A Simple Must Try: Fermented Hot Sauce

Recipe First – Click Here –

I didn’t use this recipe exactly, but just the general strategy which I’ll go over. Please don’t be intimidated if you’ve never fermented anything; it is very easy, just takes some patience.

Note: Most people will have tried fermented hot sauces even if they are not aware. Tabasco sauce is made with salt, vinegar, and fermented tabasco peppers. That’s it that’s all.

Fermentation is a biological process where we create an anaerobic environment using a 2% salt solution that is acidic enough to kill harmful bacteria but beneficial lactic acid bacteria can thrive. Lactic acid bacteria take carbohydrates and metabolises them into lactic acid. This transforms flavours, mellows out some spiciness, and is one of the oldest forms of food preservation. Apparently it can have some benefits to gut bacteria and health as well, but I like to ferment because it’s delicious.

Enough with the background. This really is super simple. Take whatever you want your hot sauce to taste like; I choose Thai chilis, onion, garlic, and ginger.

There are two ways you can do this and they make basically the same result:

Method 1: Make a 2% salt solution by measuring out a certain amount of water (example: Take 1 L of water which weights 1,000 g, add 20 g of salt, and stir until dissolved). Pour the brine over your ingredients, put something heavy on top (either canning weights or a ziplock filled with brine), and a loose lid.

Method 2: Take the ingredients and blend them up, weigh the resultant ingredients and again add 2% the weight in salt. Stir it up so the salt is well distributed. In this method blending the ingredients releases some water in order to dissolve the salt. This then causes the ingredients to make their own brine.

I did both methods because I was just curious. For subsequent ferments I did just the wet brine; I wanted to use the brine to add back into the mix when making the hot sauce.

Store in a dark cupboard for 1-2 weeks taking time once a day to release any built up pressure in the jars (evidence of the biological activity). The picture above is after a couple days, and you can see the cloudiness in the water from the micro organisms. It should smell fragrant, and a little sour, but definitely not mouldy, and should smell yummy.

Strain the liquid out and reserve; do not throw out! Put the ingredients into a blender, and add back your liquid until it reaches the consistency you like.

Next add some vinegar, salt, and granulated sugar to taste. I used a little over half of my brine liquid and 3/4 cup of vinegar in the end. It started off burning our mouths so badly we had to take a break; we couldn’t taste anything. After some trial and error it became a nice complex, sweet, hot, and tangy hot sauce. We have gone through a 16 ounce bottle in about 2.5 weeks so suffice to say we are enjoying it.

Try it out! Its science, cooking, and eating; some of the best things in the world.

Cole Rating: 9.5/10