Batch 24 Hot Sauce Pepper Addition Number 4

Cool weather for the start of autumn has things moving a little more slowly

Pepper addition #4 topped of the first 1 gallon fermenter.

The unusually cool weather (low 70s – which is about 15° cooler than usual) that closed out summer gave way to modestly warmer weather. It’s now in the low 80s most days with temperatures dipping into the low-to-mid 50s.

I think the peppers are welcoming the end of the seesawing hot/cold. Most have new growth and some flowers, so I’m hopeful we’ll have fresh peppers to add for at least a few more weeks. Still, the Hidden Lake Hot Cayenne peppers have been a little underwhelming production-wise, so I am still supplementing them with Fish and Hinkelhatz peppers.

Both of those varieties seem to be much happier with the weather, though the Hinkelhatz aren’t really growing anymore. This may be a result of the Hinkelhatz being at the far west end of the garden, which is shaded by the hanging gourd garden a good two hours longer than it was in mid-summer.

Lots of Fish

The Fish peppers, on the other hand, seem to be chucking out new peppers at their fastest pace yet. So much so that a lot of them are falling over from the weight of the fruit. (Note to self: Fish peppers need support just like the Cayennes.)

This week’s addition is is mostly Fish peppers with a few Cayenne and Hinkelhatz.

The result is this week’s addition to the fermenting peppers is heavy on Fish peppers with a few Cayennes and one or two more Hinkelhatz.

The good thing is, this fourth addition will be enough to top off the first one gallon fermenter, so when we get to addition number five I’ll start a new one. Usually, I’ll add a little of the brine & funk from the existing fermenter to give things a kickstart, but this time I might keep them separate and let them run independently.

It could be interesting to see how the second group differs from the first since it won’t have any of that hot/cold swing the original did.

Of course, I might just blend them back together so I have more of a consistently flavored hot sauce too.

Only time will tell.

Author’s Note: Every year since 2001, I’ve made a slow fermented hot sauce from a unique Cayenne hot pepper we’ve grown here since the early 1990’s. The hot sauce takes around six months to finish and, like wine and other fermented foods, each vintage is a little different from the other. Sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad. I write these notes to track the progress and hope I learn how to produce more good than bad.

Batch 24 Timeline