scotch-bonnets are used to make a thick style sauce. But at this point it is entirely up to you.

If you want a thin sauce however, at this point you will have to blend your sauce in some type of food processor, usually a kitchen blender will work just fine. Pour in your sauce and process until it reaches the consistency you are looking for. You may even want to run your sauce through a strainer or a sieve after processing.

If you want a thick sauce you may just want to go ahead and bottle your sauce the way it is after cooking. This of course depends on how fine you may have ground your peppers prior to cooking. Again, practice makes perfect so don’t be afraid to cook up several different batches to see which method of processing is best for you.

Once your sauce is done you may or may not want to age it. The aging process develops some of the flavors of the

peppers, and depending on what other spices or items you have added to your recipe it will bring out their flavors as well. Don’t just assume that the flavor of your sauce will remain the same as it is just out of the pot. If you are going to store your sauce for any length of time you will definitely want to bottle it and put away some to try in a couple of weeks to make sure the flavor has not gone bad. For example, the addition of onion in your sauce adds a little kick that only an onion can. But the onion flavor will develop and may become overpowering after bottling. Be careful not to add too much spices and other items. It is always easier to add more than to take away. Taste your sauce often during your discovery phase. I write everything down to the exact gram. If I put in even a pinch of a particular spice I will grab the pinch, then weigh it on a digital gram scale before I put it in the sauce. This is very important if you plan on making your sauce again.

Keep this in mind also when

you are selecting your ingredients. Something as simple as water can actually change the flavor of your sauce if you don’t use the same source each and every time you make it. I use the same brand of bottled water for every batch. I use the same brand of spices for every batch and I buy my peppers in very large quantities from the same distributor each and every time also. And there is nothing like your taste buds to judge your ingredients from one batch to the next. I always keep a "control" sample to compare my sauces to from every batch I make. This makes it easy to adjust my recipe if need be to compensate for subtle differences if my suppliers cannot provide me with one of my ingredients. This is where quality control and documentation are necessary.