Hello everyone. My name is Dustin Sartoris. I am a Chef currently residing in Santa Monica, CA. I'm 27, and as long as I can remember I've loved spicy foods. I go through about a bottle of Sriracha every two weeks, their Chili Garlic sauce disappears in about a week, and for my birthday a few years ago I asked my parents for a gallon of Tabasco.
While visiting my parents in Austin, TX last month, I came across a pepper plant at the park that I've seen before. I never knew the name to it, but I knew that they grew wild in Texas. So I picked a few peppers for seeds to plant later. When I got back to my parents house, I realized that they also had one of these plants growing in their yard. It was huge. I immediately went out and picked every red pepper off the plant, filling up my ziplock bag about half way.
That night, I spent all night trying to look up what kind of pepper it was. At first I thought it was a pequin, but after doing a bit more research I figured out that it was the Chiltepin (Tepin) pepper. I loved the heat and taste from it, and was fascinated at how the heat goes away from this pepper fairly quickly. I started looking up ways to make my own hot sauce, and how to ferment peppers. I've always had a green thumb too, so I dried and extracted the seeds from the peppers I picked.
Right now, while I am waiting for my tepin peppers to sprout (so far I have 5 sprouts out of 72), I've begun testing different fermenting processes on Habaneros that I've been buying at Whole Foods. Currently I am using a Ball Wide Mouth Quart jar filled up 3/4 of the way with peppers, then adding 12% of weight in salt. On top of that I placed a ziplock bag full of rock salt to weigh down the mash, and put the lid on loosely.
My previous attempts I only added 1 Tbsp of salt per pint of mash, and what resulted was the entire top turning into a white mold. Even after stirring it in, and adding the 12% salt the mold kept coming back. Hopefully my new method works. If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd be more than grateful.
While visiting my parents in Austin, TX last month, I came across a pepper plant at the park that I've seen before. I never knew the name to it, but I knew that they grew wild in Texas. So I picked a few peppers for seeds to plant later. When I got back to my parents house, I realized that they also had one of these plants growing in their yard. It was huge. I immediately went out and picked every red pepper off the plant, filling up my ziplock bag about half way.
That night, I spent all night trying to look up what kind of pepper it was. At first I thought it was a pequin, but after doing a bit more research I figured out that it was the Chiltepin (Tepin) pepper. I loved the heat and taste from it, and was fascinated at how the heat goes away from this pepper fairly quickly. I started looking up ways to make my own hot sauce, and how to ferment peppers. I've always had a green thumb too, so I dried and extracted the seeds from the peppers I picked.
Right now, while I am waiting for my tepin peppers to sprout (so far I have 5 sprouts out of 72), I've begun testing different fermenting processes on Habaneros that I've been buying at Whole Foods. Currently I am using a Ball Wide Mouth Quart jar filled up 3/4 of the way with peppers, then adding 12% of weight in salt. On top of that I placed a ziplock bag full of rock salt to weigh down the mash, and put the lid on loosely.
My previous attempts I only added 1 Tbsp of salt per pint of mash, and what resulted was the entire top turning into a white mold. Even after stirring it in, and adding the 12% salt the mold kept coming back. Hopefully my new method works. If anyone has any other suggestions, I'd be more than grateful.
from central Pennsylvania.
