Make Your Carolina Reaper Hot Sauce Scream In Flavor With This Method!

Carolina reaper hot sauce!   This sauce has a nice depth of flavor with a nice heat level to it. 

Fresh ingredients in the sauce.  No preservatives or fillers.  

Ingredients:

6 Carolina reapers

2 red bell peppers

1 white peach

1 sprig rosemary

1 head garlic

***The following is done by weight, procedure below

Fine sea salt

Bottled spring water or filtered water

Tools needed:

Sharp knife

Cutting board

Rubber gloves

Digital kitchen scale that reads grams

Mason jar

Fermentation weight

***The following link is an amazon associate link. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.  I make a small commission if purchased at not extra cost to you.

Mason jar lid with air lock or vent made for fermentation. (link has the one I like mad for wide mouth mason jars)

Mixing bowl

FIne mesh strainer

Wire whisk

Small stock pot with lid

Blender

How to make it:

Carolina reapers are vey spicy and you need to handle with care.  The white peach in the sauce compliments their natural fruity flavor nicely.  

Carolina reapers are incredibly hot. They sit around 1,600,000 SHU on average. That being said, you need to handle with extreme care. Wearing rubber gloves while handling the peppers is very much recommended.

Lightly wash and air dry the peppers and peach.

Wash jar and fermentation weight with hot soapy water and let air dry.

Remove the stem from the reapers and rough chop. Seed and placenta removal is optional. Cut the bell pepper around the seeds into sections. Rough chop the sections.

Cut the peach around the stone and into sections. Rough chop the peach.

Remove the outer paper from garlic cloves.

Place mason jar on kitchen scale, set to grams and tare (zero) the scale.

Add the reapers, garlic, bell pepper, thyme and peach to the jar. Fill the jar to the bottom of the neck of the jar with filtered water. Leave enough room so that when the fermentation weight is placed in the jar, there won’t be any overspill.

Record that weight and multiply it by 2.5 %.

For example: If your ingredients plus water weigh 900 g and is multiplied be 2.5 %, it equals 22.5. This is the amount of salt you will need to make the brine in grams.

Carefully pour the water from the jar into a mixing bowl holding back the ingredient.

Place a small dish onto the scale, tare it and add the 22.5 g of salt. If your scale doesn’t read decimal points, round to the nearest whole number. In this case, round up to 23 g.

Add the salt to the water and whisk to dissolve. Add the salty water solution back to the jar with the ingredients and place in your fermentation weight. It is very important to make sure that the ingredients stay submerged beneath the brine level. If any ingredient is allowed to be exposed to the air, mold will most likely form and my recommendation is you will need to start over.

Place the jar onto a glass pie dish or pyrex dish and place on counter top away from direct sunlight. I have a spot in my pantry that is specifically just for fermentation projects that stays consistent temperature between 68-75 degrees F day and night. Lacto fermentation works the best when it is exposed to that temperature range with no large fluctuations.

Day 1 of the fermentation process.  Ingredients are nice and brightly colored which will dull over the 1 month fermentation period.  

Let ferment for 2 weeks to 1 month. You will see fermentation signs after about day 4. This will look like tiny bubbles I call lazy carbonation that collects on the outside of the ingredients and float to the top. It may form a yeast on the surface level of the brine which is completely normal. This is called kahm yeast and some people generalize the yeast with calling it pellicle. Completely safe and normal. I skim it off before making the sauce and leave it during the fermentation period.

When the fermentation period is done, check the pH of the brine. It should be around 3.5-3.7 pH if the fermentation was succesful. Add the jar contents to a small stock pot and bring to a simmer. Continue to simmer for 20 minutes to cook the ingredients and soften them. This will also halt the fermentation. I recommend placing a lid over the stock pot to keep the fumes at bay. You can also open a window or turn on your hood fans to help. The fumes are strong and will irritate your eyes and throat.

Let cool slightly and place ingredients in a blender. Blend on high for 45 second to 1 minute to blend the sauce to a smooth consistency. You can add water and or vinegar to thin the sauce out if needed.

I like a smooth sauce, therefor I strain the sauce through a fine mesh strainer catching the sauce in a bowl.

Cool sauce and pour into a mason jar or hot sauce bottles.

With that low of a pH, the sauce will stay good in the refrigerator for many months. I have had a sauce in my refrigerator pushing 1-1/2 years and it was still good before I was able to use it all up.

Delicious, spicy hot sauce that will not disappoint with the heat!

Enjoy,

Logan