Welcome to today’s daily kōrero!
Anyone can make the thread, first in first served. If you are here on a day and there’s no daily thread, feel free to create it!
Anyway, it’s just a chance to talk about your day, what you have planned, what you have done, etc.
So, how’s it going?
I grow some every year too, but they’ve been moving down the Scoville scale. Used to do Ghost peppers and the like, but only did cayenne this year.
I haven’t done a fermented one in quite awhile, been too lazy! Do you test yours for ph? I have some left over testing strips I use. I find if it’s 4 or under ph it lasts pretty much indefinitely in the fridge. In fact I blended some leftover basic ghost pepper sambal into the sauce that’s been sitting in the fridge for at least 6-8 months that still seemed fine.
Nice tip about the xanthan gum, I keep meaning to pick some up to try stabilise smoothies, now I’ve got more reason to!
I’ve not thought to do a ph test; I kinda live by Leone’s quote “Botulism? Nobodies ever died of botulism. ?”
But I prefer a fairly vinegar forward hot sauce, and the brine is also salty so i’ve not noticed any problems. After about 13 months it can start to discolour a bit, but i’ve usually got a new batch ready by then so I just biff that.
Xantham is a bit tricky to use, you really don’t need much but you also kinda need to sprinkle it in, it can clump quite a bit and if you use too much while running a blender too high it can capture air bubbles. I made a ketchup and it just kinda got foamy so even though it tasted good the mouth feel was really weird.
Yeah true, if I’m doing one with mainly vinegar I’m not too worried either. When I do some lacto fermented vegetables they sometimes get a bit of white mould on the top if left too long, but I understand it’s pretty safe to just remove that layer.
I’m going to have to try some experiments with the xantham gum to see what works I guess