# Hot Pepper Sauce



## Forerunner (Mar 23, 2007)

I have long been a fan of Louisianaâ¢ brand hot sauce.....and several other similar versions are good, too.

It just dawned on me not long ago :smack that a lot of that tangy taste was the vinegar of fermenting the peppers beyond the alcohol stage.

I've long grown Jalapenos and Cayennes, and I have friends who give me all sorts of other hots and mediums to enjoy.....and *ahem* I have a Vita-Mixâ¢.

We had some leftover homegrown and home cut salsa, scads (and I mean scads) of tomatoes, several three and five gallon buckets of peppers-hot to mild, a gallon of apple cider vinegar, untold quantities of salt, and a whole bunch of rather bored half and three-quarter gallon small mouth canning jars sitting around, so I set to work.

Now, given the drought this year, at least half of my peppers across the board haven't ripened, so I made my first batch with mostly green Jalapenos, and I was a little dubious about the project for the green look and very sharp heat of my product. Several days went by, and I noticed several phenomena unfolding in the two jars. One...the stuff bubbles and separates, which was no surprise, but kinda cool.  I just tighten the lids and give the stuff an occasional shake, which also settles the contents that seem to be trying to escape for the expansion of fermentation. (be sure to loosen the lids back, after !  ) Two, the flavor is mellowing..... :huh:....and three, the best of all....the stuff is ripening and turning a fantastic shade of orange/red in the jar ! :bouncy:

So, with renewed confidence, I put together four more jars of product, this time splitting the batches, one with about half tomato puree, to see if the tomato will temper the heat and still keep once it goes to vinegar....and adding dried Cayennes to all four to see what that might do to flavor. 
I used dried Cayennes cuz I got 10 gallons of 'em in a sealed barrel from a couple years ago and haven't had to grow any, since. :shrug:

If anybody has thoughts or experience to add in re the topic of making tangy hot sauces, I'd love to hear them, and I'll keep ya'll posted as to the unfoldings of my own experiments.


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## wanda1950 (Jan 18, 2009)

Can you tell me the proportions of vinegar you used. We've been trying to ferment peppers but we're not getting much bubbling. A lot of ours are habenaros & they are a lot less fleshy than jalapenos.We cut them up and put in a pretty mild salt/vinegar. We had an amazing late crop of peppers.


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## Forerunner (Mar 23, 2007)

Honestly....the peppers should ferment themselves, but I did use just enough of a splash of vinegar to keep my peppers liquid enough to blend in the blender.
Don't give up, and keep those lids loose...... you should see bubbles at some point.
I'm doing everything at a cool room temperature.


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## alpacaspinner (Feb 5, 2012)

I made the fermented recipe on this site this year, and am quite pleased with the results - Sriracha Chile Sauce Recipe (Tuong Ot Sriracha) - Viet World Kitchen - I used hot red peppers that I could get locally, and not the ones called for in the recipe. And life got in the way, so the initial fermentation went on for 10 days rather than 3 or 4, but it all worked out. I tried making a Tabasco type sauce some years ago, and was disappointed; it separated, and just wasn't very nice. The Sriracha, because of the cooking I think, has stayed together nicely.


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## suitcase_sally (Mar 20, 2006)

Forerunner, you gotta be a southerner.


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## Forerunner (Mar 23, 2007)

Ahm afeerd Ah wuz bahn hunnerds uh mahls nawth uh the Masun/Dixon lahn, Hun.

But Ah duz luv me sum good suthuhn cookin', any ole tahm. 



Alpaca.....I can't see how a few extra days or weeks fermenting could hurt your product. It's the vinegaring that we'd want, and not the alcohol. :shrug:

I plan to let mine go until long after the bubbling stops, and part of my experiment is going to be determining whether the stuff will keep without canning via heat.


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## alpacaspinner (Feb 5, 2012)

Forerunner said:


> Ahm afeerd Ah wuz bahn hunnerds uh mahls nawth uh the Masun/Dixon lahn, Hun.
> 
> But Ah duz luv me sum good suthuhn cookin', any ole tahm.
> 
> ...


Agreed - the extra time doesn't seem to have hurt it at all (nor did I really think it would). I would like to have left it without the cooking, as the fermenting beasties are a good thing in my opinion, but my last try (with the Tabasco) was disappointing enough that I didn't want to repeat that. I look forward to hearing how your experiment proceeds.


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## suitcase_sally (Mar 20, 2006)

Forerunner said:


> Ahm afeerd Ah wuz bahn hunnerds uh mahls nawth uh the Masun/Dixon lahn, Hun.
> 
> But Ah duz luv me sum good suthuhn cookin', any ole tahm.


:thumb:


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## Forerunner (Mar 23, 2007)

So far, getting redder and tasting tangier every day.

Plenty of heat, too.


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## Forerunner (Mar 23, 2007)

As this stuff ferments, it separates, which isn't a big deal, but I have found that if I let it set, untouched, for three or four days, there appear small spots of mold, so I've been shaking the mix every day to avoid this, and to remix the paste with the liquids.
Still turning redder and mellowing a bit in flavor.


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