Recipes for Chilli Sauces Please!!!

[MacKenzie]

1 hour ago, tekobo said:

  Winter was invented for such dreaming.  

Exactly.  

[tekobo]

@MacKenzie you get so much more winter than most.  Not sure that I could handle that much dreaming time!

[MacKenzie]

ROFLMAO @ tekobo.  

The other night I stared dreaming about next year's garden and then I realize it was NOV.  

 

 

[Bruce Pearson]

That seems like a nice dream though. 

[tony b]

Fermentation was done, so it was time to finish up the hot sauces. Strained the mash in a chinois and added rice vinegar, spices and bit of xanthan gum (thickener). Then into the bottles.

Will let them sit for a little while longer and see how they came out. The mash wasn't as hot as last years, but maybe my tolerance was up that day?? 

[MacKenzie]

Tony, what an awesome looking batch of hot sauces. 

[Steve M]

Awesome collection of sauce!

[tekobo]

11 hours ago, tony b said:

Will let them sit for a little while longer and see how they came out. The mash wasn't as hot as last years, but maybe my tolerance was up that day?? 

A very impressive selection Tony.  I hope they mature nicely through the winter.  

It's funny that tolerance thing.  I find my tastebuds can take more heat over time but my tummy's resistance to attack is a more reliable measure of what I should and should not eat!

[tony b]

12 hours ago, tekobo said:

I find my tastebuds can take more heat over time but my tummy's resistance to attack is a more reliable measure of what I should and should not eat!

Same here, except I don't listen to my tummy and eat the super hot stuff anyway, even if I'm going to regret it later! Still on my "bucket list" is the hot fried chicken at Hattie B's in Nashville - gonna go all in on the "Shut the Cluck Up" hot! 

[MacKenzie]

Good luck with that Tony.  

[tekobo]

I just looked back at the photo of my chilli haul back in October 2018.  Ha!  I now have a polytunnel and grow my chillis in the ground.  I harvested about half of the peppers last week and this is what I got:

I've been having fun processing that lot.  Made a few jars of peri peri sauce with the peri peri peppers. My next batch of wings is going to be divine.  I smoked the peachy chillis in the KK using my smoke pot.  Sorry, no on KK pix but here they are after the event.

They are now in a mason jar with vinegar over them in the fridge, ready to be added to all sorts of nice dishes.

I also mixed an large number of the red chillis - some of them are ripened Padrons, others Devils Rib and the rest are mushroom pepper - in with a pile of tomatoes, onions and garlic and smoked them in the KK for six hours. 

Beginning.

End, at about midnight

Blended and ready to go into jars. It is pretty hot.  Will go in jars in the freezer. To be brought out to go on patatas bravas alongside some cooling mayonnaise.  That said, I do have quite a lot so I need to think of some other use for this potent sauce!

[MacKenzie]

@Tekobo, WOW, what a fantastic batch of peppers and I bet that sauce is to die for.

[tony b]

I was just thinking that I need to get all my harvest out of the freezer and start making this year's batch of hot sauce - and then I saw @tekobo's post. Maybe yet this afternoon?

[tony b]

This year's batch of Aji yellow peppers for the hot sauce.

Chopped up with the salt, garlic and sweet white wine - time for Mother Nature to do her thing and let the fermentation begin!

[tekobo]

Looking good @tony b.  My last mash ended up with lots of white mould. I know it is meant to be a scrape off and keep going job but am worried it will have tainted the taste of the mash.  We'll see...

I am in the middle of a science experiment to try to recreate a super hot but surprisingly flavoursome chilli oil that my cousin brought me from southern Africa. Will report back soon.  

[tony b]

Woo, hoo! Love me some 'speriments! 

No worries about the white stuff on top. It's expected. Just skim it off. It's not "tainted." (Why do I have Soft Cell playing in my head!?) 😆

[tekobo]

17 minutes ago, tony b said:

Why do I have Soft Cell playing in my head!? 😆

Because Marc Almond is unforgettable?  

My mash is in the fridge now.  I like to keep it for a couple of years before using it.  Helps mellow it out.  That, happily, has also worked with my apple cider from last year.  It tastes much better a year on.  

[Syzygies]

On 10/29/2018 at 7:46 PM, tony b said:

Don't sweat the mold, it's just part of the process, just scrape it off when you notice it, no worries about being Johnny on the spot with it. 

I've been making fermented Louisiana-style hot sauce regularly since 2005. I have some controversial views:

Botulism is unlikely but possible. Most cases are people who don't know what they're doing, but think they do. For example, there are many cases in Alaska after fermenting in seal skins was replaced by fermenting in plastic Home Depot pails. C. botulinum cannot grow below a pH of 4.6, which can be achieved with mere tablespoons of vinegar in a large batch. This inhibits anxiety but not the fermentation process. I own a pH meter and typically bring my pH down to 4.2. Needless to say, this is heresy on fermentation forums.

I have nearly always managed to avoid mold through scrupulous technique, and I don't like the taste as well when there is mold. I'd bet half my retirement savings that when there's visible mold on top, a sample from the bottom will be completely infested when viewed under a microscope. Scrupulous technique here means a sterile carboy with the chiles just submerged in brine, and a beer-making airlock as a one-way valve to ensure the gas in the carboy ends up mostly CO2. I have an argon tank for preserving wine, and I've considered using it to flush my carboy at the start, for the initial stretch before CO2 from fermentation flushes the carboy.

I've been meaning to try a new technique I read somewhere, also guaranteed to remove unwanted oxygen and well-suited to arbitrarily small batch sizes: Vacuum pack the chiles with salt and a bit of fermentation starter, such as live kimchi liquid. Use a very large bag, as it will fill with CO2 from the fermentation.

These suggestions go hand-in-hand: The hacks who chased me away from fermentation forums are going to be fine, as long as they know and use exactly the techniques their ancestors used in eastern Europe. Any idea that achieves an unheard-of modern efficiency at ridding the oxygen implicated in mold is an idea that C. botulinum may thank us profusely for having. So test the pH.

[tekobo]

17 hours ago, Syzygies said:

I have some controversial views:

Hey there @Syzygies.  Not controversial round here.  Just more and helpful information.  The site that I use for my recipes is here https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/cooking-with-chili-peppers/how-to-make-fermented-pepper-mash/ and they talk about a white film of Kahm yeast being normal. This is what I was referring to when I referred to "white mould".  Any feedback you have on the method and approach would be gratefully received.  I used these fermentation airlock kits https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08G11J5VT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 for the first few months and then put the mash in the fridge with a lid to store.  

 

 

[tony b]

While I obviously have carboy airlocks in my brewing room, I use these membranes for the Mason jars in making my pepper mash. 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H7GI7V8/

You can see the pink tip of it in the picture that I posted. It's funny, but they look just like nipples - LOL.

I sanitize everything that will come into contact with the mash with StarSan, which I use all the time in my brewing. It's a no-rinse sanitizer that kills just about anything with a couple of minutes of contact. I agree that the white stuff is NOT mold, but Kahm yeast. I should be more precise so as to not scare folks off from trying this. Plus, you mix the mash with a lot of vinegar to make the hot sauce, which drives the pH down to where no other preservatives are needed. I've never had a bottle of my hot sauce "go bad." Your best judge of whether it has turned on you, is your nose. It's very sensitive to the off smells when something has gone bad. Evolution got us here.