How To Make Homemade Fermented Hot Sauce (Frank’s & Tabasco-Style)
My homemade fermented hot sauce – better than the store-bought stuff!
If you’ve ever wondered what gives commercial hot sauces like Frank’s and Tabasco that complex, tangy flavor, you might be surprised to learn the secret is fermentation – the same process that makes beer, bread, yogurt and sauerkraut. What’s more is the process is really simple and completely safe.
Here’s everything you need to know about the ingredients and steps (plus a little science thrown in for good measure) for making your own aged hot sauce at home.
Why Ferment Your Hot Sauce?
Fermenting hot sauce offers a number of benefits over other methods.
- Deeper, more complex flavor: Straight vinegar-based hot sauces deliver heat and acidity, but fermenting it adds new flavor compounds. Depending on the pepper combo and length of fermentation, your hot sauce can also be fruity, funky, tangy, spicy and sweet (or all of them) as well.
- Natural preservation: Long before modern refrigeration, fermentation was the most widely used method for keeping foods from spoiling. Fermented hot sauce is shelf-stable at room temperature and will keep for months, even years.
- Natural probiotics: Lactobacillus, the microbe that provides the fermentation, is also and important contributor to intestinal health. “Lacto” bacteria help break down carbohydrates, aid in the absorption of important vitamins and nutrients, and produces anti-microbial compounds that inhibit the growth of harmful bacteria like E. coli and Salmonella.
Equipment & Ingredients
Equipment
- Large glass jar or fermentation crock — I use a 1 gallon pickle jar (Note: the container should be glass or ceramic not metal, which will react to the fermentation).
- Pickling weight – Something that will sit in the jar and keep the peppers submerged in the brine. A plastic baggie filled with water works well.
- Lid for fermentation container – this can be a removable plastic lid, or a sealed one with a fermentation airlock like they use for homebrewing and winemaking.
- Blender – For grinding up the pepper mash after fermentation.
- Mesh sieve or cheesecloth – to filter out seeds and solids at bottling time.
Ingredients
- Hot Peppers (1 LB) – Cayenne, Tabasco, Thai, Fresno, Jalapeno, or whatever hot peppers you like. (I use a combination of Cayenne and Thai chili peppers).
- Kosher salt — You can also use sea salt, table salt or pickling salt.
- Purified or distilled water — Must be chlorine-free. If you use tap water, either boil it or allow it to stand for 24 hours to remove the chlorine which inhibits fermentation.
- White or cider vinegar — For stabilizing your sauce at the end.
Recipe Instructions
Prep Time: 15 min | Ferment Time: 2-4 weeks
Step 1) Make the Brine
You’re going to ferment the peppers in a mixture of water and salt. The magic ratio is 3 Tbps of kosher salt for every 1 quart (4 cups) of water. )Note: If you are using a fine salt like table or picking salt, reduce salt to 2 Tbsp.)
My brine made from 2Qts of water and 6Tbsp of kosher salt
Combine salt and water in a container and stir until the salt is completely dissolved. Set aside.
Step 2) Prepare the Peppers
Wash your peppers thoroughly. There is no need to crush or remove the seeds for this style of hot sauce.
1lb of hot peppers washed and ready for the fermenter
Pack them in your jar or crock as tightly as you can to remove airspace.
Step 3) Add the Brine to the Container
Pour your brine over the peppers completely submerging them in the brine. Tap your jar gently to remove any trapped air.
The red peppers added to the brine. A weight on top of them to keep them submerged.
Place your pickling weight on top of the peppers to ensure they remain completely submerged in the brine.
Seal your jar with the top.
Step 4) Let the Peppers Ferment
Store your fermentation jar at room temperature out of sunlight. A closet or cool place in the garage or basement is perfect.
Ferment the peppers for 14 days. If you’ve sealed your jar with a regular lid rather than an airlock, make sure to “burp” it every few days to prevent pressure from popping the lid off.
After 2 weeks of fermenting the liquid has turned cloudy
After the first week or so, the brine should turn cloudy, bubble every now and then, and have a pleasant sour smell (this is the lactobacillus at work).
If you see a white film or skin form on the top of the liquid, simply scrape it off. That’s a wild yeast known as “kahm” that’s present in the air. It’s harmless.
After couple of weeks the bubbling should slow to almost nothing or stop altogether. This is a sign that your peppers have finished fermenting. You can let the mixture sit for another couple of weeks to develop more flavor, or move on to bottling.
4 weeks of fermentation delivers more interesting flavors
Note: the makers of Frank’s and Tabasco reportedly allow their peppers to age for up to a year. I have personally aged the fermented peppers for 6 months and found them quite flavorful.
Step 5) Blend and Bottle
Once your peppers are done fermenting, transfer the liquid and peppers to a large pot and blend with a stick blender until smooth. (or blend them in a blender and then pour them into a pot.)
Add vinegar at a 1-to-1 ratio of vinegar to pepper mash and mix thoroughly.
Then remove pulp and seeds by pressing the mixture through a strainer or cheesecloth into a pot.
Use a mesh strainer or cheescloth to remove the seeds and pepper pulp
Heat the pepper sauce slowly to remove any excess water and reduce your pepper sauce to a consistency like Frank’s or Tabasco.
Gently heat the hot sauce to remove some water and bring it to a sauce-like consistency
Bottle the hot sauce and move to a cool, dry place out of direct sun.
Sauce bottles ready to be filled
Let stand for 2 weeks to allow the flavors to mingle. After that, your hot sauce is ready to eat. You can store the bottles at room temperature. No need to refrigerate.
Fresh bottles of fermented hot sauce ready to age for a couple of weeks
Safety & Troubleshooting FAQs
Q: Is fermented hot sauce safe? What about botulism?
A: Yes, fermented hot sauce is safe. The combination of salt and fermentation eliminates the ability for harmful bacteria to survive in it. Adding vinegar stabilizes the hot sauce and raises the acidity so that it is self-stable.
Q: What if I see white stuff on top? Is it mold?
A: If you see white stuff on the top of your ferment forming a top layer or skin, that is harmless Kahm yeast, which is present in the air around us. You can simply scrape it off with a spoon or spatula.
Note that yeast doesn’t have fuzz. If you see fuzz, or it is any color other than an off white (e.g., green, black, etc.), that is mold that formed because your fermentation was off. DO NOT consume the sauce. Throw the whole thing away.
Q: My ferment isn’t bubbling. What did I do wrong?
A: Hot sauce doesn’t make a bubbly ferment like beer or bread, so don’t expect it to be bubbling like crazy. It should just bubble now and then and maybe make a little foam. The easiest check for activity is the liquid should start to turn cloudy. If it does, it’s working.
If there’s no activity at all, it may be too cold, which slows the fermentation. To ferment, it needs to be above 50° F, but the best temperature range is between 65° F and 80° F.
The other reason the peppers might not ferment is the water is too salty to allow the microbes to do their job. To correct that, add a little filtered or distilled water to reduce the salinity.
Q: How do I know when the fermentation is done?
A: If you let your pepper mash stand at least 2 weeks (I let mine go closer to 12), you’re pretty much guaranteed to have a good fermentation.
You’ll know the fermentation is done when you see no bubbling or activity in the jar. The liquid should be cloudy and there should be a sort of “sour milk” smell similar to that of sauerkraut or a sourdough starter. (The sour smell is the by-product of the lacto-fermentation).
If you’re still uncertain, you can use pH test strips. Your mash should be slightly acidic (the test strip turns reddish).
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