Hot Sauce Batch 20 – Entry 1

It’s time to get started on the slow ferment hot sauce again. It starts with three months weekly fresh pepper additions followed by three months of finish fermentation before bottling next March.

This year is Batch 20 and it begins with 5 ounces of Hidden Lake Hot, my standard Cayenne/Thai cross, and 7 ounces of Culebra Negra, a Central American pepper I got from a Honduran friend.

First batch of peppers in batch 20 in a glass feremnter

I’m planning on doing most of the ferment in an oak cask, but I’m going to start these guys in a glass fermenter so I can keep an eye on it. This is the first time I’ve started the sauce this early and I don’t want the brutal heat of early September cause the starter to get squirrely and run off before I have enough ripe peppers to pitch to the cask.