Needed:
1 large STERILIZED mason jar +
lid/elastic + piece of clean fabric big enough to go cover the top.
Garlic/Carrot/Berries/Other fruits etc. if you want
1 Litre of filtered/uncholorinated water at room temperature
30g/3 tbsp of fine sea salt
How to:
Combine water and salt, making sure it all dissolves.
Stem and deseed the chiles. You can keep some seeds if you want a bit more heat. USE GLOVES and maybe even a mask and goggles to do this.
Put chiles and garlic (and other ingredients if you’re using them) into a food processor and waz them up to a coarse puree.
Transfer the mash to a 1 litre mason jar making sure to leave an about 5 cm at the top. Tap the jar lightly to remove any air pockets.
Fill with brine and make sure the mash is covered. It tends to float to the top, so either use a fermenting weight in the top or take a small Ziploc bag and fill it with water (getting all the air out) and stuff it in the top of the jar so it pushes the mash down.
Cover with the piece of cloth using either the lid rid or an elastic band. If you have an airlock lid or other fermenting lid, then use that but you don’t really need one. The cloth lets it breathe. You can also just use a regular lid and burp it every day so the gas can escape.
Put a label on the jar that lets you know which chiles are in it as well as the date it was started.
Store the jar somewhere cool and dark. I usually put it in the basement laundry. Fermenting will take about two weeks but check up on it every day. The brine will start to go very cloudy I usually make a second batch of brine and fill up the jar if the chiles aren’t totally covered. You’ll definitely be smelling it.
(Measure for pH with a good pH meter to ensure the brine is below 4.6. This is the pH at which botulinum toxin can no longer form and is a good minimum acidity to target. Lots more details about fermenting, pH levels etc here.)
Note on kahm yeast (or that white stuff that you might see floating on the top of your ferment): It’s not harmful to eat but best to remove it when you see it. Scrape any visible yeast off of the top of your ferment with a clean utensil as soon as you see it form. Once it forms it usually continues to grow. Watch your contaminated ferment very closely and continue to clean away yeast everyday if needed. You many need to add more fresh brine to make sure your chiles are covered.
You can ferment for longer
than two weeks to give it more of that funky/sour fermented flavour. You can
leave it as long as you like as long as it doesn’t spoil or get moldy. I
usually do about three weeks and then make sauce or pop them in the fridge for
a few months.
Needed:
Bottles for putting the sauce
in.
· Woozy/sauce bottles – I like the
5 oz ones
· Any other glass container you can
find in any size.
· Just be sure to sterilize all
jars and lids with boiling water for at least 10 minutes before using them.
Small stainless steel funnel (it needs to be able to fit into the top of your sauce bottles)
Additional ingredients:
If you didn’t put garlic or
fruit into your ferment, add them now. I use 2-3 cloves of garlic for 1 mason
jar full of chile mash
1 tbsp honey
¾ cup cider vinegar
¼ cup water
Method:
Drain the chiles through a fine strainer, reserving the brine
Put drained chiles, ¾ of the brine, vinegar, honey, water and any other ingredients into the blender and waz it up until it’s very smooth. Maybe 2-3. If it’s still very thick add a bit more of any of the liquids (brine will make it saltier, vinegar will make it more sour, water will just thin it).
If you want a fairly runny sauce, you can strain this sauce but if you like it a bit thicker, just use as is.
Let the sauce cool a little, then pour it into a something with a spout so it will be easier to decant into the bottles. I just use a large glass measuring jug.
Using your funnels to avoid a mess, pour the hot sauce into the bottles. Seal them up. Put some pretty labels on and you’re good to go!
