Sauce – Clarified Butter for Hot Sauce

@Chris: Does the recipe from the Nero Wolfe cookbook say anything about dumping the milky/watery portion out of the pan before returning the butter to it to brown?

Clarified butter WILL NOT brown, that is the purpose for clarifying it. The milk solids are what brown. The portion that usually goes to the bottom will be the whey and the milk solids initially tend to form the "scum" on the top. To me it sounds like he's trying to suggest that you should pour the butter & solids off, dump out any whey, and then return the butter to the pan so you can heat it to the point of a dark brown without it splattering (which is caused by the water in the whey). 4 tablespoons of butter isn't going to have much whey in the first place so just cook the whole butter to the beurre noir point.

There are a few things that might work. I would probably just add more seeds. The majority of the capsaicin where the heat comes from is in the seeds, while the majority of the flavor is in the flesh. You could just add some seeds from a hot pepper like habanero or cayenne or even more jalapeno seeds.

You could also add some chili pepper that has heat but not a lot of flavor. Some examples include cayenne and chile de arbol. Thai bird and african bird chiles are hot and also don't have a ton of flavor in my opinion.

Another option is to try a chili extract. For example, a habenero extract will have some flavor, but a small amount will add an enormous amount of heat. So you may be able to get away with an amount small enough not to add much flavor, while at the same time kicking up your heat to the desired level.

Personally I like habenero, esp in El Yucateco sauce, which I often add straight to hot sauces.