Fermented Hot Sauce with a Difference! 

Fermented Hot Sauce with a Difference! First on @Whats4chow
Today’s episode is very exciting. We’re going to make a Tabasco style hot sauce with a difference. The idea for this came from a small Portuguese restaurant down the road from me. They produce a famous hot sauce with a secret ingredient that just rounds off the flavour beautifully. Anyway, not long ago the old lady that owned the restaurant and produced the sauce retired, and decided it was OK to share the secret ingredient with me. I was quite surprised at how simple it was…. Alcohol.
The each 60ml bottle of sauce she would add 5ml of brandy. She used brandy as we live in a wine and brandy producing region, but she said that you could use vodka or whisky just as successfully.
This got me to thinking, why not ferment the sauce in a way that naturally produces the alcohol content, instead of adding the alcohol during the bottling stage. The process would be a simple swap from an aerobic, or oxygen rich fermentation, to an anaerobic fermentation. In aerobic fermentations the process results in acetic acid production, whereas in an anaerobic fermentation, the result would be an alcohol enriched hot sauce.
I have run 2 batches of this new sauce with outstanding results, and it certainly has a number of benefits over the aerobic fermentation method.
1) The chilli batch is pasteurised leading to far less spoilage, fungal growth problems and possible pathogens.
2) You will use distilling yeast as opposed to relying on the natural yeast present on the fruit. The results are far more reliable and consistent.
3) The time from start to finish is much shorter than with aerobic fermentation, giving a better turn-around, and more consistent reliable supply than aerobic fermentation.
4) The resulting product is as good, if not better than the naturally fermented product. Personally, I prefer the new product, as the alcohol really does smooth of the flavour profile of the sauce. This really is subjective, so the only way you will know which one you prefer is by making them yourself.
5) The new method is an absolutely no-headache, no-hassle way to reliably and successfully make an amazing hot sauce that is as good if not better than the top brands out there…. In a much shorter space of time.
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