Life got you down? Turn that vinegar into hot sauce!

[dessertmaker]

Never a good day when you try to make wine and get vinegar instead. But don't throw it out! (Not all of it anyway...)

When I was in college the big thing in my group of friends was barbecue. That's pretty much all we did, and in those days my claim to fame was a homemade BBQ sauce that my friends lovingly dubbed "Bubba J's." They pronounced it "Bubber J's." (An affectionate nickname I earned by wrangling an alligator snapping turtle into the bed of my pickup truck while on my way to pick up a date for a formal. But that's another story.)

I still have people who call me up occasionally and ask if I have made any more. (Sauce, not disasters at formals.)

Part of my base for the sauce was vinegar, a substance which I recently acquired a full gallon of. I decided to take it to its full potential and do a hot sauce instead of BBQ.

This is not your average every day hot sauce that basically tastes like spicy vinegar so don't stop reading yet.

If it hasnt turned all the way yet, put the vinegar someplace warm and in an open container covered with a cloth, add a little mother of vinegar (if you have it) and let it turn into some really acidic vinegar. Then strain it into a jug.

Cut up 2 Onions
Smash out 2 garlic cloves
Destem 1 lb chile peppers (medium hot chiles)
1/2 lb jalepeno peppers
1/2 lb Serrano peppers
Deseed jalepeno and chile peppers, but not Serrano.
Cut the stems off and then cut them into chunks.
Add to crock pot
Pour vinegar over peppers until it almost covers them. (Leave about 1 inch)
Add a dash of sugar.
Cook on high for 4 hours, stir, cook on low for another 6.

Allow to cool, stirring frequently. Pour sauce through cheese cloth and strainer. Squeeze all the juice out of the cheese cloth.

I don't know how much it makes because mine is still in the crock pot.

What I do know after trying it about halfway through is that this stuff is better than the BBQ sauce, and since i've got old college buddies coming over, I'm gonna have to make sure it all doesn't go home in somebody's ice chest this weekend.

 

[grapeman]

So how did this turn out? It sounds really good!

 

[Tom_S]

I just got a batch of jalapenos and plan to make hot sauce out of them tonight. I generally use the following recipe:

jalapenos
1/2 onion
1 spoonful garlic
lime juice
vinegar
salt

Remove stems & seeds from jalapenos (being sure to wear rubber gloves when cutting or handling them). Put peppers in blender. Add 1/2 onion, spoonful of garlic, squirt of lime juice, and enough vinegar to cover peppers. Puree for several minutes. Pour mixture into saucepan and simmer for 30 minutes or so, adding about 1/2 teaspoon or so of salt to taste.

Whenever I make it I'm kind of a dump cook, meaning I dump stuff in without using exact measurements. I'm still experimenting with this recipe trying to match the green Tobasco sauce which I really like.

I made a hot sauce like this from some dried habanero and scorpion peppers given to me by a friend and it turned out really well, though it's very hot. The jalapeno sauce makes a good tasting sauce without being overpoweringly hot.

 

[dessertmaker]

Found some of this in the back of the fridge today. After I first made it (almost a year ago) it was pretty good.. Sweet with a bite at the end. After almost a year it's got a smoky taste that's pretty awesome.

Still a little sweeter than I'd like, which may be a characteristic of the wine vinegar or it could be the red onion. If anybody accidentally gets some vinegar going and does this with a white onion instead if be really interested to hear the result. I don't intend on making any wine vinegar (on purpose) any time soon.

I also kept the chopped veggies and peppers from this in a Tupperware container, served half as salsa which got torn to pieces within the first half hour of the party, and then strained/squeezed the other half into my sauce every day for 2 weeks.

Straining/squeezing the chopped veggies into the sauce every day made a HUGE difference after 2 weeks.

Edit: Also I ended up cooking it for 12 hours.