Batch 21 Begins

It’s back to the beginning with the 2021 edition of my fermented hot sauce

“Hidden Lake Hot” – Cayenne/Thai hybrid hot peppers are the base for 2021’s hot sauce

For my 20th anniversary fermented hot sauce last year, I decided to get a little wild and split the pepper varieties 50/50. Half was my usual cayenne/Thai pepper cross, Hidden Lake Hot. The other half was a Honduran pepper called Culebra Negra, a black cayenne-shaped pepper about which I knew very little other than my Honduran friend said it was very hot.

The results were, in my opinion, a mixed bag. There was some heat up front, but it faded quickly and left behind a tangy green “grassy” flavor. The funk from the fermentation carried well, but without the heat it just tasted, well, like funky sauce.

Batch 21

For this year’s sauce, batch #21, I’m going back to the basics with 100% Hidden Lake Hot for the first time in over five years.

Hidden Lake Hot Cayenne/Thai cross hot peppers before picking

In early spring I planted two beds, one with seed saved from 2019 and another with last year’s. Summer has been a little weird this year. Cool all the way into July, then hot and dry for a month before settling into the hot days (upper 80s) / cool nights (upper 50s) cycle we’re currently experiencing. As a result, the better part of the summer we’ve seen lots of leafy growth, but no flowers or fruit. Now, however, the peppers are now kicking it into overdrive and we’re harvesting ripe peppers pretty much every other day.

Mine is a long-ferment hot sauce, made by starting a small batch of peppers in brine, allowing it to ferment for a week or two, then adding fresh peppers to the ferment weekly. We can usually depend on the HLH peppers to continue producing up until mid-to-late November, at which point we make our last addition and move the peppers to a cool dark place in the garage to rest until bottling in March.

Starting the ferment with 12oz. of hot pepper and half a gallon of brine.

Other than starting a week earlier than last year, we’re following the same steps as always. 12 ounces of fresh peppers added to a weak brine made of half a gallon water (8 cups) and a cup of kosher salt. Add a weight to keep the peppers submerged (in this case a jelly jar on top of a plastic lid), and send it off to a dark, warm shelf in the garage.

We’ll check in on it in a week.

Related Posts