Welcome

 

Welcome

 

Hello All,

 

As I grew up I have always loved things bitter and spicy even as a infant I would be gumming a dill pickle and my love for spicy things has grown and matured with me. One of my favorite meals is a simple buffalo wings which originated in Buffalo, New York at the Anchor Bar in 1964. Buffalo wings actually happened because the mother of the house, Teressa Bellissimo, was faced with a mistake and a last minute decision to do something with the chicken wings (normally thrown away or reserved for stock) that came instead of the backs and necks that were ordered to make spaghetti sauce. The patrons were buying drink after drink and the son, Dominic reported to the New Yorker reporter in 1980 that they wanted to do something nice for them at midnight when the mostly catholic patrons would be able to eat meat again, so Teresa deep fried the wings and dipped them in cayenne hot sauce and vinegar....and a legend was born.

 

I love hot sauce and buffalo wings and am so excited to make my own. I usually use franks hot sauce and have researched a bit what types of peppers are used in theirs compared to a few others and have decided I am going to make a few different mixtures to see which one that I like.

 

Franks Buffalo Red Hot Sauce is comprised of:

-Distilled Vinegar

-Aged cayenne red peppers

-Salt

-Water

-Canola oil

-Paprika

-Xanthan Gum

-Butter

-Garlic salt

 

I looked into producing my own xanthan gum and am undecided if I will give it a try, I need to watch a few more videos and instructions as a lot of individuals seem to have failed. Xanthan gum is essentially a thickener seen in a lot of foods especially dressings. A fun fact, Xanthan gum is composed of bacterial corpses! Gross huh? The particular kind of bacteria is Xanthomonas campestris, a bacterium that infect plants. Many microbes surround themselves with an outer extracellular slime layer called a capsule composed of polysaccharide and occasionally a protein; X. campestris's capsule is composed of a polysaccharide. These capsules are useful to keep the microbe from drying, to glue it to a solid surface to prevent relocation, and can sometimes be linked to infection because it allows the microbe to cause disease.

 

To make Xanthan gum:

One grows X. campestris in a fermenter (an anaerobic process, however, contents in the tank are highly aerobic). Air is pumped into the tank and stirred  vigorously and the contents pour out slowly and thickly because the capsules are in such a large quantity. If you precipitate and kill the capsule and entrapped bacteria with an organic solvent (some videos show vodka- I need to research more) and dry the solid material, a light colored powder will present, xanthan gum.

 

The process of beginning the fermentation of the peppers begins with:

-Select the different types of peppers; possible tobasco, habanero, poblano, and jalapeno peppers.

-You will also need some garlic and salt for the initial process

-Wash all the vegetables

-Chop all vegetables

-Blend them all using a blender or other kitchen tool

-Add salt (approx. 2% of weight in salt- NO TABLE SALT) ill be using sea salt (the salt help prevent bad bacteria growth and assists in the speediness of the fermentation)

-Once blended, put contents into a glass jar of sorts (avoid plastic ware because the chemicals can leach during fermentation) glass is the safe bet

-Leave room for bubbling and fermentation

-Apply cheese cloth and rubber band so that it can breath but protects as well.

-Let sit x 2 weeks- 1 month

-Squeeze of the juices

-Add seasoning and thickener if desired

 

I am super excited to get started and hope that if this works out, franks hot sauce will have nothing on me! :-)