Category: Home-brew

Recipe: EXTRA HOT Fermented Habanero Lime Hot Sauce

Hot, citrusy, and packed with natural good bacteria. This lacto-fermented hot sauce is inspired by Tabasco, but boasts somewhere around 200’000 SHU (Scoville Heat Units) since it substitutes Habanero peppers, so buckle down guys…

 

Ingredients

  • 2 Pounds of Red Habanero Peppers, washed, stemmed, crown on, seeds in.
  • 8 Cloves of Garlic
  • 20 Grams of Salt
  • 3 Bay Leaves
  • 1 Cup of White Vinegar
  • 1 Cup of Fresh Lime Juice
  • Zest of 1 Lime
  • (optional) 1tsp Xanthan Gum

 

Method

  1. Place the peppers, garlic, and salt in a food processor and blend until completely smooth. Leave the green crowns on the peppers when doing this as they add a floral taste. Leave in the seeds, this is hot sauce game for real.
  2. Transfer the mixture to an appropriately sized jar and add the bay leaves. We used a 1gal Jar and there was more than half space. Cover with the lid, don’t worry it won’t explode.
  3. Set in a warm, dark place for a minimum of 3 weeks, shake the contents and burp the jar daily for the first week and a half while the sauce is getting really hyped up with good bacteria.
  4. After your sauce is done fermenting you will notice a slight but mild funky smell on the sauce, this is the fermentation done right. If it smells actively BAD it probably is, but that kind of thing happens so rarely don’t even worry.
  5. Add in the vinegar, lime juice, zest, and mix well.
  6. (optional) Add the xanthan gum and blend the sauce again to avoid any separation, though we don’t bother with this, is it that hard to shake a bottle before pouring?
  7. Keep your sauce refrigerated and enjoy within 6 months for best results. But what’s really gonna happen?

 

Enjoy making this awesome sauce but USE WITH CAUTION, this stuff is crazy.

OOCH

Cheap White Grape Juice ‘Champagne’: A Recipe by Ooch

“This will do in a pinch”- Dad

“Actually drinkable”- Friend

The rave reviews are unanimous, my Welch’s white grape wine is a hit. Sorta.

But hey, it costs like $4/ litre to make TOPS, so accept it for what it is. You can make wine out of anything, something I discovered before I was even old enough to be drinking wine. Carrots bubbling away with white sugar in a crock. Yes, carrots, so trust me when I say that I know first hand that this Concord champagne is not as bad as home-brew gets. Its actually kinda good, in a Baby Duck kind of way.

 

This recipe is a bit more Meth Lab than Martha Stewart, but bear with me.

 

You will need:

  • 2 tins of white concord grape juice concentrate, thawed
  • non-chlorinated water
  • 1/4 t. Champagne yeast (Available at most brew shops) or bread yeast if you don’t mind off tastes
  • 1 T. white sugar
  • 2L soda bottle with lid
  • Plastic wrap

 

Start by cleaning the empty bottle REALLY well. Use bleach or vinegar, just get the nasties outta there. Add the concentrated juice and fill with water up to 2 inches below the top of the bottle. Now add your yeast and give a serious shake. Remove the bottle cap and cover the mouth of the bottle with plastic wrap and poke the tiniest hole you can in the wrap. Set this on a plate to catch any spillage and put in a warm, dark place for about 2 weeks, until the bubbling stops.

Now we have like a grey sludge wine. This is good. Now, we have to make it bubbly and clear.

Add your sugar to the mix and tightly fasten the cap. Leave for 24 hours MAX, but watch it closely. It will build up a huge amount of pressure and carbonate. When you are ready to clarify, place the bottle in an undisturbed section of your refrigerator for 2 days, preferably a week.

And there you have it! Bubbly, dry, fruity ‘champagne’, ‘cava’, ‘prosecco’, stuff.

Do be careful not to disturb the bottle when pouring, as it has sediment on the bottom. Enjoy cold within a month.

 

Happy Brewing

Ooch