fermenting Fermented Sriracha-style sauce

[SirErvan]

Hi, all. First post on THP Forums & first pretty successful fermented hot sauce run. Love this site and thanks to everyone already for all the tips and guides.
 
Fermented, Sriracha-style sauce.
I tried my hand at some homemade Sriracha-style sauce, inspired by some online recipes, especially the one from Reclaiming Provincial (http://www.reclaimingprovincial.com/2012/09/30/homemade-sriracha/).
 
Turned out pretty good for a first go around. Pics & process below, though the red color blew out the saturation on my camera!
 
~4 lbs. red ripe peppers (Jalapenos, Serrano, Thai, misc...)
1/2 lb. garlic
8 tbsp. brown sugar
Pickling salt
Kraut juice
 
1 cup Coconut vinegar
 
Reds.
Sourcing ripe red hot chiles is apparently hard in South Bay Area (San Jose), but I ended up snagging some from local farmer's markets. Mostly red jalapenos & serranos and then a smattering of "miscellaneous" hot ones.
 

 
 
I grilled a handful of 'em and processed 'em down into a mash per the excellent guide posted here.
 

 
 
Oh, God, the smell.
This is my 3rd attempt at fermenting pepper mash. My wife got me a Chinese picklin' pot with a lid & built-in vapor lock that costs waaaaaay less than those German pottery ones ($20-30 vs. $100). Seems to work well if I don't overfill it w/ mash... if I do it's a mash volcano.
 
The first two ferments a while back, didn't kill me, but stunk to high-heaven after the 5th day or so. I tried leaving it through to about 6 weeks, but that just made my wife angry, not the mash any less smelly.  Any tips on why this might be happening, love to know.
 
This one, I chickened out and cut it short (~4-5 days), but it got started really quickly since I bootstrapped it with some kraut juice I happened to have bought on the farmer's market.
 

 
 
Liquidy fire.
After the ferment, I added the vinegar, simmered it down for a while, blended it and strained out seeds. It tastes like garlic burning! Got a good consistency on it w/o needing to add any Xanthan or anything.
 

 
 
Tasty.
 

 

[jblo]

Great post!  On day 4 of my fermented sriracha.  Looking forward to processing this weekend.

 

[Wustenfuchs]

Welcome to THP, nice post!

 

[RocketMan]

First off Welcome to THP!!

Second, dud that mash is beautiful, where did she get the pot from? I love it!

Ok now on to the important stuff. Did you put any liquid in the area the cover sits down into? It's hard to tell in the pic. Please list the procedure you used for the first mashes and any differences between them and this one. Also about what temperature was it where you kept it?

The smell coming off of the mash should be like the peppers and ingredients. Really kind of a nice peppery garlic scent is usually what I get.

My thoughts on what went wrong, going by what you say here it sounds to me like you didn't use a starter on the first 2, wife hating, mashes. When you grilled the peppers you killed off any naturally occurring Lacto so there was nothing to get the mash started before the nasties got started. It could also be that you didn't have enough salt to keep them at bay till what Lacto might have been there could ramp up and get going. If your not using a starter, like the Kraut juice, then you really need to have the salt up at the 6% level or better. Using g the starter will allow you to drop that down to just a couple of tablespoons.

All in all the sauce looks killer. Glad you got one to happen now let's see what we can do to get all the way through one.

RM

 

[The Hot Pepper]

Best first post EVER!
 

 

[brownb4]

loving that picklin pot!! i would have that thing as a center piece on my table.

 

[SirErvan]

Thanks, everyone for the notes & compliments. Glad to get have gotten one going
 
Re: The Picklin' Pot - Not sure exactly where she bought the pot, somewhere in SF, I think. There's an online store that has a $20 big one (132oz) & $15 smaller one (85oz): http://www.wokshop.com/store/detail.php?show=436
 
 
Thanks for the help, RocketMan. I'd love to get a properly, long-fermented/aged mash going.
 

Ok now on to the important stuff. Did you put any liquid in the area the cover sits down into? It's hard to tell in the pic. Please list the procedure you used for the first mashes and any differences between them and this one. Also about what temperature was it where you kept it?
 

 
For each ferment, it's been in the kitchen out of sunlight at probably between 68 - 72F. I fill crock up to the pot's shoulders with mash/veggies and then put on top, fill vapor lock with water and let 'er go, filling the vapor lock as needed as water goes down.
 
First ferment, was a mix of random peppers, garlic, some onion, no grilling/cooking. I actually did a rough chop of all the ingredients instead of true mash (this was in my naive days before I discovered THP). Tried using a bit of whey from some active culture yogurt we had (which I read online can help start), plus the salt & water. Fermented for about 10 days, by day 6 or so, was smelling pickly but started to get pure funk.
 
Second ferment was just habs and garlic, food processed into mash into the pot, no cooking or grilling. No starter on this one. Same thing though, after about day 6, funk. I left it for about 6 weeks, thinking maybe the funk was a "phase" but oh, Lordy, it never recovered.
 
For both those ferments, the first 5 days seem to go text book. Lots of bubbles, lots of burping on jar, gotta push mash down under brine.
 
The difference on this last one was using the kraut juice starter, not leaving it for longer than 5 days, less water, & I added some brown sugar to the mash... But it seemed to go similarly than the other two for that first bit.
 
 

My thoughts on what went wrong, going by what you say here it sounds to me like you didn't use a starter on the first 2, wife hating, mashes. When you grilled the peppers you killed off any naturally occurring Lacto so there was nothing to get the mash started before the nasties got started. It could also be that you didn't have enough salt to keep them at bay till what Lacto might have been there could ramp up and get going. If your not using a starter, like the Kraut juice, then you really need to have the salt up at the 6% level or better. Using g the starter will allow you to drop that down to just a couple of tablespoons.

 
Hmm. I didn't grill any of the first two ferments, and only grilled about a 1/4 lb. of cooked on this last batch. Do you think that would have had much impact? Should have been enough lacto on the other ones, yeah?
 
I'll try next time being more precise with my salt. I've been less keen on the whole 'measuring' thing so far.
 
Is it possible for the ferment to go well for 5 days and then get overtaken by nasties? or for their to be a weird strain of good bacteria that produces an off smell? I ended up tasting the first two and they tasted ok (and I didn't die), but the smell never went away. I had to dump 'em.
 
Thanks for the help!

 

[kjwalker]

The jar!  Oh thank you!  ha ha...I was in the wet market looking at jars for my finished sauces and saw those jars and had no idea what they were for....now I know!  I am gonna go get a couple tomorrow.  Chinese probably use them to make rice wine mostly.