Fermented Serrano Pepper Hot Sauce Anyone Can Make

Ingredients:

12 serrano peppers

5 cloves garlic

Pinch cumin seeds

***The following is measured by weight, full procedure below

Filtered water or bottled spring water

Fine sea salt

Tools needed:

***The following is an amazon associate link. I make a small commission if purchased at not extra cost to you

Digital kitchen scale (here's one I use) that reads in grams

Quart size mason jar

pH meter or litmus paper

Fermentation weight (I use an empty glass baby food jar) A ziplock bag filled with water works too

Mixing bowl

Fine mesh strainer

Blender (I use a nutribullet)

Glass dish to catch spillage

How to make it:

Clean peppers under cold running water, let air dry.

Clean outer paper layer off garlic, cut off root ends.

Cut end off the peppers, slice into 1/2 thick medallions. Check for any discolored seeds or rotten pieces, discard.

Place empty mason jar on a scale, zero out. Set scale to read grams. Add garlic, peppers and cumin seeds to the jar. Fill jar with filtered or spring water up to the bottom of the jar neck. Record that weight and use the following equation:

Ingredients + water x .025 (2.5%) = amount of salt needed in grams.

For example:

Ingredients + water = 860 g. 860 x .025 = 21.5 g

If your scale doesn’t read decimal points, round to the nearest whole number. In this case, I round to 22 g. This is the amount of salt needed for the brine.

Place an empty mixing bowl on the scale, zero (tare) the scale.

Add the calculated amount of the salt to the bowl until the scale reads 22 g. Pour the water from the jar with the peppers into the jar, holding back the ingredients with a mason jar lid. Thoroughly mix the salt into the water until fully dissolved. Pour this salty water (brine) back into the jar with the peppers.

Place the pepper jar into a glass dish (pyrex or glass pie dish). Place fermentation weight on top of the ingredients. This is an important step. Lactobacillus requires an anaerobic environment to do its work. The bacteria feeds off of the natural sugar in the peppers and the byproduct created is lactic acid. The lactic acid is what preserves the peppers….therefore fermenting the peppers. The salt amount in the brine is important since lactobacillus is salt tolerant up to a point. Too much salt and the fermentation won’t work and too little, the peppers will spoil. The salt helps void off any bad bacteria in the beginning stages of fermentation, the lactic acid that develops also kills off bad bacteria.

Keep the peppers under their brine level. If the peppers rise above the brine level, there might be mold growth and you will need to discard the batch and start over.

Let ferment 2 weeks to 3 months, depending on how “funky” you want the peppers. I like to ferment peppers for 1 month for best flavor.

Check the pH of the brine. For a proper fermentation, the pH needs to be less than 4.6 for a sauce that is considered safe to consume. If the pH is higher than 4.6, discard the batch as it is unsafe to consume. The lower pH indicates the fermentation has worked properly. I regularly make hot sauces that have a pH of 3.7 to 3.4 when I check the pH of the brine after 2 weeks. It should have a pH less that 4.6 by week 1 for it to be safe to keep it fermenting.

Once fermented, strain the peppers and garlic reserving the brine.

Place the peppers, cumin and garlic into a blender. Add enough brine to cover ingredients half way. Blend for 30 seconds, adding more brine if needed. Less brine will result in a thicker sauce, more will result in a thinner sauce.

Optionally strain the sauce through a fine mesh strainer. I show what you can do with the pulp in a homemade seasoned salt recipe I wrote.

This sauce will keep in the refrigerator for 3-6 months or longer….I’ve never held onto a sauce longer than that since I’ve always used it by then.

Enjoy!

Logan