. There was no shortage of ingredients.

At eleven jars of hot sauce, I stopped and took stock. I devised a protocol to taste and rate each batch on nine characteristics. The raw data is here, although I’ll cut to the chase.

The fruity taste of the peppers persisted across all 10 of my samples. (The eleventh was Frank’s Red Hot, which served as a baseline). In a couple of cases, it was overshadowed by garlic, yet it was still there in the background.

The thickness or texture varied a lot. A couple flowed easily, not unlike commercial hot sauces. Some were quite thick, whether I strained them or simply put them in a blender. The raw and pickled ingredient sauces were a bit chewy, suggesting use in cooking in lieu of fresh garlic, peppers, and onions prepared separately. All of them would stand up to refrigeration. The fresh ingredient samples seem likely of oxidize, making me want to cook them. It was striking how different each one was.

I will head this direction:

1. Attempt to use up three gallons of hot sauce in a year.
2. There is a case for with and without garlic. Some of each (pepper dominant and garlic dominant) will be great.
3. The best-tasting sauces had a mix of fresh ingredients: peppers, tomatillos, garlic, tomatoes and onions, particularly.
4. Using last season’s pickled vegetables produced a serviceable hot sauce. I plan to freeze, rather than pickle excess, as they do well when oven roasted after freezing.
5. Roasting the vegetables in a 425 degree oven made a noticeable flavor improvement. It didn’t matter whether the peppers and tomatillos were fresh or frozen.
6. The rehydrated peppers created the most complex flavor. Not sure if I will do more of this, yet it remains an option.
7. Fermenting hot peppers produced a serviceable sauce, yet it didn’t stand out enough to try it again.
8. The taste of pepper persisted across the applications. It was a distinctive foundation to this flight of sauces.
9. The application will drive how thick the sauce is. My thinnest was much thicker than Frank’s Red Hot. There are these main applications: an ingredient in cooking to replace fresh vegetables, a relish for sandwiches and other dishes that call for it, and a fluid hot sauce for putting on top of eggs, tacos, and other dishes.
10. The best texture is created by passing the sauce through a fine mesh. This type of sauce will be in a bottle on the dinner table during meal service. The rougher ones should be used more for cooking.

The learning I did making all this hot sauce will serve me for years to come. Now I know my destination.