Bottling Batch 23 Fermented Hot Sauce
Fermentation of Batch 23 of the hot sauce was slow and stalled out a couple months early, so I bottled it in January instead of the usual March
Fermentation of Batch 23 of the hot sauce was slow and stalled out a couple months early, so I bottled it in January instead of the usual March
Made one last addition of fresh cayenne peppers for a full gallon to slow ferment. Now we'll cellar it and let the lacto yeast do its magic for a couple months
A warm mid-autumn is keeping the cayenne peppers in production much longer than usual. This year's fermented hot sauce, though late, may be pretty good afterall
A cool summer and extra rainfall has the 2023 edition of our fermented hot sauce off to a start 8 weeks late. It's going to be a much shorter ferment this year.
After 191 days of fermentation, I'm pulling Batch 22 hot sauce out of the fermenter and bottling it. Cayenne-Thai peppers with fresh garlic aged on toasted oak.
Picked the final batch of fresh hot peppers and split the fermenting peppers into 2 batches so I could add more to each before they go to rest for the winter.
Last week's heatwave got the peppers fermenting too fast, so we reduced the 3rd addition of fresh peppers from 16 to 12oz. Hopefully that will slow it down.
For Batch 22, I'm using Cayenne/Thai peppers from 2 year-old plants. I hope they add some interesting flavor notes to the 6-month long hot sauce fermentation.
That's it. Oak is in the brew and the last of the peppers are picked and added for Batch 19 of the Hidden Lake hot sauce. 12 weeks of fresh fermentation. Now for 12 weeks of aging. See you in spring peppers. Merry Christmas everyone else!
Rain and persistent cold weather have slowed the peppers to a crawl. There's still a few left on the plants, but not enough to hold off on moving the hot sauce to its resting stage. To enhance the flavor I add a couple of oak staves to the pepper brew and let it sit for another 8 - 12 weeks. American oak happens to be high in a compound called vanillin, which is why things that age in American oak [keep reading...]