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fermenting My very first sauce and ferment!

Philip

Philip

Hey everyone!

I've been lurking around this forum a while now and today I thought was the right time to make my very first ferment and my very first hot sauce!

I went to the store to pick up some chiles (habaneros and red chiles), pickling salt, garlic, carrots and onions. Then i went to a health shop and bought active lacto fermented carrots that's still fizzing and popping in the jar, even though i poured out the water.

BTW, sorry for shaky pictures, i'm incredibly hung over :doh:

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Ingredients!

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(The fermented carrots)

I ended up making about 1.6kg of mash (Yeah, i use the metric system. Try it, you'll like it ;))

370g habaneros (about 20 of them)
400g red chiles (about 20 of those too. Some generic kind my store had, not sure which type at all)
150g garlic
300g carrots
Then i filled the rest of the jar with onions, leaving a few centimeters for the bubbles. Around 380g.
55g of pickling salt was added when everything was weighted (a wee bit more than 1:30)

There was quite a bit of liquid in the jar of fermented carrots, so i used all of that as the starter.

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Glorious habs, all mashed up!

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Finished mash, all stirred together (next to some dog snacks).

I had a taste and it was already DELICIOUS. Perfect heat for my tastebuds. Mellow, throbbing heat all through the mouth and lips. Lovely color. Classic habanero smell. I'll be measuring pH value in a week or so to see if everything is going according to plan :)

I will order some woozies and bottle it later, the plan is to give it to friends and family, and to fill my stomach.

This will be done again, that's for sure! Do you guys have any suggestions for next time?

Have fun!
/Philip
 
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I have a suggestion for this time, dont open it to check the Ph till your ready to make the sauce. The fermentation process builds a layer of CO2 between the mash and the lid and it acts as a protection layer since most nasties that can get in wont grow without O2. Give it at least 45 days and then open it, check your Ph and process your sauce.

It looks like it's going to be a good one.

Cheers,
RM
 
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RocketMan said:
I have a suggestion for this time, dont open it to check the Ph till your ready to make the sauce. The fermentation process builds a layer of CO2 between the mash and the lid and it acts as a protection layer since most nasties that can get in wont grow without O2. Give it at least 45 days and then open it, check your Ph and process your sauce.

It looks like it's going to be a good one.

Cheers,
RM
Click to expand...

I'll keep it locked up then! :) Thanks for the tip!
 
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RocketMan said:
The fermentation process builds a layer of CO2 between the mash and the lid and it acts as a protection layer since most nasties that can get in wont grow without O2.
Click to expand...

Just learned something else important about making fermented sauce - the same rule applies to keeping your bread starter good.
 
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RocketMan said:
Oh, and welcome to the THP!
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Thanks a lot!

stickman said:
Hi Philip
Your sauce looks great! I'll be checking in to see how it comes out. Last week I started my first ferment too, so I have lots to learn. Cheers!
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Thanks :) Will keep this updated. I've started to get some small bubbles now. Let's just hope it keeps going!

RocketMan, if i get kham yeast, should i just remove it when the mash is done or stir it in? What do you do in those cases?
 
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My sauce has been looking really good since i made it. The problem is that the look hasn't changed whatsoever. No more bubbles at all, and no burps when loosening the lid.
Since I am somewhat impatient (I know, fermenting stuff might be the wrong alley for me) I went against RMs suggestions and popped the lid off. One tablespoon of sugar later and a few hours in a lukewarm bath - POW, lots of new bubbles!

I got really worried that my sauce would get ruined by nasties if I didn't get the laction (inventing new words like Shakespeare) going strong, so I decided to kick start it a bit :)

Oh, and I stole a spoonful of the good stuff and it is mighty good as a salsa dip with some chips :)

(Will add pics soon, sun's out now)
 
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The bubbling has almost stopped now. I will order woozies and all that stuff after the 25:th this month and will bottle it two weeks after that :)

I cheated and opened it (after sterilizing most of my kitchen ;P ) so i have tasted it, and it is amazing. I have a small jar at work and one at home, and i mix a teaspoon into almost everything I eat. Right now it's got more of a salsa-feel to it when you poke around in it, but I'm guessing it will get saucier when cooked. The taste is really rich and it's very hot, but not the stingy kind of hot. It has more of a throbbing heat all around the mouth. I Love it!

Can't wait to get this stuff cooked and bottled!

/Philip
 
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Looking good Philip... I'm at about the same place with mine. I saw a suggestion on a thread here saying that it would probably be cheaper to buy really inexpensive bottles of hot sauce, dumping the contents, washing and sterilizing the bottles and lids and using those. It really is more cost effective than buying the bottles online and paying shipping and handling. The cheap hot sauce bottles I got have metal/rubber lids, so I'll sterilize them in bleach/water solution instead of running them through the dishwasher, so I don't deform the seals. I'm also going to run the mash through a food mill before processing in the blender and cooking it down to concentrate the lactic acid. The food mill will strain out the skins and seeds so I get a nice smooth sauce. Cheers
 
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stickman said:
I saw a suggestion on a thread here saying that it would probably be cheaper to buy really inexpensive bottles of hot sauce, dumping the contents, washing and sterilizing the bottles and lids and using those. It really is more cost effective than buying the bottles online and paying shipping and handling. The cheap hot sauce bottles I got have metal/rubber lids, so I'll sterilize them in bleach/water solution instead of running them through the dishwasher, so I don't deform the seals. I'm also going to run the mash through a food mill before processing in the blender and cooking it down to concentrate the lactic acid. The food mill will strain out the skins and seeds so I get a nice smooth sauce. Cheers
Click to expand...

That is what I do :)
Use whatever bottles are on hand, and I have friends and family give me their empties. They are all trained to know what bottles work and what wont.
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And I agree on the food mill thing!
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I found something that I use as a food mill at a garage sale... Its wonderful, but leaves me with a lot of pulp that's had the liquid pressed out... Much of it is long fibrous and white, so I assumed it was the placenta... Any way, long story short, I took the stuff left over - put it on a cookie sheet, dehydrated it in the oven, and made a powder out of it... has kind of a fruity nutty smell. But it tastes somewhat like the sauce - and is several orders of magnitude hotter... I like it :) but have to use it sparingly. *chuckle*
 
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Wow, the sauce changed viscosity overnight! Before, when i wiggled the jar, it behaved more like a salsa (as i said previously), but now the surface is almost completely flat and it's more like a proper sauce. Amazing!

I've been searching for a food mill for quite some time now, but there are none to be found here in sweden. I'll most likely have to buy a regular fine-mesh sieve and push it down manually with some spatula or something. It's either that or ebay+shipping :P

I've also looked around for bottles in stores. Can't find anywhere where i'll get them cheaper than here:
http://www.world-of-bottles.co.uk/shop/20-100ml-miniature-bottles/100ml-clear-glass-bottle-Ronda.html 100ml/3.4fl oz (you and your crazy units), 25 for about 22 usd. I will be looking more tho!

I had the sauce with some roast beef at work today and it's still amazing :D

/Philip
 
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The bottles has arrived! Now I'm just waiting for the food mill from over the pond. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Norpro-Food-Mill-18-10-Stainless-Steel-2Qt-Ricer-Strainer-Masher-/370654006221?ssPageName=ADME:X:AAQ:US:1123 Norpro Food Mill 18/10 Stainless Steel 2Qt (No idea what a quart is, but size seems legit compared to the apples). I've got 30 100ml bottles so i'm going to be able to experiment a bit with ingredients when bottling :) I'm thinking about going mango for one of them, one with tomato and one pure :) Any suggestions?

I'll be adding apple cider vinegar to lower the pH value. I shouldn't have to add much since the sauce should hopefully be at around 3.5-4 already. I'm waiting for a pH pen that should be coming soon as well.

Sauce is still looking good. No yeast or anything!

BTW, any suggestions on how to change the consistency? The bottles I ordered are pretty wide in the opening and will probably not work very well with a sauce with tabasco consistency (if i end up with that). Is it just to let it simmer down to the desired consistency?

I'll update with pics when I get all the stuff i need :)

/Philip
 
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Hi Philip
2 quarts is a little less than 2 liters, but close enough for your purposes since you're just straining the mash and breaking it up finer. It works best if you add the stuff to be strained a little at a time, not the whole 2 quarts at once. It wouldn't hurt to pulse it a few times in the blender or food processor before running it through the food mill if you ferment slices or whole veggies like I did. I think a mash should work fine as is.

If you need to thicken your sauce, you could just simmer it to reduce the amount of water in it... that'll also concentrate the lactic acid, so you might not have to add any vinegar in that case. You could also add pureed cooked carrots or a little cornstarch, and in either case, you'd have to cook the additions in and process in a blender to get a uniform consistency.
 
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