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fermenting chsy83's first pepper ferment

I have made a few "fresh pepper" sauces that I like, but I thought that it was time for me to venture into the fermented side of sauce making.  I had a gallon freezer bag full of Douglah (red offspring) that I got from pepperlover in her buy 3 get 6 free special that she had going on, plus some assorted other peppers.  I ended up putting just about everything red in my freezer in this, save a small bag of brains and inca red drops.  1 gallon bag of red douglahs, 1 quart bag of bih jolokia, 1 quart bag of TSBTs, and 5 individual bhut jolokias.
 
The pile of peppers:
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They are resting on a pizza pan (the kind that has holes in it).  These went in my Brinkman smoker for ~3hrs w/hickory.  They then were put through a rough chop in the blender with arnd 4 cups of 5% brine solution, two tbsp of agave nectar, and then mixed with a vial of white labs Lactobacillus sp.  This mixture was then funneled into a one gallon glass carboy, bunged and airlocked.
 
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Looking good man. You don't really have a lot of sugars in there so if you wanted to process it at 45 days you'll be good. Then again giving it an additional 45 days of aging wont hurt anything.
 
Looks awesome. The only thing I'd recommend is opening her back up and use a small piece of hose or a large syringe to rinse off the sides of the jar with a salt solution. My first few ferments, those little pieces became a prime breeding ground for mold. It ruined one batch completely.
 
Best of luck with your sauce!
 
Looks awesome. The only thing I'd recommend is opening her back up and use a small piece of hose or a large syringe to rinse off the sides of the jar with a salt solution. My first few ferments, those little pieces became a prime breeding ground for mold. It ruined one batch completely.

Best of luck with your sauce!


Thanks for the tip. I kind of worried about that, so I have been swirling the jug twice a day (before and after work) to rinse the sides/ keep what is there soaked with mash.


Before I went to wok yesterday, as I was drinking my morning coffee, I thought if something and looked up the strain o lacto from white labs, delbruekii, and found out that the ideal temp was 40-44 C. I had been worried that I hadn't seen much activity. So, I had an idea. I went and grabbed an unused hydro farms warming mat for germination, put a thick towel down, then the mat, then the jug. 12 hours later, when I got home from work, it looked frothy, with the pulp separated and climbing the jar. A quick swirl got everything mixed again, and liberated lots of CO2. It's cooking, now!
 
once the fermenting and aging is done, taste it before you process all of it. My bet is that it will be way too hot to be edible. I predict that you will have to seriously cut it with fillers to get the heat down. With nothing but the brine and agave in there you are looking at something like a million scovie sauce.
 
once the fermenting and aging is done, taste it before you process all of it. My bet is that it will be way too hot to be edible. I predict that you will have to seriously cut it with fillers to get the heat down. With nothing but the brine and agave in there you are looking at something like a million scovie sauce.


Yep. One can only hope.
 
Yellow sauce: gallon and a quart yellow scorpions, quart yellow brains

Five large Mayan sweet onions

4.5 lbs dried apricots

Lot of garlic, fresh (edit when I remember)

Bout a cup carrot juice to activate culture in the day before

3% salt by weight

Peppers and onions smoked w cherry wood for 3 hrs
 
Interesting thing, the yellow ferment smells strikingly like maple syrup . . .

Finished the red to rave reviews.  It has a kick to it!  I added some garlic, some agave, and a little vinegar to it.
 
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