I need some help on a sauce. This thing I made while having an initial good flavor comes off with something the best I can compare it to is a metal taste. It has a quart of fermented chinense chilies mash, 2 lg. red onions, 3 limes, 2 globes of garlic, 2 cups of apple cider vinegar, 2 tbl. of sea salt and I put 3 tbls. of molasses in it to try to tone down the metal taste. Any suggestions?
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Correcting Metal Taste in my Hot Sauce. Anyone?
- Thread starter hot stuff
- Start date
salsalady
Business Member
dunno~ 
I have old food mills from thrift stores that are tinned and will rust if not properly cleaned and immediately dried. Others I know of have SS mills, with different plates, etc. It should be pretty clear if yours is prone to rust or if SS.
Those with more smarts than me (or willing to do a quick google...
) might be able to add further info if the mill is magnetic or not, if that is any indication. :shrug:
I have old food mills from thrift stores that are tinned and will rust if not properly cleaned and immediately dried. Others I know of have SS mills, with different plates, etc. It should be pretty clear if yours is prone to rust or if SS.
Those with more smarts than me (or willing to do a quick google...
) might be able to add further info if the mill is magnetic or not, if that is any indication. :shrug:
One more suggestion, are you on any new medication? This can cause it as well. Then, I got nuffin!
I love that we're all "What did you cook it in?" as a first guess. SS won't impart that flavor, and the OXO food mill is also stainless.
Last year I had a batch with a similar metallic taste at the end, made w similar ingredients; fermented yellow supers, onion, garlic, pineapple, rice wine vinegar, clover honey. Tasted great up front, tasted like sucking on pennies at the finish.
Tried to add more vinegar/honey to help soften that finish but wasn't ever completely satisfied with the sauce and ended up throwing the whole batch out before bottling.
Last year I had a batch with a similar metallic taste at the end, made w similar ingredients; fermented yellow supers, onion, garlic, pineapple, rice wine vinegar, clover honey. Tasted great up front, tasted like sucking on pennies at the finish.
Tried to add more vinegar/honey to help soften that finish but wasn't ever completely satisfied with the sauce and ended up throwing the whole batch out before bottling.
salsalady
Business Member
SmokenFire said:
Isn't that kind of a rite of passage for sauce makers....to pitch a batch cuz it's not right? been there...done that....more than once...
... Live, learn, make another batch~ When trying to develop a sauce, I've pitched 3-4 test batches before getting remotely close to the flavor profile I'm looking for, and then from there, it's a bunch more batches to dial it in. But that's different than tossing some peppers and ingredients in a pot to see what happens. I didn't see anything in the original ingredients to raise a red flag, other than some hot peppers have that metallic aftertaste.
Oxo is made in china garbage so you may be tasting the heavy metals that exist in all their products...hot stuff said:
https://whatscookingamerica.net/Q-A/TomatoeMetallic.htm
I was originally thinking a lime/salt reaction but i would have to ask a chemist. I use a lot of lime salt and sometime will get a metallic taste when paired with certain foods/beverages.
I was originally thinking a lime/salt reaction but i would have to ask a chemist. I use a lot of lime salt and sometime will get a metallic taste when paired with certain foods/beverages.
This fellow make a mention of iodized salt causing metallic taste in fermented pepper sauces:
http://www.underwoodgardens.com/fermented-pepper-sauce/
hope this helps, just shoo me away if it gets annoying. Cheers!
http://www.underwoodgardens.com/fermented-pepper-sauce/
hope this helps, just shoo me away if it gets annoying. Cheers!
I'm not sure about metallic taste but I used to get batches that had a strange off-taste sometimes, and sometimes not even though I used the same recipe.
I noticed when I cut my peppers in half to freeze or ferment I would get an occasional pod with dark brown almost rotten seeds even though the pod looked and felt fine.
Since then I always cut open my pods and toss the bad ones and haven't had a bad tasting batch since. Well relatively speaking of course, some of my experiments are still major fails that need to get tossed anyways but it's from clashing flavors not off-type flavors.
On the note about lemon or lime juice, I've heard it's better to add after the cooking but can't confirm it.
I noticed when I cut my peppers in half to freeze or ferment I would get an occasional pod with dark brown almost rotten seeds even though the pod looked and felt fine.
Since then I always cut open my pods and toss the bad ones and haven't had a bad tasting batch since. Well relatively speaking of course, some of my experiments are still major fails that need to get tossed anyways but it's from clashing flavors not off-type flavors.
On the note about lemon or lime juice, I've heard it's better to add after the cooking but can't confirm it.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1190088/
these folks think it might be the seeds and skins causing the metallic taste. They are talking about ferments of tomatoes, but I wonder if it would apply to pepper ferments.
these folks think it might be the seeds and skins causing the metallic taste. They are talking about ferments of tomatoes, but I wonder if it would apply to pepper ferments.