Red Jalapeno Hot Sauce – v3 – October 2010

This hot sauce was one of those random ideas that I had, while looking at all the ripened jalapenos in the garden. At first I though about drying the red jalapenos into a red pepper flake, or maybe even smoking them for chipotles. But for some reason, I was more intrigued by the idea of making them into a hot sauce instead.

So using the newest hot sauce recipe on file as a starting point, here are the results:

The Peppers:

  • 3lbs 5.1oz of Red Jalapeno peppers, with the stems removed and roughly chopped (final trim weight 48.4 oz)

Pickling liquid (makes one batch):

  • 10 cups white vinegar
  • 2 cup water
  • 2 TB + 2 tsp canning salt
  • 4 TB sugar
  • 8 cloves garlic
  • 6 TB Lemon juice
  • 2 medium yellow onion, diced (final trim weight 21.4 oz)

Quick step-by-step:
Place all the ingredients into a large pot, and bring the mixture to a boil. Once boiling, simmer for at least 30 minutes until the pepper fall apart easily when mashed with a wooden spoon. Then process with a blender/food processor/or stick blender until smooth. Then either strain or not, into hot quart jars and process using the time below.

Process:
10 minutes in a boiling water canner

Final yield:
5 quarts

Side Notes:
1) Holy mackerel was it a mistake to cook this stuff inside the house. I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal, since at first I thought that it was a pretty small batch. Well it turns out that 5 quarts of hot sauce can make a very strong capsicum “bomb” in an enclosed space. Since during the hour that I was cooking the mixture on the range, I couldn’t stop coughing/sneezing. And even now, two hours later, I’m still have a pretty strong coughing fit. So after this, all hot sauce cooking in now going to be done in the backyard only.
2) I didn’t get a chance to taste the hot sauce before canning it. It probably had to do with all that coughing I was doing. But if this stuff is anywhere close to the regular jalapeno variety hot sauce that I made, I’ll be happy.
3) In going with the trend for thinner hot sauce a la v2 of the green hot sauce. Instead of using 10 cups of liquid (if using the 10.5oz pepper to 2 cups of liquid ratio.) I went with 12 cups instead, making this hot sauce about 5% thinner then v2. It doesn’t seem too much thinner. But the proof will be in about a month or two, when I crack open a jar.
4) Something else new for this batch of hot sauce was that I actually canned it, instead of just refrigerating it. Part of this, was due to the lack of refrigerator space from the 6 quarts of the original hot sauce that I made. And another part of me just wanted to see if it was possible, which it appears that it is. So this should free up a ton of fridge space for next years hot sauce.

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