• If you have a question about commercial production or the hot sauce business, please post in Startup Help.

Fresh vs Dry pods -- a Sauce experiment

Judy and I are teaming up to experiment with Fresh and Dried peppers. I decided to take the route of fermentation as it gives the dry peppers time to rehydrate, I am aiming for similar/exact same tasting, consistency, and heat. Here is the fresh side.
 
Roughly 1/2 lb Primo 7 pots
 
w9H3txM.jpg

 
 
chops down to ~3 cups
 
YuXort6.jpg

 
 
added 6 pineapple rings with some pineapple juice:
 
aLcZAQW.jpg

 
 
Purees even further down to ~2.5 cups after you get all the Air out
 
4XsJ8mu.jpg

 
 
6% of weight of salt is roughly 1.5 TBsp
 
HHX6BkO.jpg

 
 
airlocked and some water added ready to go into my "incubation chamber" @ 84 degrees F
 
 
 
ZTlS7qA.jpg
 
If you started with 3 cups or fresh and 2 cups of dry, I would say that it took a lot mot peppers to give you those 2 cups of dry, since the moisture will make up the bulk of the pods.  Since only the water is removed while drying, the dried up pods will still have all their sugars.  So I would think that those 2 cups of dried flakes would have had a crapload more sugar for the lacto to ferment and may take a little longer. The pH may also end up a bit lower and that one may taste a bit more sour from more lactate production.  Just a thought.
 
Heisenberg said:
If you started with 3 cups or fresh and 2 cups of dry, I would say that it took a lot mot peppers to give you those 2 cups of dry, since the moisture will make up the bulk of the pods.  Since only the water is removed while drying, the dried up pods will still have all their sugars.  So I would think that those 2 cups of dried flakes would have had a crapload more sugar for the lacto to ferment and may take a little longer. The pH may also end up a bit lower and that one may taste a bit more sour from more lactate production.  Just a thought.
 
thats exactly what i was thinking too. it seems to have settled down a bit though. so ill give it 3 more days.
 
just tasted both of these. They are about identical in heat, however the fermentation process kills a good bit of the heat. the pineapple flavor is completely gone in the dried batch while the fresh batch is a tad saltier. I am going to be sending a bottle of dry and fresh to JayT and to ItBurns as the official reviewers for this thread. :) also the dried turned out a tad thicker.
 
Just saw this Pex! Thank you and Judy both! Brilliant idea for those end of season pods, "I just can't ferment another/make another fresh sauce" but yeah, I can: I imagine Judy dried at low temps and just brilliant use of dried pods, other than for powder blends!! Also, how much WLLB did you use per ferment? (Been using Caldwells and whey but really interested in stuff from White Labs.) Thank you so much for this!
 
Back
Top