BeerBorg

The closest I am gonna get to Yuengling.

Whamolagan wrote:

The closest I am gonna get to Yuengling.

You realize the powers that be will take that as a challenge, right?

No brewing today But: Have a rack of ribs on my small smoker
I cut it in half one on the bottom too.
and doing some freezing and canning.



Also going to make some Oktoberfest Beer mustard using my homemade later on today.

Oh wow, that all looks way above average![emoji3]

You had me at "ribs".

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Yum!

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berryman wrote: and doing some freezing and canning.

Ohhh... fill one of those pepper jars up with salt water and some garlic cloves and let that sucker ferment for a month or two... grind/strain and voila! Hot sauce! I just made my latest into sauce this weekend. Some red peppers, chilis, habaneros, and a couple ghost peppers.

I bottled up ~6 gallons of Pinot Grigio for Mrs brewnewb.

brewnewb wrote:I bottled up ~6 gallons of Pinot Grigio for Mrs brewnewb.

Nice...

swenocha wrote:

berryman wrote: and doing some freezing and canning.

Ohhh... fill one of those pepper jars up with salt water and some garlic cloves and let that sucker ferment for a month or two... grind/strain and voila! Hot sauce! I just made my latest into sauce this weekend. Some red peppers, chilis, habaneros, and a couple ghost peppers.

Hmm, Swen you got me thinking. These aren't really hot, just banana peppers but they come out with a good bite. I like some good heat but not a fan of hab, but like the ghost, and Tie, just something I don't like about habanero's and don't know what it is, but they are good and hot...We still have lot more to do and I'll try your suggestion on some and let you know how it turns out.

swenocha wrote:

berryman wrote: and doing some freezing and canning.

Ohhh... fill one of those pepper jars up with salt water and some garlic cloves and let that sucker ferment for a month or two... grind/strain and voila! Hot sauce! I just made my latest into sauce this weekend. Some red peppers, chilis, habaneros, and a couple ghost peppers.

I've recently started fermenting things other than beer (mostly milk, but looking into fermenting vegetables) and I've dried a bunch of different varieties of hot peppers.

What are the advantages of canning vs drying vs fermenting for preserving vegetables?

swenocha wrote:Ohhh... fill one of those pepper jars up with salt water and some garlic cloves and let that sucker ferment for a month or two... grind/strain and voila! Hot sauce! I just made my latest into sauce this weekend. Some red peppers, chilis, habaneros, and a couple ghost peppers.

I haven't tried it yet but I am interested to try fermenting some vegetables. Some kraut, of course. But peppers sound really good as well. Are you adding stuff like tomato, onion, garlic or just ground peppers when you make the hot sauce?

I generally start with a mix of peppers that I like and maybe 4 or so cloves of garlic, and I do one of two things...

Method 1:
- In this method, I select a mix of peppers that I like (last one was two habaneros, two jalapenos, and some mild peppers from the garden, as well as six garlic cloves). You can pretty much pick what suits you here. Some people use carrots, onions, and other veggies as well as the peppers.
- Simply stuff as many peppers into the sanitized ball jar, fill with a brine of water and salt, and make sure to keep the veggies under the water level to avoid mold. Some people slice them, and that works fine. I tend to just jam them in whole, getting as many in there that will fit. I like to take a smaller jar (sanitized on the outside and filled with water for weight) and push down the veggies below the brine level, and then put a cheese cloth over the whole thing with a rubber band (lucky I have a lot of hop bags that work great for this). But you can really just not go to all that trouble if you've got the veggies below water level... just throw a cheesecloth, hop bag, or plastic wrap over the top. I only do the squish down method because I'm always paranoid of veggies floating at the top. And if you get some mold, just spoon it out. No bigs...
- Let it sit for a couple months. You should see a pellicle forming, though with the small jar in the top, you really can't see it as well as without that.
- After aging, drain and reserve the liquid, put the peppers into a food processor, adding back as much liquid as you want to get the consistency desired (all of the liquid for a tabasco-like consistency, or maybe a quarter cup for a sriracha-like consistency). I normally add it all back to keep all of the spicy goodness that's moved to the liquid at this point.
- Send it all through a strainer as many times as desired until consistency is right and solids are removed.



Method 2:
- The alternate method starts with a pepper mix... I used two ghost peppers, as well as some habaneros and chilis, and a couple sweet red peppers for color. Blended that with 1 tbsp salt, 1/3 c water, 4 garlic cloves, and 3 tbsp brown sugar.
- Blend this all up and transfer the pepper mash to fermentation vessel(s).
- Stir daily and watch for bubbles.
- Once the bubbling is visible (took about 5-7 days this time), blend it all back up with maybe 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar.
- Strain and remove all solids.
- Take the resulting liquid and boil it until you get the consistency you like... I had a low boil for maybe 45 minutes this time and got a sriracha-like consistency.



EDIT: Here's what a friend has going... He basically used the first method (just on a much larger scale), using a large plastic bin as his fermentation vessel (pic one, with a nice pellicle), and then transferred to the 5 gallon whiskey barrel for a couple more months (pic 2).

Many thanks, swenocha. That gives me some things to consider when I do peppers.

My previous experience with lacto is adding some raw & malted barley to a quart mason jar for a lacto beer starter. After 5 days or so I strained the liquid into 1/2 gallon of mashed and boiled wort and let it ferment.