Fermented Jalapeño Hot Sauce
Fermented Jalapeño Hot Sauce
1500g Jalapeños
100g Onions
2 cloves Garlic sliced ⅛” (approximately 10g)
Kosher Salt 48g (3% of total “vegetable” weight)
Method:
Wash the jalapeños.
Wearing rubber gloves, slice the jalapenos from tip toward the stem. Slice them approximately ⅛” thick. They don’t need to be perfect, just similar in size. Set aside in a bowl.
Peel a spanish onion, cut it in half. Place one of the halves, flat side down. Cut the half in half and then slice into ⅛”-ish slices. Weigh out 100g and add to the jalapeños.
Peel two cloves of garlic and slice into ⅛”-ish slices and add to the jalapeños.
Add the salt to the bowl. The salt is 3% of the total weight. 1500g of Jalapeños + 100g of Onions is 1600g. 2 cloves of garlic is negligible, but you can weigh it in also if you want to. 1600g * .03 = 48g salt.
Mix the salt into the jalapenos, garlic, and onions. Mix it thoroughly and make an effort to try to bruise the peppers. Salt is hygroscopic. It will draw moisture out. The salt is going to help create a brine for the veggies to ferment in over the next few weeks. Stir everything together until the salt disappears. Cover and allow to sit for 30 minutes.
Mix everything together again. There should be some liquid at the bottom of the bowl at this point.
Allow to sit another 30 minutes.
Pack the mixture into a ½ gallon mason jar or two 32oz mason jars. The peppers should be submerged in their brine. But, let's be realistic. Jalapeños don’t have the same water content as cabbage. They are going to need some help. To get the jalapeños covered in brine you will need to make a simple salt water brine to make up whatever you need. Simply weigh your water and then add 3% of the water weight of salt and stir thoroughly until the salt dissolves. For example you weigh 200g of water and stir in 6g of salt.
The peppers should be submerged but not swimming. More liquid will release from them as they sit and as fermentation begins you want to have an inch of space at the top of the jar.
Taste the peppers and brine. It should be spicy and salty.
Cover the jar loosely with a lid. Place it on a folded towel on the kitchen counter out of direct sunlight. Label with the date.
The peppers will hang out on the counter and look like they are not doing anything. They will be a bright green for the first 5 days or so before they start to change in color to an army green. Twice a day use a spoon and press the peppers down into the brine just to be sure that none of the peppers are exposed above the liquid. You don’t want them to mold. A glass fermenting weight can be a useful tool to keep the peppers submerged, but I don’t find one necessary for jalapenos if I have the right amount of brine.
Each day taste the liquid so you can observe how it changes.
On about day 8-10 you should start to notice movement in the jar, small bubbles rising from the bottom. By day 14 it should be quite active. It will get to a point where you can watch it bubble with no question that it is bubbling. At this point you may have some overflow if you too generously filled your jar. You might also smell the aroma of spicy peppers and onions in your kitchen.
From day 14 you have to become the chef. How do the peppers and brine taste? Are they sour enough? On day 14 I usually transition to the fridge to continue the fermentation process but slower.
On day 28 I process the hot sauce.
Separated the peppers and brine. Add the peppers to a high speed blender. Add half of the brine and puree the mixture. If it is too thick add more brine. I usually use all of my brine.
Add ½ -1 cup of white vinegar. The vinegar will do two things. First, it will add acidity to give the hot sauce a nice zing. Second, it will help to arrest the fermentation process. I like to stop the fermentation process so I can have a consistent flavor and longer shelf life. If you don’t add vinegar it will continue to slowly ferment in the fridge. The flavor will change. If you choose not to add vinegar be careful when opening the jar of hot sauce if it has been unopened for a while. I gave a jar (without vinegar added) of hot sauce to a friend. He used it one night and then forgot to put it away. The next day he put it back in the fridge. A few days later he took it out, shook it up and when he opened the jar…Boom! Hot sauce explosion.
Store your hot sauce in a mason jar labeled with the date. It should last a good 6 months refrigerated. It will likely separate between usage. You can shake it or stir it back into solution.
Use your hot sauce on everything. This should be a daily driver type of hot sauce. If you wanted to give it more heat you could replace some of the peppers with habaneros, Carolina Reapers, or Scorpions. This recipe works with a complete substitution of those hotter peppers too. To make it more mild, replace a portion of the jalapenos with bell peppers.
