A Tale of Two Peppers: The Taste Test
The true test of which hot sauce comes out on top: Taquitos Al Pastor. If the sauce sucks on this… it just sucks.
Sad to say, my usual stand-by, the Jalapeno, didn’t measure up. After coming out of the fridge from an overnight meld the sauce I made with Red Serrano mash was far superior in every way. Color, texture, homogenization, flavor, and to boot I was even able to stretch it more since it was thicker. MOAR SOSS = MOAR OSSUM.
Surprisingly though, neither one of these had the capsaicin content I usually expect out of such pepper mashes. I’d wager to say it’s because capsaicin mellows over time in fermented mashes. No worries, I have some Red Savina mash and Bhut Jolokia mash that will remedy that issue REAL quick. And shortly, either Trinidad Scorpion or Trinidad 7-pot mash. ;) But those are in the works… This is a good thing! It’s much easier to work with a sauce that’s not hot enough, than have one that’s insanely too hot for the average palette. You can always add heat, but you can’t take it out.
Now unless the cayenne mash turns out better than the Red Serrano (doubtful) I think I have a good base to work with for Aztec Empire 1323.
What I have left to figure out is
A) How much extra heat can I add and still not scare everyone off
B) What sort of demand/marketing balance I’ll get
C) How to do this at bulk production scale to meet demand
D) What is a reasonable price to charge
Oh yeah, and bottles! :D
