Fermented hot sauce

Table of contents

Batch 1 – Jalapeno, ghost pepper

6 jalapeno peppers (150g)
0.5 ghost pepper
10 garlic cloves (30g)
1/2 yellow onion (70g)
3.5% brine

Log:

24h: Only a few bubbles. Minimal sign of fermentation. Consider lowering the brine percentage for the next batch.
48h: More bubbles! Solution starting to get cloudy. No mold yet. Looking good so far.
Day 5: Fementation going well. No mold. I"m not using any weights so the peppers are floating to the top.
Day 15: Still going well. No mold. Using a fermentation weight for the past few days.
Day 21: Bottled.

Bottling notes:

Added 50g of pineapple, some lemon zest, white vinegar, black pepper, and salt.
Taste lacks depth. Quite spicy, but not much of other flavors. Consistency is a bit thick.
pH brought down to 3.6 using white vinegar.
Takeaways:
- Blend with more of the fermentation liquid.
- Pineapple alone isn’t enough.
- Consider fermenting with bell peppers.
- Other spices are needed.

Batch 2 – Habanero

100g habanero peppers (10pc)
38g garlic
70g onion
3.5% brine based on total weight

Log:

24h: Bubbles appearing. Starting to get cloudy. Fermentation started earlier than the previous batch.
Day 14: Bottled

Added half a small peach, lemon juice, white vinegar, black pepper, and some salt. pH brought down to 3.1.

Accidentally added too much vinegar. The pH value was 3.6 even before the vinegar, though I’m not confident that my pH meter isn’t broken. Using pH strips indicate the pH should be around 4.0 instead, but it also doesn’t seem very accurate.

I like the taste more than batch #1. The sweetness of the peach comes through and there’s more depth of flavor. The taste is slightly too dominated by the vinegar though. Will add less next time.

Two weeks for fermentation is just right. I think with the hot weather here, going for three weeks is a little too long.

Batch 3 – Mango habanero (with carolina reapers and chilli padi)

The main goal for batch 3 and 4 is to experiment with adding more depth of flavor. I plan to attempt this through two aspects:

Use different types of peppers
Add bell peppers

Additionally, I’d like to try straining the sauce to achieve a smoother texture. Might use the immersion blender instead of the food processor as well, not sure if this will yield a finer blend.

I’m also going to try fermenting the fruits instead of adding it fresh at the end. Overall it’s quite a lot of changes from the previous batch, so it’s not exactly a scientific method, but I’m going ahead anyway.

Ferment:

70g habanero
22g carolina reapers
5pc chilli padi
55g mango
70g onion
30g garlic
50g red bell peppers
Cumin
Spice powder (coriander, cumin, cinnamon, star anise)
3.5% brine

Log:

Start: 2024-08-04
End: 2024-08-12 (8 days)
pH value: pH was 2.5. No added vinegar.
Flavor: Very spicy, but quite tasty too. I’m rather satisfied with how it turned out. There’s a lot of heat that kicks in immediately, but after a while mellows out to reveal more flavors underneath.
Additional notes: I omitted about 5 cloves of garlic from the final blend. I noticed that my previous batches were a little too heavy on the garlic. I think in subsequent batches I’ll do 15g of garlic instead, so 5 cloves instead of 10.

Batch 4 – Blueberry jalapeno (with carolina reapers and chilli padi)

Ferment:

75g jalapenos
15g carolina reapers
5pc chilli padi
55g blueberries
70g onion
30g garlic
50g red bell peppers
Cumin
Spice powder (coriander, cumin, cinnamon, star anise)
3.5% brine

Log:

Start: 2024-08-04
End: 2024-08-11 (7 days)
Fermentation time: I noticed that fermentation had more or less stopped. My original plan was to ferment for two weeks, but I decided to process it after a week to get an idea of the taste of a softer ferment. I think one week is fine, especially given the relatively hot weather in Singapore. I’ll likely stick with one week ferments for subsequent batches.
pH value: pH was 2.7. Some lemon juice added for a brighter flavor. No vinegar added. Surprising low pH value, which could be due to a high ratio between peppers and fruits; the sugars from the fruits were all consumed and turned into lactic acid.
Flavor: Definitely more depth of flavor compared to the first jalapeno batch. Adding different peppers made a noticeable difference. The bell peppers and blueberries probably helped as well. Can’t taste much of the blueberries. Should add more fruits next time. Fermenting the fruits alongside the peppers mellow out the flavor quite significantly, so more fruits will be needed to compensate.
Hot pepper flakes: I processed the leftover pulp into hot pepper flakes. The pulp was dehydrated in an oven with a temperature of 60C. This took about 4 hours before the pulp was dry enough to blend in a food processor. After blending, the flakes were dehydrated in the oven again for another 2 hours.