My 2025 Hot Sauce Production

[58limited]

My pepper plants did not produce as well in 2025 so production is down: I got a late start planting the seeds, we had a really hot and dry summer, and one of the automatic water controls went down and I didn't notice.

Yesterday I bottled 165 bottles of Texas Dave's Heavenly Hatch and 53 bottles of Texas Dave's Original. I also got about 30 bottles of Fiery Pepper Powder. This year the Original is hotter than last year's batch, probably by almost 10,000 Scoville units. The Hatch is a little milder - I think the Hatch harvest was not as hot as in 2024.

Processing peppers for the Hatch version



Adding salt and mixing



Natural fermentation



Finished products just waiting for labels

Hatch


Original


Fiery Pepper Powder

[Draznnl]

Prices? Shipping? Or is that just a pipedream?

[Richard Chrz]

Those are my thoughts too, I’d love to purchase and pay for shipping if available!

[58limited]

Sure, PM me

[STEbbq]

I recall that you cannot sell outside of TX but I thought some exchanging of gifts could be doable? 😃

[58limited]

Yes

[LA Pork Butt]

Dave, Do you use all that hot sauce, gift it or market it? If I consumed that much I would have permanent heart burn.

[58limited]

LA Pork Butt I sell most of it at a local farmers market and give some to family.

[JeffJ]

That’s an assload of hot sauce. When I make it my yield is about 4.5 quarts after being strained.

[58limited]

Last year I got 262 bottles of the Hatch and 189 bottles of the Original plus about 50 bottles of the pepper powder made out of the strained solids. I sold all but 50 bottles of Original.

[DavidNorcross]

Impressive. Great work.

[Steve B]

Those look great Dave.
I would love to acquire one of the original and one of the powder.
How do I go about doing this?

[Mosca]

I love the powder. It seems to take on the personality of whatever cuisine I put it on, so it goes with almost everything.

[Spinaker]

This sauce is incredible. Great read too.

[Hulagn1971]

That is just incredible.

[Michael_in_TX]

All those bottles together is just gorgeous.

[klflowers]

That is so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes. I should be down that way the 1st or 2nd week in May. If you can, hold a few bottles for me.

[jayjordan]

Bring some to San Marcos if there’s any left!

[58limited]

Will do

[Finster]

Amazing.
What's the timeframe for processing and bottling all of that?
Labor of love, for sure!

[58limited]

Finster The peppers start producing about mid-summer. I pick them as they ripen and process them for fermentation: coarse chop in food processor with garlic and add salt. I might have 4-8 one gallon jars fermenting at any given time. When i have about 8 of the jars fermented, I combine all in a beer fermenting bucket and add some vinegar. I puree with an immersion blender and let set for a month then I strain and adjust the vinegar. I do this all season long so I'm making sauce for months.

[58limited]

I bulk age the sauce in the fermenter buckets until I'm ready to bottle - bottling occurs when I'm not being lazy and have the time to do it. The Hatch hot sauce is seasonal. Based on how well the peppers are thriving and producing I'll set some of the fermented "mash" aside and calculate how much Hatch chile I need and order it. The Hatch chilies get fermented as well with 25% also being fire roasted.

[58limited]

I have a lot of Scotch Bonnets planted this year, I might do a limited release Scotch Bonnet sauce.