How to decide how much to dilute extremely hot chillis
I have come into the possession of a couple of naga varieties. We don't know which ones exactly, but google search seems to confirm that I do have some very hot varieties on my hands and they may average close to 1 million Scovilles.
I was thinking of making some hot sauce, how do I calculate the right ratio of chilli to filler so that I don't end up with something that will kill me?
As reference, the hottest chilli I regularly use are bird's eyes.
Update: As a point of reference for others:
I started off with 4 of my nagas (and 1 tiny home grown halepeno) to 7 deseeded tomatoes. I just cut the top and bottom off, then run my knife around the seeds, taking out the 'cross-hairs' structure as well.
I had other ingredients, but tomatoes were the bulk of the sauce. This yielded about 700ml of sauce. At this dilution I could feel the heat, but it was quite mild.
I then cooked it down until most of the liquid was gone. A reduction of about 50% in volume. This left me with a moderate level chilli sauce. It's got heat but I can still taste everything.
Best Answer
Given that you don't know what you have, I'd favor making up "more of less 100% chili sauce" or as close to that as your methods come, taking care, and not tasting it.
Then take one tiny amount of that (a drop, a 1/4 teaspoon, a mL) and dilute it in whatever seems likely in your estimation (I suppose based on "possibly 1 million Scovilles" and some reference sauce you like) to be "more than plenty" of filler (1000X? 2000X?), mix throughly, and taste. If not hot enough, add more, mix again, taste. If still too hot, dilute more, taste. Keep careful track and you'll have the correct ratio for sauce you can stand.
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How do you dilute chilli sauce?
Add butter or olive oil The capsaicin in chili peppers is oil soluble, which means that you can lessen the heat by adding fat. If your sauce can handle some extra oil, try using butter or olive oil to dilute the capsaicin and thus make the burn more tolerable.How do you balance the acidity in hot sauce?
Baking soda is also known as bicarbonate of soda and is very alkaline, which means that it can neutralize acidity in your dish from vinegar in the hot sauce. Add it to your dish in half- or quarter-teaspoon increments until the dish becomes more appealing to the palate.What do you do if you use too much hot sauce?
Acidic ingredients such as lemon or lime juice, vinegar, wine, tomatoes, and even pineapple will all help to neutralize the pH levels of a spicy oil, and reduce some of that flaming-hot flavor. Add the juice of half a lemon or lime, or a tablespoon or two of wine, vinegar, or tomato sauce, to your over-spiced dish.How do you make chili sauce less spicy?
Turns out, the fiery chemical in hot chilis, capsaicin, likes to bind itself onto a compound in milk, which neutralizes the burn. Add a generous dollop of sour cream, creme fraiche, or yogurt to scorching hot chili or stews, or even a touch of milk or cream. For best results, though, go with full-fat dairy.Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication - Live at Slane Castle
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Answer 2
We prepare and cook a lot of African dishes-using bird chiles.
When in doubt as to the exact heat to infuse, we use the following method:
Pierce one chili and add it into the stew or other dish
Stir it around a few times and wait 10 minutes
Remove it and taste the result.
We will either need to leave it in longer, add more chiles, or pierce more tiny holes in the chiles. Also, with many types of chiles, we first remove the seeds.
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