Fermented Quarantine Hot Sauce

• Clean and sanitize your gallon size fermenting jar, lid, and air lock with a sanitizing solution
• With gloves on, remove the stems from your pepper pods and gently dink in some cool water. You don't need to wash the pepper. You are simply trying to remove superficial dirt off the pods.
• In a well ventilated area thinly slice your peppers and place them in your fermentation crock. Cover the peppers with cabbage leaves to form a top covering, then place a weight on top of the cabbage leaves. This will keep all of the peppers below the brine during fermentation.
• IF YOU ARE ADDING ANY OF THE ABOVE MENTIONE VEGETABLES ADD THEM AT THIS STAGE. (Make sure they are sliced as well)
• Pour the cool 2.5% brine solution over the peppers till the water level is 1 inch over your weights.
• Cover and place the air lock in the lid. Place the jar in a cool area (55f -75f or 13c – 29c) and let ferment for at least 4 weeks or in my case 2 years.

Making the hot sauce

• Once your peppers have finished fermenting strain out the brine and place the fermented pepper mash in a blender.
• Blend till smooth while slowly drizzling 1/2 cup of Red wine vinegar and 1/2 cups of the fermenting brine. This will help thin out the sauce to get it to the desired consistency. If you plan on adding xanthan gum only add a little bit at a time while the sauce is blending. The appropriate ratio is 1/2 tsp per 4 cups of sauce. This will help stabilize the sauce and keep it from separating. If you don't add it, that's ok too. You'll just have to shape up the bottle prior to using.
• If you want to cut the heat a little you can add honey or sugar.
• Once you are happy with your sauce you can pasteurize it by heating it to 180f (82.2c) for 10 minutes. Place the hot sauce in sterilized bottles and store in your pantry or in your refrigerator.