Comment by jerrysievert | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jerrysievert | Hacker News Reader

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I lacto-ferment hot sauce on a regular basis (and give most of it away).

my go-to brine is by weight, which eliminates a bunch of issues:

* 400g water

* 26g salt

this makes for a great brine without trying to estimate or "taste" it to see if it's ok.

in addition, I sometimes use adjuncts:

* garlic - this adds a lot of flavor to the sauce, but could add yeast if you're not careful

* carrots - adds some vegetable flavor and a little bit of sweetness without adding sugar directly

I also don't pasteurize it (heat it up after it's done, or add vinegar), since I prefer the natural change that the sauce has over time. I also don't "thicken" it, you can get a better sauce by using the correct amount of brine when you go to blend it at the end, if all else fails, any leftover brine can be used for other things (I have some great pickles that were started with a partial batch of brine).

it's a fun hobby, but make sure that you can find a home for the extras if you aren't an avid hot sauce eater!

editing to add some tips:

1. if you're dealing with hot peppers, use gloves - they help a lot!

2. the seeds and the pith add a lot of heat - you can remove them and get yourself delicious flavor without the pain.

> if you're dealing with hot peppers, use gloves - they help a lot!

In my 20s I on more occasions than I’m prepared to admit, rubbed my eye while cooking with peppers. Then I ran to the bathroom, cupped my hands under the water and splashed water in both eyes. This (obviously, in retrospect) left me painfully blind for about half an hour.

I’d note that gloves would have helped in this scenario only if I was smart enough to take them off before splashing water in my eyes. Which branch of that if statement would have been more likely is left as an exercise for the reader.

In my 30s on EXACTLY ONE occasion I was chopping a bunch of peppers and then went to the bathroom to pee.

I have worn gloves each and every time since, when dealing with more than 2 or 3 peppers at habanero heat or above.

Rinsing your eye(s) with milk will alleviate the pain far quicker than water.

Something I learned googling with one eye open while the other was burning from being touched with a habanero contaminated finger :/

That might be true for eyes but, ... I cut a bunch of peppers from Sichuan with bare hands. My fingers burned for 3 days. I tried everything multiple times, milk, lemon juice, vinegar, oil, cold water, hot water. Nothing got rid of the burn.

They also tasted hot for 3 days

I had contacts when I was younger. I never figured out how to not have them hurt when putting them in the day after working with chili. Gloves are a good idea but this was usually some random place I’d be cutting them with friends.

I cut ghost peppers once by hand and the cuticles around my finger nails were burning for days afterwards. It was more annoying than painful though.

Have you ever made “hot” sauce with bell peppers? My wife has literally zero tolerance for spicy food, wondering if I could make some kind of capsaicin-free sauce that gives some of the flavor of eg sriracha or tapatio, etc.

A mild tomatillo sauce (“green sauce”) is what you should look into. Try some commercial stuff (which is generally medium heat) to see what range of flavors is achievable.

Note that when self made it can be accidentally end up with too much “vegetal” taste to it. It’s been a very long time since I’ve made it so I forgot what my resulting recipe was that addressed that.

You can look into ajvar, a Serbian sauce with grilled peppers and eggplant. You can make it as spicy as you want by adding hot peppers if you want.

Is known in a wider area eg. ajver in Turkey. It's okay, the texture can be a bit glooey sometimes. (Sidenote: in Turkish they have different words for heat from temperature and heat from hot peppers - anyone chip in here?)

On heat tolerance, do some genetic thing where people get one, two or three receptors[1] which give different sensitivity to different people. I had a GF who would struggle with the level of capsaicin I literally wouldn't even notice. I knew a guy who would snack on scotch bonnet peppers straight, which would be impossibly agonising for me.

[1] from memory, doubtless incorrect as well

Turkish word for heat when related to temperature is "sıcak", when related to peppers is "acı".

But "acı" can also mean bitter. You have to look at the context to understand. However things can both be spicy and bitter. In that case it gets complicated :)

English has hot, spicy and piquant.

The problem is all of those can be ambiguous. "Hot" can mean high temperature, "spicy" can mean e.g. lots of garlic or cumin, or any other spices, and "piquant" can mean tart like citrus.

Perhaps the lack of a dedicated mapping to "capsaicin sensation" stems historically from England's reputedly bland cuisine...

The Turkish word is also ambiguous. Chili peppers were only brought from South America in the 16th century.

England's bland food is a relatively recent development, much more recent than the language.

https://edmundstanding.wordpress.com/2020/05/28/hot-peppers-...

>England's reputedly bland cuisine...

Thank goodness for immigration.

Okay, in light of recent UK events I get the subtext :-)

But I don't think it's fair to call UK food bland. Done properly it's very good, but what it's not (usually) is heavily seasoned. In no way does that require it to be tasteless, and done properly it isn't.

My understanding is that UK food was on a par with other European countries in medieval times. By the 1950s to 1970s, it was pretty bad though. No doubt some of this was down to wartime rationing. Perhaps some of it was due to protestant fear of anything too enjoyable.

There is a reason there are thousands of Indian restuarants in England and approximately zero English restaurants in India. ;0)

Thankfully, food has improved vastly in the UK since the 70s.

peppers are a fruit and there are a ton of varieties that add slightly different flavors, ranging from vegetable, chocolate, peach, pineapple, etc - you just need a good combination of peppers that work well together, they don't have to be spicy.

personally, I'd add a little more than bell peppers, which tend to have a more vegetable flavor. there are some Italian peppers that have a nice sweetness without heat, for instance.

if you're looking for more of a sriracha flavor, add some garlic in there! there's just as much of a world of peppers to explore that isn't burning hot as there is super hot varieties.

Yes, generally. It won't have the flavor of either of those, but you will be able to adjust that with with flavors that don't impart heat. For something like tapatio, probably garlic, cumin, and a more neutral vinegar like a greek white wine vinegar. Maybe even bay leaf. Stick with green bell peppers, because riper ones are going to be much fruitier.

Also, check out Habanada peppers.

You could try the Hot Ones Jr. line:

https://heatonist.com/collections/hot-ones-jr-hot-sauces

A “super mild” line of sauces to introduce kids to hot sauce without overwhelming them. They might be a good starting point to see if she likes it.

The better bet would be to use green tomatillos instead of peppers as the main flavor.

parent knows what they’re doing here but a helpful thing to know is that you generally want at least 3-5% salt by weight for safety (though less can be okay, depending on other factors)… but if you’re not building in a margin of safety, you need to weigh the peppers and water together to calculate 5% against, not just the water.

That's 6.5% salinity. I am wondering how you settled with that number, I have always stuck to 3% and have never seen recommendations higher than 4%! Just curious

That is not including the weight of the veggies though, which I think is really missing a trick in terms of control. Just weigh things at the end, the ratio that seems important is the total salt %.

I do all my ferments at about 2.5%, maybe 3 for sauces where saltier isn't a problem. I do it all in a vac bag, but the concept is the same, just use the final weight of everything.

2.5% of veggie weight? Or water weight?

I always use 3% of water weight, which in more consistent than weighing the veggies, because the amount of water can vary.

Very unusual to see food-related content on HN. I love it!

Jalapenos are like 90% water. So if you take 1kg of water and 1kg of Jalapenos you'll have 1.9kg of water, 2.5% of that if you want to have 2.5%.

Ah, I see!

For the vac bag I just do total weight, since things are almost entirely water anyway I think it'll work out about the same.

> Very unusual to see food-related content on HN. I love it!

:) me too. I really love lacto fermenting things, it's a nice old technique that's very forgiving and rewarding. The flavour you get out of it makes so many things pop, and the noma book is full of ideas (even if I'll never make them quite as fancy)

I'm doing a bunch of kefir now, and someday I'd like to do koji.

Water kefir is fun during summertime to have something a bit more healthy than soda. (Until a bottle flavored with raspberry explodes and turns your kitchen walls pink....)

Veggies are mostly water, so you'll need to account for that. Same when brining meat.

What do you add as “hot ingredient”? And when…

what I add depends entirely on what I am able to find at the moment. depending on the flavor profile I'm going for, I'll either start with a base of Fresno or jalapeño, and adjust with other peppers from there. I find that Thai peppers or habanero give a decent heat, but using something like sugar rush peach can give you both heat and additional flavor if you are careful with your amount used.

as for "when" - put them in the brine with the rest of the peppers, wait your couple of weeks, then blend.

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