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Thai Oriented Hot Sauce Planning

Okay, so I got back from Thailand yesterday and I brought back with me some gorgeous orange Thai peppers.   Not really sure what exactly they are and don't really care....I just like the color and they have a great flavor.  This is them:
 
ThaiOrangeBangkokMarket.jpg

 
Anyway, I started thinking on the plane I should do a Thai tribute sauce (not sirachi), but one with lemon grass, ginger, and perhaps a little slight fish sauce flavor.
 
So, here's my plan that I'd appreciate input on if someone has gone down this road before:
 
1. Mash peppers and start the ferment, along with larger pieces of fresh ginger, lemon grass, and I'm thinking some mango.  I say larger pieces cause I want to remove them later, but want to include during the fermenting process to gain their flavors
 
2. After ferment of a month or so....remove the ginger, lemongrass, and mango and process the peppers alone with the brine...taste to see if I got any hints of the flavoring ingredients
 
3. If not, or I want more, then process the ginger and mango in small batches and add to the peppers until it tastes right, as well as a few drops of fish sauce with a side batch to see if it tastes okay; probably won't process the lemongrass cause it probably won't get smooth like the other items will (but I'm not sure)
 
4. Like my first trial runs, I'll probably top it off with a vinegar for my own piece of mind
 
Anyway, that's a general plan.  Today on another forum post I saw a Chinese style wine maker, which I saw in the market here a few months ago but had no idea what it was until this forum.  So, I bought one today (6 USD) and will use it for this ferment project.  They actually had a number of vessels that are made for fermenting, but I just had no idea at that time.  ha ha
 
So...let me know if the plan looks good or if anyone has some wise thoughts on it!
 
Thanks!  K
 
 
 
 
 
 
kjwalker said:
Update: Well, I pulled this ferment a few weeks ago and it's still sitting in my fridge in woozy bottles untouched.  I guess my screw up was in using perhaps too much lemon grass.  The sourness is tough to get past, even though I removed as much as I could prior to cooking and processing.  It also could have been the Thai lime leaves.
 
ANYWAY....just an FYI if you're thinking of using some lemon grass in your ferments.  I am thinking today to add more mango to see if I can fix the stuff.  
 
Also...just wondering why my pics are no longer available.  I used flickr....and found I really hate flickr.
 
K
Did you move your photos around in flickr after posting them here? 
 
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