- Anybody with a pot and a bottle can make hot sauce.

I'm not going to cut somebody down or I'm not going to sabotage somebody 'cause they have another hot sauce.

I try and promote other products whenever I can.

I try and promote the restaurants that my friends own.

And to me, that makes more sense.

(funky music) My name's Michael Killik, I'm the owner of Killik Hot Sauce Company in Cleveland, Ohio.

I'm Cleveland born and raised.

I went to St. Ignatius High School, Class of '84.

Then I joined the United States Air Force from '86 to '90.

And then I became a Cleveland teacher.

That was fantastic until I had a stroke.

It took me about a year to get back on my feet.

I had to learn to walk again.

I had to learn how to see again.

Since then, I helped open four restaurants in Cleveland and I did that up until I discovered this hot sauce.

And now I've been doing this professionally for two years, and it's the best job I've ever had.

Six years ago, my dad and I both had heart attacks a week apart.

I survived.

He didn't.

They had to put a stint in my heart, but I had to change how I ate.

I had to cut down on the sodium.

The problem was that I loved hot sauce.

Some brands have 8-10% sodium, some are even more.

So I started experimenting with fermentation.

I found this recipe.

I tried to make it with fermented Fresno vinegar and I totally screwed it up.

But this tremendous hot sauce came out of it.

So I thought, well, there's something here.

And then I sent it to the lab and it came back, only had 1% sodium in it and it lacks none of the flavor.

All of our hot sauces only have five ingredients, chiles, onions, garlic, kosher salt, and vinegar.

That's it.

So a couple of years of R&D, I have three flavors now.

So the DELTA is the mild, just Fresno chiles.

Our middle flavor is our ETA, it's a verde.

And it's poblanos and jalapenos.

And then our hottest one is called ZETA.

I take the DELTA, and right before we bottle it, we add habaneros to it to make the Zeta.

How we make it is we start off with these huge 55 gallon drums.

And we chop all the veg, mix it with the salt and vinegar and water.

And then we cover it up, put a bubbler on it, so it can ferment.

We let it sit.

And then at the end of that time, we blend it up and bottle it.

So it's a very simple process, but it takes time.

Some days you're like this is the best job I had.

The other days, it's "Oh my God, what am I doing?"

But it's worth it.

It's a feeling of independence I really have never had.

It's also scary because it's all on you.

The personal reward that I get out of this experience is that I know that 99.9 of the products out there, never even make it as far as I've gone because it's a brutal business sometimes.

And at the very end of the day, whenever I'm stressed out, I make a new sale or I get to watch somebody's face for the first time when they just smell it and their eyes light up.

And that's what keeps me going.

- [Narrator] WVIZ ideastream received support from PNC Bank, which has made a home in the heart of Cleveland by investing in businesses, communities and people.

Focusing on giving back is part of an ongoing commitment to the communities that PNC serves.

PNC Bank, National Association Member, FDIC.