Fermented Hot Sauces.... here we go!

[Michael_in_TX]

I have no idea what I am doing, but here we go!

So inspired by my first homemade hot sauce, I have decided to go all-in!

I picked up some 1 qt wide-mouth canning jars at Walmart and had some fermentation airlocks and weights shipped to me.

The current experiment is in two jars as the recipe I was using apparently for was for 2 qt jar! Still.....1/2 lb of jalapeños, 1 carrot, and 3 cloves of garlic in each jar, with a ~3.5% salt brine solution (distilled water with sea salt).

The photo below was before I fixed the issue in the left jar with the stuff floating on top and also....I forgot to fill the airlocks with water.

We'll see how this turns out in a week!

[Mr. Bones]

I'm excited to see how this progresses, as I am headed in that same direction...

Please, do tell us more...

Whose receipt are ya usin (link)?

How'd ya fix th floatin issue?
Good Luck, Brother!

[Michael_in_TX]

Absolutely....from one public higher-ed brother to another!

I've drawn from three primary resources:

Chili Pepper Madness: https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/
Serious Eats: https://www.seriouseats.com/fermented-hot-sauce-how-to
Firey Ferments Book: https://www.amazon.com/Fiery-Ferment...dp/1612127282/

I am very much in the beginner stages.....even the recipe I used filled two 1 qt jars! (https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/r...eno-hot-sauce/)

Here are the airlocks I bought and the glass weights (package deal on Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/Jillmo-Stainl.../dp/B08KG9QB5B

[Michael_in_TX]

My precious.....

From what I have read/learned, my main and number one task is to keep everything submerged. This is all about anaerobic action and oxygen is bad, bad, bad....

[Mr. Bones]

Unnerstood..
An jus how does one keep everything submerged?

[pkadare]

Mr. Bones the glass weights which go into the canning jars.

[Mr. Bones]

Many thanks pkadare

Cain't see em in th stock pic, was able to zoom, scrutinize, an discern em...

Sadly, after a few hours, nobody else will Ever be able to, since all pics git reduced to '80's DOS vidya games resolution

[Michael_in_TX]

Oh an here are the bottles for the sauce: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01068MRJ2/

[Mr. Bones]

Many Thanks, once again, Michael

[Michael_in_TX]

Yes, what is not immediately visible is that there is an half of a zip-lock sandwich bag placed atop the contents, then a fermentation weight (basically a glass hockey puck) on top of that.

[Mr. Bones]

Caught up witchya, so far...
So, now: Nuther Physics Question...

Observations: Th neck of a quart Mason jar is smaller than its barrel size, therefore said glass hockey puck would have to be small enough to transit th neckhole.

That bein said, th Big P Law sez that stuff that floats, gonna wanna float. Persistently. (Simplifed Version.)

Why do not comparatively hyper-buoyant components escape th gap, to buoy?(I saw some sneaky seeds, an wondered

Only answer I can come up with is coarseness.

[Michael_in_TX]

Yes, I was wondering about this as well. The glass weight is just slightly smaller than the mouth of the jar. I've put a piece of plastic (cut from a zip lock bag) on the brine and under the weight.

This is working very well in one jar, but in the other jar -- as you noticed -- a few pieces of jalapeno have floated above it. I think I will skim those off. I probably could also have done a better job of tamping the peppers down before I poured the brine on.

[Mr. Bones]

Many thanks fer alla yer patience, in answerin alla my stoopid questions...

I am Highly Inquisitive, to put it very mildly, an highly scientific minded...

Reckon that's it, fer now, until I encounter more stoopid question to ask lol

[JeffJ]

I've been making hot sauce for years. Homemade hot sauce puts almost all of the mass produced stuff to shame.

[Michael_in_TX]

I'm hoping for that!

[Michael_in_TX]

24 hour update....

The two jars are sitting in a dark place that is probably 66-72 F, right where it needs to be. One jar is fine, the other has some jalapenos and seeds that are floating near the surface. I'll skim those off tomorrow. So far, no sign of CO2 bubbles yet.

I'm also going to do a different batch tomorrow.....habaneros, blackberries, and blueberries. Should be interesting. Also, this one does not use a brine, so it will be interesting to compare.

[Mr. Bones]

Already followed from OP, an standin by!

Good Luck!

[Argoboy]

I have a batch of fermented hot sauce on the go as well, I started it this week. It is a 5% salt solution with jalapeños, habanero, red banana peppers, onion and garlic. It is working away now, I burp my container several times a day and stir it once a day. Last year I made hot sauce it fermented for about two weeks then stopped so I ran it through the blender and bottled it. I want my sauce to be red so I try to use ripe peppers.

[Argoboy]

I added a plastic bag full of water today to keep everything under the brine.

[Argoboy]

I bottled mine this week after about 3 weeks and it is my best bast batch yet, nice amount of heat.

[Michael Brinton]

Hot sauce season! 2% Salt, Chocolate brain strain and beets!

[Michael_in_TX]

So cool others are doing this!

Here's my second batch....roughly 2 cups of habaneros (that is a lot of habaneros...), and a cup each of blueberries and blackberries -- all processed up in a food processor. Fermentation time should be 10-15 days.

[W.A.]

Awesome. I made sour pickles once. Family didn’t really like them. I thought they were great

[Michael_in_TX]

Update on this. I did get a little ahead of myself last week as after doing a lot of watching/reading this week there are some thing I would have done differently.

I did wash everything with dish soap and hot water, but I probably should have sanitized the jars better by letting them sit in boiling water for ten minutes. (Apparently, there is also a popular food-safe sanitizer called Star San out there that many people use to spray on.)

One good thing is that my jars have not exploded. (Baby steps...) So I assume the airlocks are working. The two jars with the brine are distinctly cloudy, so that indicates that the good bacteria are happily digesting the sugars in the peppers and excreting out nice bit of acid. (And hopefully the brine has killed the harmful bacteria.) The mash jar is very liquid and a lovely purple.

It's eight days on the brine jars and six days on the mash jar. I am probably going to go ten days on the brine jars and fourteen on the mash. It seems that most people agree that ten days to two weeks is the minimum.

I've also learned that measuring the PH of these things is incredibly important and I have gone down a rabbit hole learning about digital PH meters. Apparently, they are very, very finicky. Even laboratory grade ones costing $1000 need to be calibrated several times a day. I think I've found one that gets good YouTube (and Amazon) reviews and is accurate enough for my purposes (the solution needs to be 4.0 if not 3.5 PH or below for safety). Even for a $40-$60 meter, the life expectancy is only six months to a year before the electrode fails or becomes inaccurate.

Another thing that I've learned is that hot sauce making, especially when fermenting, is more like baking than cooking. Measurements matter. For example, your brine amount is dependent on how much the mass of your peppers.

I've also been reading a lot on how to tell if your fermentation has gone bad. The usually answer, curiously enough is, you'll know. It seems like a pleasant, inviting tang -- like dill pickles -- is good, but any unpleasant smell is indicator that something went wrong.

We'll see how everything is in a few days....

[Mr. Bones]

So, I should bathe, right afore checkin it, is my take away???

Best of Luck with yer batch, Michael!

[rickgregory]

Hmm.... I'm not sure I'd worry about the ph - what leads you to that?

Star San is good stuff, but for a few jars I'd just sanitize in boiling water in a large pot. Starsan is useful in e.g. beer making when you're sanitizing 5 gallon containers etc that you can't really just dunk in a pot.

FYI, this book is awesome on all kinds of fermentation - https://www.wildfermentation.com/wild-fermentation/ and https://shop.culturesforhealth.com is a good site for supplies etc with lots of good info too.

[mnavarre]

Having the PH below 4.0 is important for shelf stability, if it's a sauce you're going to leave in the fridge it's not as important.

[rickgregory]

mnavarre - Ah, sure. That makes a lot of sense.

[mnavarre]

Don't worry. Washing the jars with soap & water was definitely almost certainly good enough. Yes, StarSan is good stuff, but a 50/50 mix of 5% distilled vinegar and water is sufficient, and cheaper.

As far as a pH meter goes, don't overthink it. the $30 jobby I use at home is faster and just as accurate as the $200 meter I have at the brewery for what I care about. You're not worried about the difference between 4.0012 and 4.0013, you're worried about the difference between 4.0 and 3.9. Just recalibrate it if things seem wonky. And if you're going to keep the sauce in the fridge the pH doesn't matter as much, I've got 3 year old fermented sauces in the fridge that I didn't check the pH on because I didn't have a pH meter yet and they're all still perfectly fine.

[Michael_in_TX]

That is exactly what I thinking. I want something that will tell me, almost qualitatively, with a reasonable degree of accuracy: is the sauce at or below 4 PH. And thanks for the suggestion on the vinegar mix. Star San can be a bit pricey as it comes in sizable containers.

[Mr. Bones]

1 cap bleach per gallon of water is also quite acceptable, to sanitize...warm water, Not Hot...it degrades th Solution

I've been th one to escort th KDHE Inspector though many an Institutional Kitchen, fer many Long Years. as we were inspected...remove bottles with gloves, after immersin a spell, air dry on a (presumably sanitized rack, etc...

Sanitize any funnels, or other vessels used to fill jars, first, aight...