After the Firecracker Hot Sauce hit my farmers’ market table, several folks asked for something hotter. “Mo hotta, mo betta,” my faithful CCFM supporter Dan said, and he was serious about it.
According to my subjective heat tolerance, our latest batch is HOT. We’ve added a special label to reflect that, and I’m always interested in your thoughts.
So what is a relative hot sauce wimp to do when her peeps are asking her to bring on the heat? How could I even test the sauce for flavor if it is too hot for my somewhat meager palate?
Saved by the toothpicks! Turns out, the little bit of sauce I could pick up by dipping a toothpick into it as it ferments was enough to get a sense of the flavor balance without sending smoke out of my ears and nose.
Using mostly medium red hot peppers (cayenne, cherry peppers, serranos and fresnos) and more habaneros than seemed sensible, I created a balance that can vary between HOTTTT and medium-hot. Because the latest batch uses Thai chilis peppers, it is more along the lines of HOT. For you, my beloved “Mo’ hotta, mo’ betta” folks out there, get some of this batch before it sells out. The Thai chilis were a blip, and the batch that is currently fermenting features slightly more subdued cayenne and cherry bombs.
