fermenting First Ferment going on stove, Chocolate Cayenne

[HillBilly Jeff]

Finally got the nerve up (after asking a lot of people on here for advice) to crack open my first ferment that has been going for 4 months.  OMG it smelled awesome.  The slightly spicy tart flavor rocks.  
 
Cooking it down a bit to food mill out the seeds and then into a sauce tomorrow.  Any way I slice it, this is not going to be a hot sauce.  I don't want to add much to it to take away from the heat or flavor that it has.  My ph meter was almost dead on coming out of storage and my mash was definitely low enough.
 
Now to add some accents to this sauce to finish it off.
 
Thanks to everyone who has replied to my msgs, my posts, and have posted here so that I could read what you all have done.  Wouldn't have been possible for me to do this otherwise.
 
Pepper People Rock.
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 

[ronaldo_fanbelt]

It looks great! Not much beats a fermented pepper sauce, enjoy.

 

[MeatHead1313]

Looks awesome Jeff! Great job!

 

[HillBilly Jeff]

Got it milled out.  Little more tart now.
 
 

 

[2Goats]

Oh maaan that looks great!

 

[hoibot]

looks outstanding!

 

[HillBilly Jeff]

After chilling overnight, I just run it through my ninja....talk about a smooth sauce.  It isn't going to have much heat considering where it came from, but I did roll around the idea of cooking a jigsaw or reaper in the sauce to add a touch more snap.

I have read where a lot of people will keep their ferment as is in the fridge to eat.  Either mine is exceptionally tart, or something else.  Does anyone else sweeten up their ferments prior to bottling?
 
If so, what do you all use to sweeten the pot?

Sauce is finished.  Ended up with 9 10 ounce bottles of it.  Turned out to taste like an extra spicy tangy catsup.  I get a sweet taste, then a tangy taste, then the heat comes in.  Hotter than I expected for cayenne peppers.
 
Will post pics after the bottles get out of their inverted state.

 

[HillBilly Jeff]

Here it is.
 
 

 

[SmokenFire]

Does anyone else sweeten up their ferments prior to bottling?
 
If so, what do you all use to sweeten the pot?

Sauce is finished.  Ended up with 9 10 ounce bottles of it.  Turned out to taste like an extra spicy tangy catsup.  I get a sweet taste, then a tangy taste, then the heat comes in.  Hotter than I expected for cayenne peppers.
 
Will post pics after the bottles get out of their inverted state.

 
Hey HBJ!  There are times when I do indeed add sweetener (or salt, or more acid like lime juice or vinegar) prior to bottling.  If I'm going into woozys I will heat/food mill/reheat and then taste/adjust seasonings/blend again and hot fill/hold.  I tend to taste and taste and taste again throughout the process, partly because I've been waiting for it to finish and I'm curious but also because that's how I was taught to do it.  Most of the time I use honey to balance sweetness, but also have used agave nectar and turbinado sugar with great results.  
 
90 ounces yield = about 2/3 gallon or so of finished sauce.  <-- That's a handy measurement when taking into account the original recipe ingredients you started with in case you want to double or triple batches.  If you want to boost the initial sweet you can back sweeten before bottling or you can experiment with adding chopped sweet pepper or fruit during your initial cook (prior to food mill).  I'd suggest splitting a finished ferment into a few different small batches to see what you like and what you don't.  
 
When done finished ferments are indeed sour and salty and hot with some bitterness and what I think is a good amount of umami.  You don't necessarily eat em by the spoonful, but a table spoon into some mayo for a club sammie (or fries!) or a tea spoon into a mug of soup is a thing of beauty that your cooked and processed sauces just can't replicate.  Great uses abound for both imo.       
 
EDIT: Your sauce sounds and looks like Heinz mixed w Texas Pete, which sounds pretty kickass to me.  Especially for your first batch.

 

[HillBilly Jeff]

Thanks for all the tips.  I too taste all my sauces as I am cooking them, the sink is full of spoons when I get done.
 
I also heat, foodmill, then the next day I will heat and adjust.  I added a step.  The next day before the heat I food process.  I love the consistency I got this time around and will probably continue to do so.
 
My other two ferments are MoA and 7 Pot Burgundy.  My probably with the MoA sauce I made last was too much MoA and it was just no flavor.  So I will no doubt split off some of the MoA ferment and try to come up with a good "cereal filler" to mellow the sauce out and change the taste.  7 pot will be split as well, has yeast on top, but I am thinking doing another run at a plum sauce (less plums than my first attempt lol) and a cranberry or rhubarb type sauce.  Don't want it overly tart, but I like the tangyness I got out of this ferment.
 
Of course, the ferment alone gives me the tang.  Just gotta try it and see.  Maybe a cranberry blueberry mix.
 
Everyone at work loved the sauce today when I took in a bottle.  Might be because they don't like it so hot and this sauce is just cayenne hot.  
 
Thought about adding a couple jigsaws as I cooked it to spice it up, but decided to just go mellow for the normal tastebuds.
 
Has anyone tried fermenting smoked peppers?  Or should I smoke some sweet to add to the cook after the ferment is done?