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Last active June 12, 2018 19:39
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A Plan for Making Fermented Hot Sauce from Mash (not Brine)
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fermented_hot_sauce_1.md

A Plan for making Fermented Hot Sauce from Mash

This recipe will follow the mash method, as opposed to the brine method for making hot sauce. Now, Sriracha is the ultimate goal here, and I know they use brine. But I don't like the idea of wasting the brine. Also, I think the brine approach will fumigate the entire house during the bottling step, and I don't want my housemates to hate me.

1. Acquire Peppers

Duh, right?

Ideally, grow your own. THAT would be cool.

Get creative. This is where your recipe happens. Sriracha uses red and green Fresno peppers and a lot of garlic. More variety of peppers can probably give a more interesting flavor. You can add onions, fruit, spices, whatever.

2. Mash yo Peppers

  1. Wear Gloves!
  2. Thoroughly clean your peppers
  3. Pluck off the stems
  4. Very rough chop the peppers
  5. Blend until chunky salsa consistency

3. Ferment yo Mash

  1. Sterilize your fermenting vessel(s)
  2. Weigh the mash
  3. Add salt to your mash (minimum 2% of above weight - up to 7%)
    • Use Kosher salt or sea salt, but not table salt; nothing with perservatives or anti-caking agents.
  4. Transfer mash to fermenting vessel
    • The fermenting vessel can be as easy as a mason jar with a plastic bag or cheese cloth on it.
    • Ideally, you'd have a clear glass container with a release valve on it
  5. Put your fermenting vessel in a cool (room temp), dark place.
    • Age it for an absolute minimum of 5 days, but 3 or 4 weeks is better.
    • Two to three months is common, and 6 months is good.
    • Tabasco ages for two years in Jack Daniels barrels.

4. Bottle yo Sauce!

  1. Transfer your mash to a blender and blend it until very smooth.
  2. Transfer from blender to pouring container, by pressing your sauce through a very fine-mesh strainer.
  3. Optionally: add sugar
  4. Optionally: add a little vinegar to make it shelf stable
    • NEVER bottle (or can) anything above 4.6pH.
    • Your sauce might be 4.0pH without vinegar.
    • "Ideally" use an electric pH meter to check that your pH is good. (No one does this.)
  5. Optionally: add Xanthum Gum to thicken it
    • e.g. Sriracha is nice and thick, but Tabasco's too thin
  6. Finally, transfer to your final serving container(s).
    • This is probably easier with a funnel.

Shopping List

  • Peppers!
  • Latex Gloves (or whatever)
  • Fermenting Vessels: Mason Jars, Mason Jars with release valve lids, kimchi-fermenting vessels, whatever
  • Food Scale
  • Fine-mesh strainer
  • Blender or Food processor
  • Optional: Sanitizing solution: Starsan or maybe just bleach
  • Optional: a small, metal funnel would be nice
  • Optional: labels for bottles
  • Optional: Xanthum Gum
  • VERY Optional: expensive electronic PH meter
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