Hot Sauce Batch 20 – Entry 2

Week 2 hot pepper additions filled the ferment starter

Despite a brutal heatwave that sent temperatures into the triple digits for several days, the hot peppers seemed to have come through pretty well. A few burned fruits and leaf tips, but otherwise still going strong.

This morning I picked about a pound of peppers, equally split among Hidden Lake Hot and Culebra Negra. As you can see from the photo above, this should be more than enough to get the ferment rolling before I pitch it to the barrel and add another 10 – 15 pounds of peppers over the coming weeks.

The peppers of Batch 20, young, ripening and fully ripe

The Culebra Negras, being a tropical pepper, did not like the exposure to the intense sun last week. Lots of burned tips and scalded fruit. I have some doubts about their ability to bounce back. The Hidden Lake Hots, on the other hand, did just fine. They’re even flowering again, so if I lose a few to sun scald, no big deal I’m pretty sure they’ll go on producing new peppers well into November.