Re: [CH] Chile fermentation? V8 #614
Cameron Begg (begg.4@osu.edu)
Thu, 21 Nov 2002 10:11:19 -0500
Hi C-H's,
Marc Winterburn asked:
>I'd like to make a tabasco-style fermented hot sauce. Do any list members
>have any information that may help me in my quest.
We had a discussion about it here a couple of years ago. I ran into a
guy who had worked in the hot sauce business somewhere down South (in
the US) probably NOLA but I forget.
The gist of it is this. You need to increase the salt concentration
of your tabasco pepper mash to 15-18% by weight. This is VERY salty,
but inhibits growth of all but salt resistant yeasts. These are white
and puffy and look a bit like popcorn. They will be present on the
skins of your pepper pods if you don't over wash them or cook them. I
made some of this in a gallon glass jar with an airlock about 2/3
full so I could see what was going on. From time to time I shook it
vigorously to mix the yeasts back in. I let it ferment for a long
time. More than a year. Maybe two. At the end of this time I bottled
it with the usual sod. benzoate and pot. sorbate so it wouldn't
ferment or rot. It tastes pretty good and is quite hot but of course
VERY salty. What the folks at Tabasco don't tell you is that they mix
this stuff with a lot of vinegar to dilute it and make it cheap and
less salty.
Good luck.
(BTW - I used sea salt.)
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Regards, Cameron.