I make craft hot sauces, and I stand by deseeding and depithing. If I want heat, I'll use a hotter pepper. Thai birds in particular carry most of the heat in the flesh, for example. The flavor difference from using flesh only is huge.
I make hot sauce using fatalii[0] chillies (similar heat to habaneros but IMO superior flavor). I de-seed them, pressure steam them in an Instant Pot electric pressure cooker, then blend them with cider vinegar, lime juice, salt, and a little xantham gum to stop it separating in storage. I pour it into glass jars, pasteurize it by steaming it with the lids resting on the jars but not sealed (ambient pressure, not increased pressure, because when I tried pressure steaming the sauce bubbled out from the jars and made a mess), close the lids while still hot, and keep refrigerated.
This makes a delicious sauce that, even without the seeds, is still much too hot for those who aren't chilli aficionados.
Might have thought that you were me if not for the cider vinegar. I find that it overpowers the flavor of the peppers. I mostly use white vinegar and citric acid, with the occasional lime juice.
It’s commonly thought that the seeds are the spiciest part of a chili, which is the impression Matticus_Rex seems to be under. In fact, the heat comes from the white pith (which they mentioned) and ridges around the seeds.
The seeds are definitely coated in a sticky juice that is spicy (I've seperated them out and eaten them individually. It's the bitterness that really sucks, though.
There's some heat, but the reason I deseed is mostly flavor. Seeds make up a non-negligible portion of the mass, and have no pepper flavor and a slight bitterness. You get better flavor without them.
do you have any suggestions for hot sauces with serranos and hananeros that have been fermenting for ~one year? Read that some sauces ferment peppers for multiple years and decided to ferment for a while but they are pretty funky now...
If they don't have any off flavors but are too funky, I would cook some additional peppers to blend in and then add acid (probably white vinegar) to bring the ph down, salt to taste, and (depending on your texture preferences) blend and strain.
