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fermenting First Fermented Sauce

stickman

stickman

Hi All
Having put aside all the Gochu powder I need to make kimchi through the winter here, I decided to experiment with making fermented hot sauce with the remaining chiles. I talked with Rocketman about it, and he recommended starting off simply for the first time and gave me this recipe:

1 or 2 pounds of chiles (I used a little over 2 pounds)
4 cloves of garlic
1 large onion (I used a Vidalia onion)
3 good-sized carrots for consistency in the sauce
2 tpsp kosher salt
1/2 cup of starter (in this case, brine from a batch of yeolmu mulkimchi I made this summer)
Maybe add 2 tbsp agave nectar or honey to give a quick kick to the lacto-bacteria (I used honey)

I packed them into a half gallon jar after cutting them up with a kitchen knife, and topped up with tap water, leaving room for expansion.
SANY0103.jpg

This is the jumpoff... I'll post pics weekly to follow the progress of the fermentation. Cheers all
 
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Stickman, looks and sounds good man. If that lid seals pretty good you might want to back off on it a bit so that it can leach some gas as it develops or you could wake up to a little foot hazard one morning. You also might want to put something under it incase it starts to let some of the juice out too. Nothing to be concerned about it usually happens with mine but makes a little something that has to be cleaned up if not contained.

RM

Edit: Now the fun begins, the waiting.
 
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RocketMan said:
Stickman, looks and sounds good man. If that lid seals pretty good you might want to back off on it a bit so that it can leach some gas as it develops or you could wake up to a little foot hazard one morning. You also might want to put something under it incase it starts to let some of the juice out too. Nothing to be concerned about it usually happens with mine but makes a little something that has to be cleaned up if not contained.

RM

Edit: Now the fun begins, the waiting.
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Thanks Bill, I'm on it! Actually, I think this is just like making kimchi without the cabbage.
SANY0104_zpsc0db7165.jpg

I took the lid off to show how I wedged a sandwich bag in below the water level so the shoulders of the jar hold it in place and it keeps the veggie slices from bobbing up into the air and going bad. I do the same thing with a cabbage leaf when I make kimchi. I noticed bubbles last night when I checked on the jar, and when I took the lid off to take the pic this morning I got that great kimchi smell, so it should be well launched...

romy6 said:
Can't wait to follow this from start til it reaches my gutt :rofl:
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Hi Jamie
These aren't superhots by any means, but if you want a sample later I'm sure it can be arranged... ;)

jedisushi06 said:
Mines taking forever!
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Hi Mike
I got a look at the pics of your mash... You're getting bubbles so something's working in there, you could speed things up a little by feeding the flora with a small amount of sugar dissolved in water. If you haven't yet, you might want to crack the top and get a sniff of the contents inside. If the smell isn't unpleasant to you, you're on the right track... just leave it alone at room temperature until the lactic acid levels are right, and that takes time. Good luck!
 
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Stickman - I'm looking forward to following this thread, as I'm wanting to make my first fermented sauce. I've been reading as much as I can to get all the info I need to start.

Do you have a link to your making kimchi? Love that stuff!
 
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BUGSnBBQ said:
Stickman - I'm looking forward to following this thread, as I'm wanting to make my first fermented sauce. I've been reading as much as I can to get all the info I need to start.

Do you have a link to your making kimchi? Love that stuff!
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Hi Jeff
I haven't started a kimchi thread yet, but it's almost time for kimjang here, and I will when the Napa Cabbage in the garden is ready. I'll probably start with Kakduki first... that's cubed Radish kiimchi. It can be made with Japanese Daikon, but the Daikon gets soft long before the Korean Radishes do, so it's best if you can get the green-shouldered Korean variety.

Anyway... back to the sauce. I noticed that there was a powdery white buildup of some kind on the plastic bag at the top of the jar, so I took off the lid and took a sniff... Just that kimchi smell and no off odors, so I fished the bag out and gave the contents a good stir. While I had the lid off I checked the pH and it's already down to 5.0 from 6.5. It's bubbling away merrily and the flesh of the peppers is very soft... almost liquid and it's lost a lot of volume. Not bad for 5 days...
SANY0113_zps318f2561.jpg


I've heen hopping today... Canned up the last of the Jalapenos from the garden... 5 and a half quarts. Also made up another batch of the Yucatan Habanero sauce and 2 quarts of tomato sauce.
 
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Thumbs up, seems like your having great fermentation :)

I have some peppers fermenting. Veggies are similar to yours, only I added 1 tomato, and shredded everything with a blender.
Addeed a little whey as a starter and after a day or two it took off.

Waiting is the hardest part of fermentation :D
 
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MisterNo said:
Thumbs up, seems like your having great fermentation :)

I have some peppers fermenting. Veggies are similar to yours, only I added 1 tomato, and shredded everything with a blender.
Addeed a little whey as a starter and after a day or two it took off.

Waiting is the hardest part of fermentation :D
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Hi Robert
Thanks for stopping by! Maybe I'll add tomato another time... right now I wanted to start with a pretty much all-pepper taste, though I did add some onion and garlic to round it out and carrots to give the sauce more "body". I left in the seeds and skin on the peppers, so the next step is to run it all through a hand-crank food mill to get those out when the carrots get soft enough. If I get enough time this weekend I want to make a batch of the Radish kimchi called Kakduki. It's excellent stuff, and one of my winter staples. Not as spicy as the Cabbage kimchi... even my Mom likes it.
 
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Rick that white powder looking stuff was most likely a Kahm yeast that came in with your starter. It's not harmful at all and can be removed when you process your sauce or just cooked right into it. The sauce is looking good and sounding good but you need to stop removing the lid. Reason is that there is a layer of CO2 that develops and seperates the mash from the air. Nasties develop when O2 is present so with the CO2 no nasties can develop and when you open the lid you allow it to escape. I try in my ferments to just forget they're there until I'm ready to process them. I should have 2 ready to process later this week or next week so, I need you to PM me your addie again. I lost a bunch of data when I upgraded my IPhone to iOS6.
 
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jedisushi06 said:
Nice, i haven't opened mine since i started it. Hope mine smells good.
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I haven't opened it since Rocketman told me to leave the lid on, but I don't have the lid cranked right down either. It's been bubbling so actively I figured I'd better leave it that way so the excess CO2 can bleed off without breaking the jar. Maybe next time I'll pull a balloon over the mouth of the jar so it inflates as the CO2 is generated and there's no danger to the jar.
 
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another ghetto airlock is to stuff a thick plastic bag (like a ziplock bag) into the top of the jar and fill the bag with salt water. You can overfill the bag slightly and then seal it up to create a seal where the gas can escape and nooxygen can get in. I have this setup ona gallon jar I have going. I'm not feeling up to dealing with pics atm, but hopefully tomorrow I'll be up for posting pics. I've used the same water-bag airloc for making kimchee.
 
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I can barely wait until my jar is bubbling away like yours, stickman :) The big bubbles seems to have stopped forming for me, but i can see hundreds of small bubbles when i shine a light on my mash. Let's hope it's all good :)
 
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RocketMan said:
With enough CO2 that balloon could blow off. Instead get an airlock and grommet from a brew shop and install it on your lid.
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Hi Bill
I really thought of the balloon idea as a way of finding out how much CO2 was generated during lacto-fermentation. I mashed and brewed beer for years, but finally let go of it since I had way too many "whiskey friends" that clamored for some of my hooch, but never wanted to chip in to help cover my expenses. I gave away all my brewing equipment to a fellow brewer, but if I start making fermented sauces regularly, I'll probably do as you suggest.
 
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Philip said:
I can barely wait until my jar is bubbling away like yours, stickman :) The big bubbles seems to have stopped forming for me, but i can see hundreds of small bubbles when i shine a light on my mash. Let's hope it's all good :)
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HI Philip
Did you add any sugar to the mash when you put it in the jar? I added a couple tablespoons of honey to feed the lacto culture so it could multiply rapidly in the initial stages. Without the sugar it still ferments, it just takes longer, so you're probably good to go.
 
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