Fermented hot sauce

[geigercntr]

You can ferment most vegetables. Its easy to do
See here
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/fermenting-vegetables.67300/#post-633205

Just had a look: cheers for sharing! The Sandor Katz book is widely seen as The Bible in fermented food circles (well, the FB and Reddit groups). A newer book by Noma is interesting too, but much of it requires more effort than I'm willing to exert :)

 

[Mungri]

Nice one @geigercntr
Made a jar up yesterday with Birds eye and hot green finger chillies. Keeping it simple for my first go, just
garlic ginger brine and chillies. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

 

[dan125]

There's a reasonable enough general recipe here (https://www.feastingathome.com/fermented-hot-sauce-simple-and-delicious/), just skip past the typical cooking blog preamble.

I tend to use whatever I have to hand or whatever I like the look of in the shop.

I'd always chuck few garlic cloves in though!

Thanks for the link. I like their suggestion of adding some sugar at the end for a sweeter sauce but wouldn't this start the fermentation off again?

 

[geigercntr]

Thanks for the link. I like their suggestion of adding some sugar at the end for a sweeter sauce but wouldn't this start the fermentation off again?

I guess it would! Unless you 'fix' the sauce (pasteurise it, or add some chemical or other), the microbes will continue to do their thing and the flavour of the sauce will evolve over time. If you keep it in the fridge it once it's bottled, the process will be slowed right down.

 

[geigercntr]

Don't know yet, my wife is the grower so I'm sure she has some in mind. I'm not into stupendously outrageous heat but I do like a bit of a challenge, are there any you recommend?

Up until now, I've only used whatever limited selection the local shops have, plus some dried chillies I've got sat in the cupboard.

Future Me wants to do something with fresh habaneros though. Hot enough so that you know you're dealing with chillies, but a really fruity flavour too.

 

[Ben034]

Up until now, I've only used whatever limited selection the local shops have, plus some dried chillies I've got sat in the cupboard.

Future Me wants to do something with fresh habaneros though. Hot enough so that you know you're dealing with chillies, but a really fruity flavour too.

This mango habanero recipe is very good. I used scotch bonnet but very similar. I took the seeds out and it was still very hot. It's not fermented but I guess you could ferment it? May take away the fresh flavours of the mango though?

 

[geigercntr]

@Ben034 that looks really good!

I guess fermenting it would be a balancing act: you lose a lot of the straight up fruit flavour, but you gain more of the funky (umami-like) complexity.

Answer: make both :)

 

[IainM]

Fermented hot sauces are great. My tip would be to add a bit of sugar at the beginning to get the lactobacillus going strong and get the pH down. Otherwise, if the pH stays too high too long you can get some very funky flavours. A bit of aging does wonders for it too. I've tried it with various things, but my favourite is with straight chillies and a bit of garlic. Here are three I did last year. The green one also has tomatillos. Spicy kraut and kimchi are also good.

Ferment

• IainM
• Aug 29, 2019

 

[VW911]

There's a section in the Telegraph today about preserving, including a fermented sauce recipe. I'm going to start a batch off tomorrow, including some MA Wartryx Chillies, (1.5 million+ on the Scoville Scale).
Scary hot, but looking forward to the end result. Will also start a batch with Paper Lanterns (slightly tamer, but still fierce). Will post the results in due course...

 

[geigercntr]

Excellent. The digital version is behind a paywall. Is the approach/technique broadly the same as described in this thread?

Good luck with your sauces!

 

[VW911]

Excellent. The digital version is behind a paywall. Is the approach/technique broadly the same as described in this thread?

Yep, pretty standard stuff - 800g mixed peppers and chillies, large bulb of garlic, 100g fresh pineapple, all fermented in a litre of 3.5% brine solution for a couple of weeks. Then drained, blitzed and blended with a little of the brine for consistency.

Made a tomato ketchup today from a recipe in the same article, with the addition of a few home smoked Jalapenos. Turned out pretty good!

 

[BeerCat]

Are green toms suitable? I have plenty and the red ones taste a bit floury.

 

[geigercntr]

Are green toms suitable? I have plenty and the red ones taste a bit floury.

Not used them myself, but https://www.reddit.com/r/fermentation/ and https://www.facebook.com/groups/798611233573241/ have lots of folk using green toms

 

[Mungri]

First effort.
It’s in a 740g squeezy sauce bottle.
It’s very very hot and near blew my head off taking a sniff after liquidising.:tinhat:

 

[geigercntr]

Blended down this ferocious beast. Feel it will work well on hotHotHOT chicken wings. Very spicy, but tasty.

Going to start a batch with scotch bonnets, garlic, cardamom and mango

 

[Mungri]

That looks ferociously red.
Next one I make will be with scotch bonnet. I love them in homemade curries.

 

[VW911]

Had a sneaky sniff of my Paper Lantern Sauce last night.
Paper Lanterns, smoked Garlic, Root Ginger and a few Pineapple Chunks.
It's only been fermenting for a week now, but smells awesome!

 

[Keith 66]

I made some last week, Recipe from Souped up kitchen on you tube, 1ld of chillis 12 garlic cloves big lump of ginger 6 tablespoons of salt & 2 of sugar plus 2 of high stength booze, i used brandy but you could use vodka or anything else. I used a mix of Ring of fire cayenne, Habaneros & Pot black. Smells bloody awesome!

 

[IainM]

I put a couple of liters on this week. One just orange habs, the other a mix of superhots: reapers, 7 pot primo, bhut jolokia, fatalli orange, fatalli yellow, peach scorpion and moruga brainstrain. Salt, chillies and nothing else. Just chopping the second lot brought tears to my eyes, so it's gonna be a hot one.

 

[Keith 66]

Re the Souped up kitchen recipe, Did a stir fry tonight for three & it rocked! Steam is still coming out of our ears and i only put one teaspoon of it in there.