[SIZE=11pt]First ever ferment was October-ish, a green jalapeño/serrano/thai concoction with tomatillos, onions, garlic, and carrot. I was hooked. I just bottled ferments 4 & 5 for Christmas gifts. One is a verde repeat of No1 (more or less), however it finished with too much of a herbaceous note. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Hmmm, what to do ...so I started chucking stuff in the pot as I did the final heating to bottle. I ended up adding ginger, lemon zest, molasses, honey, salt, the juice of a tangerine, and a macerated (peeled) apple cooked down. Now we've got some flavor! Think I consumed 1/2 cup of the stuff, 1/2 tsp at a time with the tasting and tweaking.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]The other ferment is a red jala and assorted super hot pod mix with red bell. The flavor is amazing...as is. My pH is 3.0 and it's got the lactic twang with those layers of red pepper flavor. Didn't touch this one. I find I'm putting pepper sauce on more and more food. Wife thinks I'm crazy.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Here's the red jar just before going in the Vita Mix blender. This was a "natural" ferment in 3.3% starter brine. Pods were halved and seeded, kept under with pickle pebbles, about 10 days on the counter then in the fridge for 2 weeks. The green was two jars. Ended up with (8) 5oz reds and (16) 5oz greens. About a pound of peppers per jar. [/SIZE]Definitely like the (red) ripe pod result better than the green.[SIZE=11pt] Both essentially were Jala based; night and day difference. The green turned out good after a LOT of tweaking. I'm craving a grilled sea bass taco to put it on. The red turned out great. Much more [/SIZE]depth[SIZE=11pt].[/SIZE]
Here's the final result after blending, heating, blending, sieve, heating and bottle. I used all of the brine so added a pinch of xanthum in the final blender run to keep it from separating. The labels are a Zazzle product. We had a really bad year in the Delta for hyacinth (a green, floating, non-native pest plant) so the name... Hyacinth Hell.
Already thinking about my next ferment.... oh the madness. My name is Jon and I am now a fermented pepper sauce addict.
Thanks for looking.
[SIZE=11pt]Hmmm, what to do ...so I started chucking stuff in the pot as I did the final heating to bottle. I ended up adding ginger, lemon zest, molasses, honey, salt, the juice of a tangerine, and a macerated (peeled) apple cooked down. Now we've got some flavor! Think I consumed 1/2 cup of the stuff, 1/2 tsp at a time with the tasting and tweaking.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]The other ferment is a red jala and assorted super hot pod mix with red bell. The flavor is amazing...as is. My pH is 3.0 and it's got the lactic twang with those layers of red pepper flavor. Didn't touch this one. I find I'm putting pepper sauce on more and more food. Wife thinks I'm crazy.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11pt]Here's the red jar just before going in the Vita Mix blender. This was a "natural" ferment in 3.3% starter brine. Pods were halved and seeded, kept under with pickle pebbles, about 10 days on the counter then in the fridge for 2 weeks. The green was two jars. Ended up with (8) 5oz reds and (16) 5oz greens. About a pound of peppers per jar. [/SIZE]Definitely like the (red) ripe pod result better than the green.[SIZE=11pt] Both essentially were Jala based; night and day difference. The green turned out good after a LOT of tweaking. I'm craving a grilled sea bass taco to put it on. The red turned out great. Much more [/SIZE]depth[SIZE=11pt].[/SIZE]
Here's the final result after blending, heating, blending, sieve, heating and bottle. I used all of the brine so added a pinch of xanthum in the final blender run to keep it from separating. The labels are a Zazzle product. We had a really bad year in the Delta for hyacinth (a green, floating, non-native pest plant) so the name... Hyacinth Hell.
Already thinking about my next ferment.... oh the madness. My name is Jon and I am now a fermented pepper sauce addict.
Thanks for looking.
Merry Christmas