I recently wrote up a thing on the instructables site on how to make lacto-fermented hot sauce. As of now, I’ve made the instructables home page as a featured post and have over 5000 views and 172 likes (edit, this morning this instructable also made the instructable daily email. Likes and views are pouring in! That's awesome. I don't write this stuff for my mother to read ;). It’s also entered into a contest. I believe voting is open for another day here http://www.instructables.com/contest/preserveit/ I got my submission in kind of late, so there hasn’t been a lot of time to accumulate votes.
I’ve been looking forward to making this video because I get all fired up about fermented peppers and am prone to going on and slinging strong opinions about. Many years ago, before fermentation was cool, I started trying to pickle some pepperoncini that I grew. I love those wrinkly little things! I looked up recipes for pickled peppers and they were all pickled in vinegar. The results were basically inedible and certainly nothing like the pepperoncini you can buy in the store. I was studying and experimenting with fermenting olives at the time and finally put two and two together, they had to be fermented of course! I extrapolated off of a recipe for traditional fermented dill pickles and kaching! Success! I had figured out how to make pepperoncini that handily stomped the best brands you can buy (more on that and testing pepperoncini varieties some other time... and other pepper related stuff. I basically can't grow enough of the things to supply all of my numerous pepper habits). From there I started making pimentos and hot sauce and have done so ever since, gallons upon gallons of all of them. I published my rather detailed and long article on fermenting peppers on the paleotechnics site 8 years ago, when there was very little on the web about fermenting much of anything. It is worth reading if you want to know more and stuff like the rationale behind fermenting anaerobically in mason jars, though I think it could use some updating. I haven't read it in a while.
Cupboard stuffed full of lacto-fermented pepperoncini, pimentos, hot sauce peppers and olives. None are heat canned. They are live ferments sealed up with a protective layer of carbon dioxide from the fermentation process. Damn, this picture is making my mouth water. I usually store my hot sauce peppers like this and just make up one jar at a time into sauce as needed.
This is the real way to make hot sauce. Peppers ground up in vinegar will never be the real deal. It is really easy too, no magic hoo-doo or lab coats required. Read the instructable here, or you can just watch the video below, which is visually appealing and under 5 minutes long. So here you go, full screen, HD recommended.
