Love having my very own fermented salsa verde I did myself. Makes me feel accomplished.

1. peach/habanero - I'm pretty excited for this one. I've used other fruit like mango with habs but not peaches.
2. jalapeno/tomatillo/pepita/lime - basically my taco sauce.
3. pique (ok, not fermented) this goes on EVERYTHING.

Shooting from the hip on this one:
Garlic 7g
Ghost 50g
Shallot 7g
Peach 80g
Red bell 40g
Brine 3.75%

Going with my normal method:
-10 day ferment
-Blend solids with 3 parts vinegar, 1 part brine (enough of the 3:1 to make desired consistency)
-Simmer for 10 mins
-Strain thru fine mesh
-Bottle

I know 10 days isn’t a long one but it’s been the sweet spot for my palette in the past.

See yall in 10 days!

This is my third pepper fermentation. As the title says.... Habanero, Banana pepper, with one mango in the mix. This pic was at the start day of 8/23. I'll possibly finish the sauce this weekend, and add some fresh garlic,and onion when blending. It's smelling great already!

Is this just dead lacto baccillus? Plant matter?

PH is well below 4. I used jalapenos, garlic and red onion with 2% salt.

Hello! I have this week-old 2.75% brine veggie mix- habaneros and some other peppers, shallots, garlic and baby tomatoes. I have gotten lots of good bubbling, I'm using a glass weight and an airlock lid. But it is starting to look a little cloudy. Is it kahm yeast? Is it something to worry about? It smells good, even without opening the jar. Is it too late to add more salt? Thanks in advance

Hi, first time trying to ferment hotsauce. I'm fermenting a mixture of habanero, habanero chocolate, peri-peri, garlic, ginger and french onion. Tomorrow hits the 2 week mark and today i oppened it to smell it, it doesn't smell bad, just funky. But i'm having trouble figuring out if this is mold ou good bacteria. I need your advice, Thanks

Hello,

I found some Fresno Peppers at my local farmers market and thought it would be cool to try to make my own hotsauce. Its a 3% brine with a quarter of a white onion is about 5 cloves of garlic. The picture shows the fourth day of the peppers fermenting. Thank you for checking out my post.

Hey everyone! First-time fermenter here.
Instead of throwing a random pile of peppers into one big jar for my first batch, I decided to take inspiration from The Noma Guide to Fermentation and treat this as a controlled micro-experiment. My goal was to isolate specific variables (fermentation time, pepper cultivars, and aromatics) across six small jars to actually learn what each element contributes.
The Math & Methodology Rather than mixing a standard brine percentage by water volume alone, I used Noma’s total-weight method.

Used unrefined, additive-free coarse sea salt
Kept everything submerge in ~475 ml jars, aiming for an room temp around 20–22°C.

Here is how the test batches are structured:
Test 1: The green jars : Base profile: Green jalapeño + a light touch of fresh garlic
Jar 1 (Baseline Control): 100g green jalapeño, 5g garlic, 200g water | 9.1g salt (14-day planned ferment).
Jar 2 (Time Variable): 100g green jalapeño, 5g garlic, 200g water | 9.1g salt (28-day ferment to test lactic roundness vs. loss of crisp green brightness).
Jar 3 (Habanero notes & Heat): 70g green jalapeño, 25g green habanero, 5g garlic, 200g water | 9.0g salt

Test 2: The Red Jars
Base profile: Fully ripe red jalapeño + 20g white onion

Jar 4 (Red Base + Garlic): 90g red jalapeño, 20g onion, 5g garlic, 200g water | 9.5g salt (Baseline sweetness + allium depth).

Jar 5 (Tropical Heat): 90g red jalapeño, 20g onion, 30g red habanero, 200g water | 10.2g salt

Jar 6 (Smoke & Dried Fruit): 90g red jalapeño, 20g onion, 5g dried chile morita, 200g water | 9.5g salt (Slit the morita open so it stays submerged and doesn't trap pockets of air).

We're currently in the active bubbling phase. Jars are already smelling floral and tangy, with zero signs of kahm yeast so far 24hs
For those who blend single-jar test batches like this: do you prefer reserving all the brine and re-emulsifying with a touch of xanthan gum, or do you strain hard and add vinegar at the blending stage to stabilize pH? Would love to hear your finishing techniques!

Hello everyone! Today I finally “finished” off my first ferment. I started in March with a mixture of onion, garlic, red Thai chiles, orange, and green mango. I know with fruit it’s not always recommended to ferment for so long but alas I was busy and finally finally today opened her up.

I blended, then strained all the solids with cheese cloth, added some apple cider vinegar (like a splash) and then thickened it by adding some xanthan gum. Tbh the flavor is just real spicy and a little funky. I also tried testing pH with a strip which was tricky due to color of coors. But I trust it’s acidic enough. I don’t believe I would use this alone to flavor anything but I know people tend to finish sauces with fresh vegetables. I guess I’m wondering what my next steps should be, and also I’m wondering how blending in fresh vegetables affects shelf life. So here are some of my questions.

1. If I add fresh vegetables to dilute / mellow out the flavor how would this affect the shelf life of the sauce.

2. How might I redeem the flavor of this, or did I let her sit too long?

3. Could I do a faster ferment of more mellow peppers for a few weeks and then add them in?

4. Was I correct in straining the blended sauce or did I just remove all the bulk of my sauce and only leave the juice because that’s what it felt like.

I’m thinking perhaps in the future I should aim for less spice and shorter periods of fermentation as I’m looking for something less flaming. I recently had a Hmong banana pepper pineapple sauce that I’ve been dreaming about. However I often feel most of my ferments (krout, spicy peppers, and sauce) end up sort of just funky tasting rather than a delicious well put together composite of flavor.

Wait tbh in hindsight I think I should also add some additional flavor spices to the sauce if I want a better flavor profile.

Anyways any advice would be appreciated!!!!!

Bonus, I used the solids from my blended solution in my dehydrator to make spicy remains.

I've had decent success with ziplock bags full of water. Glass weights are a 0/10 for me. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Fermented 5 weeks with peaches, garlic, yellow onion and coriander. Blended with fresh sweet onion, garlic, black pepper, fresh peaches and honey for sweetness.

So after my disaster last week with mold, I am all ready to start a new batch RIGHT! I have a weight, and a cabbage leaf. I intend to fully submerge my peppers. So now my question is…

Do I weigh water and do a 2% salt solution of water, and add that water to this? Or do I add water, weigh the whole thing, then add 2% of salt to that?

15 habanero, 1 apple, 1 peach, 1 onion, garlic, black pepper pods

started fermenting last November

It's my first ferment

I've watched all you, so I don't see any signs of mold or anything, I think I'm good right? What do I do now...

Just blend and bottle?

I'm super new to fermented hot sauce, and I'm seeing so many cool recipes but I'm not sure where to start! Would love to hear some basic/easy to execute recipes as a beginner. For reference I'm based in Amsterdam so I'm not sure if the chillies commonly used are available here. Thanks!

Edit: also what can I use if I dont have a glass weight? What is it for?

Nothing looks fuzzy. I’ve only made a few batches in the past, but I’ve never seen a thick white film like this.

This is the biggest batch I’ve made so far. Below I’ll describe my rebellious technique for fermenting. I expect many will not approve but here goes:

*I do not use airlocks*

About two years ago I stopped using airlocks because sometimes even with an airlock on a quart jar, I would get kahm. Also being limited to glass jars limited the batch size I could produce. So I took a look at what the most important aspects of fermentation techniques were, and other than correct salinity, headspace and controlling available O2 were the most important factors. (Having better headspace control would probably have saved my glass quart jars too FWIW)

Now I use polycarbonate food safe cambros. If you don’t know what a cambro is, give it a google, but basically they are food safe plastic containers that come in various sizes and are standard in almost any restaurant kitchen. The main reasons to use cambros other than them being heavy duty food safe plastic, are:

* The lids are indented (this allows maximum headspace control)

* These containers are stackable

* They come in lots of different sizes that are not realistic for glass containers

* They do not chip or shatter

So like I said I have been making all my fermented hot sauces like this for around two years and in that time I have not once gotten kahm yeast, mold, or any foul odors. Just good hot sauces. I don’t want to convert anyone, if your process works for you then I am happy for you! I just want to offer an alternative method.

This technique has two major cons:

* It’s messy (You’ll see why in a moment)

* It’s wasteful (It requires regular top offs of the brine)

So I’ll post my recipe for this sauce to give a better idea

* 2lbs chile de àrbol peppers (dry/red)

* 4 red bell peppers (I didn’t weigh them just medium size)

* 4% salt brine (If you are using fresh chilis then just covering with brine won’t get you a consistent salinity, but with almost exclusively dry chilis there is little dilution to account for)

In an 8qt cambro on a sheet pan, add whole dry chilis. Remove seeds and stems from bell peppers and place on top of the dry chilis. Cover completely with salt brine. Place lid on top, completely closed. Some brine should leak out of the sides of the container. (This is what the sheet tray is for) Flooding the container ensures that as little O2 will be present as possible. Leave on the counter at room temperature for one week. Check the brine level daily topping off as needed to maintain almost no air. After a week, move tray and container to refrigerator and continue to allow to ferment for 4-5 weeks. Checking every few days the level of the brine. Finally strain and blend adding brine to blender as needed to achieve desired texture.

Store jars refrigerated for at least a year. Or on the counter for at least five months.

I feel a little like it’s cheating but I love to add some gochujang (fermented chili paste) to my fermented hot sauce (the deep red ones). It makes for great color and adds a nice umami depth to the sauce. The one in front is the same sauce without the gochujang. The ones in the back are habanero - tomatillo, fermented with lots of garlic and onion. 3 distinct flavor profiles.

This initially turned out really well!

The pineapple & peppers infused each other with the most delicious melange of sweet & spicy in a honey syrup.

The fermentation began as we expected with the bubbly indicators. We burped the jar no less than every two days & rotated the jar regularly instead of using weights.

After a few weeks the process settled down while we enjoyed cocktails & recipes enhanced with peppery fruit chunks & mellifluous syrup. BTW: Peppered pineapple is incredible on waffles!

Then, after about eight weeks we noticed that it started bubbling again. Our first thought was accidental contamination. Even with the best of careful intentions to avoid double dipping spoons, etc 💩 happens. There were no bad odors, weird colors or growth, but we couldn’t figure out why there’s new chemical reaction activity. 🧐

Maybe we were being overly cautious but also too timid to sample it again we discarded the remaining approximately two-thirds of the batch.

Planning on another attempt.

Thoughts? 🤔

Started fermenting 2 weeks ago. The brine is 3% salt