fermenting When to add Blak Truffle to Fermented Sauce

[Redeemer]

Greetings chilli fans,
 
I am experimenting with my own truffle hot sauce recipe using fresh black truffles from France. My question is when to add them to the ferment. If I add upfront, I am concerned about losing aromas through the airlock, as well as potential contamination the actual mushroom could introduce.
 
If I add after 30 days when I know the PH is low, the only real risk is kahm yeast, but I wonder if the acid will be enough to extract the desired flavor and volatile compounds.
 
I will not make a truffle oil and infuse it at bottling time because the introduction of fats could lead to oxidation issues down the road.
 
I am considering using grain alcohol to extract the flavors from the truffles, finely diced, and adding them to the sauce 3 to 7 days before hot bottling.
 
Anyone have opinions or success stories? Please share.

 

[UnNatural]

I’ve never made a hot sauce with fresh truffles but have cooked with them so this is a bit of educated speculation.

With how subtle and volatile the truffle aroma/flavor is, even with black holding up better to cooking than white, I would add it at the very end. I don’t think the aromas would hold up to fermentation.

The way I would do this experiment personally would be to infuse some salt with the truffle and infuse some vinegar with it and add both of those as the last step.

I would also test a small batch where the truffle salt and vinegar are added 1. Before hot packing and 2. Just mixed in before eating. I’d guess the aroma will come through much stronger in option 2 but wouldn’t be very shelf stable.

Good luck!


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[dragonsfire]

I use Natural ACV whenever theirs a potential issue with fungus contamination to sterilize the item. Even peppers, I wash them with ACV in case of mold.