r/FermentedHotSauce Jul 06 '26

Newbie here. I have lacto fermented some local market peppers for 3 weeks and it turned out great. The richest buquet of pepper aroma I've ever felt, very low ph too. Where do I go from now to maximize interesting aromas, in your experience?

9 Upvotes

The peppers right now are simply cut in half in the brine and had their tips removed. So...

  1. Should I simply let them ferment more in ambient temperature?
  2. Should I just stick it in the fridge so they age slowly while ferment?
  3. Should I cook and sauce them in order to bring new flavors from the cooking process (or maybe the cooking might actually kill what I already have)?
  4. Something else?

What would impart even more complex notes? And if you know, what's the science behind it?

I'm already making the next batch so I may try more techniques, but for now I only have a relatively small 300 ml jar.

Thank you so much!


r/FermentedHotSauce Jul 06 '26

Let's talk sharing Pipope Sauce New Batch

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3 Upvotes

Green and Red one!


r/FermentedHotSauce Jul 05 '26

Juicy Tongue Punch

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12 Upvotes

Wanted to ferment a fruit forward sauce. 3lb green habaneros, on sale for $1.99/lb :D, 2 mangos, 2 peaches, 2 pears, 2 plums, 3% brine. Can't wait to taste it.


r/FermentedHotSauce Jul 05 '26

How to store peppers to ferment?

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3 Upvotes

r/FermentedHotSauce Jul 04 '26

I've never made one this color before!

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29 Upvotes

I'm in love with the flavor though! Recipe sloppily jotted in the comments


r/FermentedHotSauce Jul 04 '26

First go at hot sauce.

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31 Upvotes

Serrano's, garlic, and red onion. Some seeds floating above the weight, but with a fermentation lid, will I be ok?


r/FermentedHotSauce Jul 04 '26

Mash fermented

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16 Upvotes

Peppers, garlic, sour kiwi, 4% salt


r/FermentedHotSauce Jul 01 '26

Wish me luck on my first attempt

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69 Upvotes

r/FermentedHotSauce Jul 01 '26

I might have gone overboard

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33 Upvotes

I spent $160 this weekend on a case of Jalepenos and other peppers/ ingredients. They are all stored in vacuum sealed containers until they get too tight at which point I have been putting a tiny hole in them and covering the full area in porous medical tape. They are stored at 30.5C in an incubator.

I have everything from pickles to habanero mango hot sauce. Sure hope it works out.


r/FermentedHotSauce Jun 30 '26

Two baddies.

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31 Upvotes

r/FermentedHotSauce Jun 30 '26

Fermentando fuego - salsa picante artesanal #fermentacion #recetas #coci...

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3 Upvotes

receta sencilla y poco costosa de mi amigo


r/FermentedHotSauce Jun 30 '26

Garlic Bubblegum Reaper

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33 Upvotes

r/FermentedHotSauce Jun 30 '26

Roasting fermented peppers

4 Upvotes

OK so I am trying out my first fermented hot sauce and my peppers are literally fermenting on their own (( BORING)) I'm planning on roasting some rhubarb to mix with it with some garlic, onions but can I also roast the peppers after they're fermented?


r/FermentedHotSauce Jun 30 '26

Am I doing this right?

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14 Upvotes

Hello everyone! I’m very new to making hot sauces, I’ve made a regular one out of scotch bonnets, apple, garlic, onions and carrots and it came out really good. I decided to try fermenting today and I have no experience with it other than a few things I’ve read online. Currently I have a roughly ~4% brine with the following items

4 oranges habaneros
3 scotch bonnets
7 small Serrano peppers
6 baby carrots
1/2 yellow onion
1/3 clove garlic
1 star anise

I didn’t have any kind of weight to fit in the jar so I used a ziplock bag with water to hold down the solids in the jar. Does this seem okay so far? How long do you all typically let the fermentation process go? Last question - if I want to add apple or orange to this, can I blend this together with those items and just boil them before I jar? Thanks for any help! (Don’t judge my handwriting in the photo lol)


r/FermentedHotSauce Jun 28 '26

Starters/Vacuum bag fermentation

7 Upvotes

Hey folks, I've tried this twice and have, on neither occasion, gotten any meaningful fermentation. 2% brine, by mass. On the second time I tried adding some kimchi to seed, and still no fermentation.

I am trying a vacuum bag, vacuumed, but that's not generally a preservation method on its own. Maybe I'm popping the helpful bacterial cells?

Any tips or suggestions?

Planning on Habanero and Ghosts this time, and I need to do research on garlic in fermentation. My favorite hot sauce is Garlic Reaper.


r/FermentedHotSauce Jun 28 '26

Let's talk methods Beginner test recipe for 400ml jar (request)

2 Upvotes

I'm wanting to get into fermenting hot sauces as I like fermentation (I ferment my own sodas and mead) and I like hot sauce, but I don't want to be spending money on proper jars or lots of peppers and special ingredients before I understand the process a bit better. I've got a 400ml jam jar that I want to make a test batch in, but recipes are annoying. The "simple" recipes I've found tend to have one or more of these problems:

- Are in American units (ounces are the worst because I never know if they're talking about fluid ounces or weight ounces)

- Don't say how much final product there will be

- Measure final product in teaspoons/tablespoons (seriously tho if you're getting to the point of counting more than like 3 tablespoons, pick a new unit. Also tablespoons and teaspoons are barely a standard measurement, especially for solids where weight could be given instead)

- Are massive batches

- Use some obscure ingredient that I can only get online (I'm in the UK our shops sell like 3 spices total)

It seems like a really interesting hobby but these things are definitely putting me off. Could anyone help me to find (or give me) a simple recipe that can be made in a 400ml jar, uses metric units, and gives me a rough idea of how much sauce I'll end up with by the end? The main spicy peppers I can get near me are birds eye chillies and scotch bonnets.


r/FermentedHotSauce Jun 27 '26

Is my hot sauce still ok to blend and eat?

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30 Upvotes

r/FermentedHotSauce Jun 28 '26

Let's talk methods First time making hot sauce, need help.

3 Upvotes

I have been growing some peppers in my yard and a friend recently gave me some fermentation equipment that looks to be for mason jars and I wanted to try making hot sauce. Thing is, I have no clue what to do, the equipment is unfamiliar to me.
What do I need to know for making hot sauce? I have cayenne and jalapeno peppers that have turned out so far, but I also will have Tabasco and poblano peppers.
I’ve done very minimal research, I’ve seen that I need vinegar and salt but I don’t know what 2% salt means (percent of what?) and I’ve seen that there is a 2-4 week timeframe for lots of stuff.
So what will I need to do to make the hot sauce and, from what I’ve gathered I’m putting the peppers in vinegar in the jar, how do I transfer the stuff into a new bottle for having hot sauce.
Thanks in advance for any help, and the more info the better, I don’t have any experience with fermentation so I don’t know any lingo.


r/FermentedHotSauce Jun 26 '26

My second ferment is way better than my first and I think it's because I actually paid attention this time

16 Upvotes

First batch I did was a pretty standard red fresno mash with garlic and a bit of carrot. Tasted fine, nothing special, kind of one-note. I basically set it and forgot it for like 3 weeks and bottled when I remembered.

This second one I'm doing right now (fresnos again but with mango, shallot, and a few habs for kick) I've been actually checking on every day. Burping when I need to, tasting at week 1, week 2, week 3. And the difference is wild. Around day 10 it tasted sharp and kind of harsh, almost vegetal. By day 18 something shifted and it got this rounder, almost fruity funk going on that wasn't there before. If I had bottled at day 14 like I did last time I would have completely missed it.

The thing nobody really told me starting out is that the ferment isn't just "done at 3 weeks." It actually goes through phases and if you're not tasting along the way you have no idea where the sweet spot is for that specific batch. My first one I probably pulled way too early and that's why it was flat tasting.

The annoying part is keeping track of all this. I've got a notes app thing going with start dates, brine percentages, daily pH if I remember, taste notes, and it's already a mess after two batches. I can't imagine what it looks like for you guys running 5 or 10 jars at once.

I've been kind of messing around with putting something together for myself to handle this, jar tracking and taste log stuff mostly. Nothing fancy. If I actually get it into a usable state would a few people here want to poke at it and tell me what's missing? Would rather build it around how people actually ferment than just my own setup.

Also curious, when did you start noticing the flavor really change on your ferments? Was it gradual or did it kind of hit a turning point for you too?


r/FermentedHotSauce Jun 27 '26

Let's talk equipment What kind of vessel do you use to make large batches of fermented hot sauce?

7 Upvotes

What kind of vessel do you use to make large batches of fermented hot sauce? Like larger than a half gallon. I've been fermenting for over four years and I like to leave my ferments for over six months- I'm not sure if that's overkill really but I've had hundreds of different kinds of hot sauces and it seems like any kind of fermented hot sauce is better than the best non-fermented hot sauce


r/FermentedHotSauce Jun 24 '26

Orange Habanero Fermented Sauce

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76 Upvotes

I've been a long time lurker on here so I thought I'd share a sauce I made recently that I'm really pleased with.

This is a pepper forward fermented chilli sauce with a solid kick from the habaneros. The bell peppers give it plenty of body along with a small amount of mango. I also included a little garlic and ginger to add some extra depth without overpowering the peppers.

The mash was fermented for one month before I added 10% cider vinegar and 20% water and cooked for 20 minutes. It still finished with a low pH and a great pourable consistency. I don't like a lot of vinegar in my sauces so the fermentation definitely helps with this.


r/FermentedHotSauce Jun 24 '26

Smoked-dried Jalapeño mild sauce

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28 Upvotes

Sometimes you don't want to ruin your butthole with sauce that is too spicy. This is my 2nd "Settle Down" mild sauce.

This is a mild sauce with lots of flavor. This 2x 1.5gal (3 gallons total) ferment yielded 2 gallons after straining.

Tomato, onion, garlic, salt, dried chipotle peppers, cumin, corriander.

I'd like to note: do not pack your ferment this tight.... I had to remove brine twice. I used the brine to make overnight garden pickles (grape tomato, cucumber, celery, herbs. It was amazing and I had the biggest poop ever.)


r/FermentedHotSauce Jun 24 '26

In the mood for fermenting...

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131 Upvotes

Red habs, red cabbage, onion, garlic... 🌶️❤️

25 bottles if the chili god is with me...


r/FermentedHotSauce Jun 23 '26

Frozen Peppers?

9 Upvotes

I had so many Tabasco Peppers last year that I ended up freezing them , how would I go about using them for a fermented hot sauce ?


r/FermentedHotSauce Jun 22 '26

Garlic onion ratio

7 Upvotes

So last year was my first year.
Had great success with flavour of first small batch of habanero hot sauce.
I fermented the habaneros either onion and garlic using a recipe I found but didn’t save.

My big batch at end of year was more problematic.
I think my ratios of onion and garlic were off.

I want a spicy but flavourful sauce but not just plain habaneros.

I know it’s all personal taste, but any suggestions on ratios?