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fermenting Fermenting.... powders?

P

Pharthan

So, I thought to myself, I want to make a good cayenne sauce, but due to season and general difficulty finding them, I thought to order some dried cayenne peppers and try that.
While looking, a nice big jar of cayenne powder showed up in the amazon order. So I thought to myself... why not ferment that? Would it even be doable? Am I crazy?
The answer is probably "yes, you're crazy and this won't work," but I kind of want to try. I'm thinking of perhaps trying to make a paste out of it first to make a mash, then add a brine.

The biggest problem I see is that caking agents may interfere, as well as preservatives, but with a whey starter, who knows? I don't, and the curiosity is starting to well up, so unless someone tells me I might make a portal to Hell while executing this plan, I might try it against all other advice. Even if it fails, it will be fun.

So, I guess, here it goes...
.... for science.
 
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Went to the store the other day to do some research, as well as buy approximately 3lbs of garlic. 

It was a Wal-mart Market so they didn't have a massive amount of cayenne powder, but they did have Red Pepper Flake, which is cayenne. So I'll probably use that. No anti-caking agents or preservatives, so it should essentially just be like fermenting straight up cayenne, albeit dried, so I might have to let it soak up moisture and add more water in.
 
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Koreans have been using dried peppers in ferments for ages. Get a bag of gochugaru at an Asian market. A 1kg bag at mine is around $8 for the milder stuff and about double that for the "hot" gochugaru used for making Korean pepper paste. Its a good way to try it cheap before risking your more valued peppers.
 
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It was one of the things suggested to me on some recipes. I'm still pretty new to this stuff, so hopefully that wasn't a terrible mistake.
I'm experimenting with different stuff right now, mostly.

In any case:
image0.jpg
 
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I'm probably going to bottle the smaller jar this weekend. It's only been a month and a half, but I want to make sure the rest is going to be worth keeping. Otherwise I'll probably go with a previous recipe with the rest of the jars.
 
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I use dried peppers in most of my sauces during cook down as I feel they add a 'base note' and help round out the sauce flavor profile.  I have never fermented pepper powder or flake though.  You finding flake without any anti caking agents/other stuff was wise and good, but some of the powder went into the jars too so I wonder if that will effect it at all.  
 
The other things I am wondering about are:
 
1. depending on drying method the natural lacto present on the peppers will most likely be gone.  You've counteracted that with yeast, so I'm interested in the results.  It might be a pepper wine type thing - who knows!  :)
 
2. because they are dried I wonder how much if any of their natural sugars will be present to ferment.   There's sugars in the sweet onion and garlic though, so those will definitely ferment.
 
As has been said, please do post back with pics of the results.   
 
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My new quadra bottles came in this morning, and I've been itching to try this out. It's been only two months instead of the three I preferred, but I'm impatient.

redsauce.png


It was a success, relatively speaking. Jar on the right for reference of how much "mash" I had started with.
Points to note:
  1.  The 30 oz of mash made 85 oz of sauce. It required a lot more vinegar than I'm used to, and I probably could have added another 8.5 oz of vinegar and filled an eleventh bottle, as it's still relatively thick. I had to use up plenty of rice vinegar as well.  Perhaps an easy way to made lots of sauce with little space taken up for fermenting? I get a feeling I need to order a whole new set of bottles for the other sauces I plan on making.
  2. White wine vinegar definitely came through in the flavors after bottling. Might be better with plain distilled vinegar.
  3. Tastes relatively close to some louisana hot sauces, and I like it well enough, so I'll call it a win.
  4. Spice is comparable to commercial sauces.
  5. pH of ~3.8, so it should be shelf-stable without refrigeration.
 
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Nice! The color is glorious and I like the ingredients you used.
 
What does this mean? "4. Spice is comparable to commercial sauces."
 
Spice? Which ones?
 
Commercial Sauces? Which ones?
 
Trying to imagine the flavor. On a pepper forum, please be more specific!!!
 
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Scoville DeVille said:
Nice! The color is glorious and I like the ingredients you used.
 
What does this mean? "4. Spice is comparable to commercial sauces."
 
Spice? Which ones?
 
Commercial Sauces? Which ones?
 
Trying to imagine the flavor. On a pepper forum, please be more specific!!!
Click to expand...
 
Sorry for not describing more.

Yes, I did mean "heat." I'd place it at Franks Red Hot level. Slightly lower than Zatarain's, and lacking the distinct flavor I want to get from it. Not that I anticipate beating Zatarains - but it'd have been nice to be closer than I got.

For flavor - it tastes pretty readily like it's primary components. Red pepper flake and white wine vinegar. Basically, if you took solid red pepper flake and made it a liquid. It's not extremely pronounced either, to be honest - which means I can probably safely double or triple the garlic to get a more desired flavor. I also need to use a plain distilled white vinegar to cut the white-wine vinegar flavor, which isn't bad, but not the direction I want to take it.
I can afford more salt as well.

Makes a great sauce for pizza. Taste test satisfactory.
 
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Nice. IMO flavor is the trickiest, heat is easy. Anyone can make a HOT sauce but if it tastes like crap, who cares, right?

More garlic never killed anyone. Well except that one time when a friend of mine put 10 HEADS in a juicer and shot it like vodka. Let me just say it didn't stay down long. LMAO

It's fun watching you explore and learn. Keep up the good work!
 
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Second batch, started fermenting at the same time as the first.
This time I used White House White Distilled Vinegar. Much better choice than the White Wine Vinegar before. It still has a slightly sweet flavor, which is good.

QUESTION:
My pH meter broke. I cooked the sauce, bringing it to a boil it for about 1 minute then simmering it for about 5 minutes before bottling it hot & capping it. 
Because the majority of the liquid is vinegar and because I cooked it, should it be shelf stabled, at least until I open the bottles?
 

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