Cooking the Harvest: Fermented Hot Sauce

This fermented hot sauce is full of probiotics and will last up to a year or more in the refrigerator.

Adapted from a recipe on the Healthy Canning website, "Fiery Fermented Hot Sauce", originally from Ball. But my recipe is more precise because its in weight vs volume measurements.

Miles Away Farm Fermented Hot Sauce
Adapted from Fiery Fermented Hot Sauce on the Healthy Canning website, originally found in the The All New Ball Book of Canning and Preserving.

Equipment needed (this helps give the best most consistent results and helps avoid kahm yeast formation):
Kitchen scale that works in grams
½ gallon mason or other jar
Lid to fit jar with port for water lock
Water lock
Food processor (optional)
Stick blender (optional)
Chinois or other sieve (optional)

Ingredients:
Approx 2 lbs peppers of choice (about 907 g. Can be any combination of hot and/or sweet peppers you like. I used ripe jalapenos in this recipe).
Salt – 3% of weight of peppers (and water, if added) after prep (work in grams – SO MUCH EASIER)
Filtered water
Vinegar of choice (5% strength)

Instructions:
• Wash peppers, remove tops, cut into 1” pieces.
• Add peppers to food processor. If no food processor, chop finely (wear gloves). If mash looks dry, not juicy, add about ½ cup of water until mash looks like a thick liquid.
• Weigh your mash/water mixture.
• Add salt at 3%, based on your mash weight (example: 907 g pepper/water mash x .03 = 27.21 g salt).
• Let stand for 30 minutes.
• Pour mixture into ½ gallon jar. Jar should be about half full. If making a larger batch, use a larger jar or multiple jars, leaving at least 1/4 of jar empty to leave room for jar weight and expansion during ferment.
• Tamp down mash so particles are below the surface of the juice (very important)
• Mix up a 3% brine solution (example: 194 g water + 6 g salt = 200 g solution. 200 g = about 1 cup).
• Carefully pour brine solution over your pepper mash in jar if there isn’t a good ¼ inch layer of juice over the mash.
• Pour remaining brine into a zip top bag and seal.
• Put zip top bag onto the surface of your pepper mash, trying to keep it as flat and even as possible. Allow liquid to ooze around edges, trying not to disturb mash underneath.
• Cap jar and insert water lock.
• Let stand in a room temperature place where you’ll see it every day.
• After a few days, mash will expand and bubbles/gas will start to work its way through your ferment, releasing from water lock.
• When mash is no longer visibly active/water lock cap is not pressed against the lid, your mash is done fermenting (from a week to two weeks).
• Carefully open jar, remove bag (set aside).
• Using stick blender, blend jar contents (alternatively, run in blender on low speed or just leave chunky)
• Put blended mash through a chinois, food mill with a fine screen, fine sieve if removal of skins/seeds is desired.
• Weigh your resulting filtered sauce.
• Add 25% of weight of sauce in vinegar (example, 500 g sauce x .25 = 125 g vinegar)
• Stir. Taste for seasoning.
Optional add ins:
Garlic powder
Onion powder
Sugar (white or brown), or honey or other sweetener – start with 1 tbsp
Additional salt
Chipotle powder
Smoked paprika
• Decant into clean bottles. Your sauce is done. Label and date.
• Store in refrigerator for up to a year.

Link to my Cowboy Candy recipe:    • Cooking the Harvest: Cowboy Candy aka...  

Link to the Pickle Packer: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...

TIMESTAMPS
0:00 The Harvest
0:49 Chopping the chilies
6:06 Adding Salt
8:00 Packing down
15:32 Fermentation
19:05 Blending
23:19 Filtering + Vinegar
31:11 Bottling
35:10 Chickens!
36:00 Subscribe!