fermenting RED ferment

hoibot · Dec 24, 2014

been slacking on making sauce recently, life and all that stuff ya know...

this used the majority of my red ripe stash of serranos and hugarian hots from the 2014 season (didn't really look hungarian, started very dark green and slowly turned red, but that's what the label said and they had a nice heat).

i am attempting to make one that has a wider appeal (to non-chile heads) this time. i've also been itching for a red hot sauce, so tried some red ingredients this time.

20-30 red serranos
~10 red hot hungarian
1 red onion
1 head garlic
1 small-med sweet potato
2 plums (flesh & juice)
1 container raspberries
1.5 red bell peppers

chopped/shredded ingredients, added a 5.0% brine up to the shoulder and we'll let her rip for a month or so.

oldsalty · Dec 24, 2014

Looks good hoibot, nice combo should be perfect for all!! Not to hot nice flavor. Mash is a little large though I've had better success with a smaller mash.

but looks great keep us posted!

kentishman · Dec 24, 2014

That sounds good! Last year I fermented cranberries and pears with red Congo Trinidad chiles. My first ferment, and it worked out well. It fermented for 30 days. Kalm yeast had me worried, but apparently that's normal. Good luck with it.

hoibot · Dec 25, 2014

oldsalty said:
Looks good hoibot, nice combo should be perfect for all!! Not to hot nice flavor. Mash is a little large though I've had better success with a smaller mash. but looks great keep us posted!

thanks. i've always just fermented all of my sauce ingredients together and it actually works out quite well. i know other folks like to do just a pepper mash (maybe with one or two other ingredients), but the sweet potato/onion/plum give some nice sugars to get the lacto going.

will definitely update the thread in a month or so when I process it.

kentishman said:
That sounds good! Last year I fermented cranberries and pears with red Congo Trinidad chiles. My first ferment, and it worked out well. It fermented for 30 days. Kalm yeast had me worried, but apparently that's normal. Good luck with it.

since I switched from a white plastic mason jar lid with the airlock to a standard metal lid & ring w/ airlock, I haven't had any kahm yeast show up. i think those white lids don't end up with an airtight seal, of course YMMV.

i thought about using cranberries but thought it might end up too bitter, glad to know it worked out for someone.

hoibot · Feb 11, 2015

finally got around to processing this one a week or so ago. definitely didn't turn out as red as I was planning on, but who cares.

the pH was fine when I checked it, 3.21, then I decided it was going to be too thick (based on previous ferments), so added the juice of 2 limes (kinda old limes) and about 1/2 cup of distilled water. this worked great for thinning it out to a perfect consistency, but there was something decidedly unpleasant with the smell of the sauce when I was cooking it. i don't know if it was the old lime juice (or if I squeezed them too much on my juicer and got a bit of pith in there), or the red onion or non-hab smell that I'm used to or what, but it made me a bit concerned about how it would taste. with the thinning out, I ended up with a few more bottles than usual, which is fine with me.

edit: forgot to add that this is the first sauce that my wife has asked me to process outside! earned my badge there...

definitely had a 'raw' taste after processing, but after it has aged for another few weeks, actually tastes great. it has more of a 'mexican' type hot sauce flavor to it, definitely nowhere near the heat of the hab ones I've done previously, but a nice departure. overall very pleased, but think I will be more diligent about fresh limes next time, and would probably add more serranos and/or other peppers to fill out instead of having to rely too much on bell pepper, as I'm not a huge fan of their flavor in larger amounts.