Home Fermented Pepper Sauces. 10.24.18

Fermented Hot Pepper Sauces.  10.24.18

These fermented for several days, en I poured off the brine and chopped them to almost-puree in the small food processor. I added back enough of the brine to have the consistency that I liked.   A little finer than a typical relish.  There is still some slight crunch in the green Korean pepper sauce.  The Korean is much milder, just slight heat.  The The red/gree Thai is very, very hot.  Both are delicious, but very different from each other.  Now store in fridge until eaten.  Good on eggs, hash browns, and vegetables.

The glass weights for small mouth jars were not good.  They don't have a handle, and are very difficult to remove.  I had to turn the jars upside down to remove the glass weight.  A better system is needed.  The weight for large mouth jars have build in handle that makes it easier to remove the weight. 

Home Fermented Hot Sauces. 10.18.18

Materials for Korean Hot Pepper Fermented Hot Sauce.  10.18.18

 A few weeks ago, I made a bath of hot sauce from Thai red peppers.  The stuff is awesome!  I've been looking for more red Thai peppers, but can't find them.  At the local Asian market, I did find some green Korean peppers.

I used the recipe found at this website, with a few changes.

First, it was more like 2 cups of the sliced Korean peppers.  When I made the Thai pepper sauce, separately, I didn't slice them before chopping.  Those were also about 2 cups.

 Second, when the brine was cooled back to room temperature, I added 1 tablespoon of fresh whey from last night's batch of yogurt, as an inoculum.

Briefly-

This was
2 cups of either Korean peppers cut into rings, or 2 cups of cleaned, destemmed, Thai peppers.
1/2 tablespoon of fine sea salt (I used Himalayan)
2 cloves of garlic, peeled
1 cup of nonchlorniated water (mine was from our well, which is purified)
1 tablespoon of fresh whey (fresh fermented sauerkraut juice would work just as well).

First, Added the salt to the water, and heated in microwave for 1 minute, until very hot.  Then I let that cool
Then, I chopped the garlic cloves.

 Then I chopped the peppers, using a small food processor.  I packed those into a pint jar, after mixing with the minced garlic.

Finally, I added the whey to the cooled brine (salt water), poured to cover the peppers, and capped with a cartouche (a circle cut from wax paper, to hold chopped peppers below the brine level), then a glass weight (to hold down the cartouche), then covered with brine to 1/4 inch from the top, then the silicone airlock / nipple and the lid ring.

I did the same, separately, with the thai peppers.

After these ferment a few days, I'll run them through the food processor a little more, not to puree but to make sure they are chopped somewhat finer than they are.

I covered these with Aluminum foil to keep out the light and preserve color, and placed them in a casserole dish, for overflow, in the basement for a cool fermentation.

Thai Pepper Fermented Hot Sauce.  10.18.18

Thai Pepper Fermented Hot Sauce.  10.18.18

Sauerkraut. 1.29.14

I need to do some fine tuning but so far looking good.

This time they are topped with a water-filled plastic bag, to keep the shredded cabbage under the fluid level.  The lids are loose to allow for gas escape.

Might still be too salty.  Next time cut back by 1/3.

Using a mandolin made for much finer kraut (green).  But the risk of sliced knuckles is very very high.  Try food processor or get a better mandolin.  This one has a handle to hold the vegetable to be sliced, but kraut is too floppy.  It would work better with a tomato. 

Home fermentation must count as a type of gardening.  I am growing beneficial bacteria.