I grow my own chillis every summer, just to make a big batch of hot sauce for the coming year. I do a lacto-ferment following the Brad Leone method he did on his It's Alive youtube show. Its mostly cayenne, with about a 1:6 ratio of habanero for the fruitiness.

Takes a couple of weeks to ferment, then I separate the brine from the chillis, then blend the chillis in some of the brine, pass it through muslin so im left with just the liquid. Then its a matter of balancing the brine & distilled white vinegar, and a final stabilisation with a very small amount of xantham gum.

I don't know how long it should be safe to use for, but I keep it in 2x 1.25L jars in the bar fridge once its done, and top up a small bottle for the main fridge and i'm still using the last of last year's batch - not dead yet!

[–] eagleeyedtiger 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I grow some every year too, but they’ve been moving down the Scoville scale. Used to do Ghost peppers and the like, but only did cayenne this year.

I haven’t done a fermented one in quite awhile, been too lazy! Do you test yours for ph? I have some left over testing strips I use. I find if it’s 4 or under ph it lasts pretty much indefinitely in the fridge. In fact I blended some leftover basic ghost pepper sambal into the sauce that’s been sitting in the fridge for at least 6-8 months that still seemed fine.

Nice tip about the xanthan gum, I keep meaning to pick some up to try stabilise smoothies, now I’ve got more reason to!

[–] TagMeInSkipIGotThis 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I've not thought to do a ph test; I kinda live by Leone's quote "Botulism? Nobodies ever died of botulism. ?"

But I prefer a fairly vinegar forward hot sauce, and the brine is also salty so i've not noticed any problems. After about 13 months it can start to discolour a bit, but i've usually got a new batch ready by then so I just biff that.

Xantham is a bit tricky to use, you really don't need much but you also kinda need to sprinkle it in, it can clump quite a bit and if you use too much while running a blender too high it can capture air bubbles. I made a ketchup and it just kinda got foamy so even though it tasted good the mouth feel was really weird.

[–] eagleeyedtiger 3 points 8 months ago

Yeah true, if I’m doing one with mainly vinegar I’m not too worried either. When I do some lacto fermented vegetables they sometimes get a bit of white mould on the top if left too long, but I understand it’s pretty safe to just remove that layer.

I’m going to have to try some experiments with the xantham gum to see what works I guess