I get about forty minutes of kitchen time a week and 3kg of chillies from the allotment sitting in the fridge. I can do a two week brine ferment and then blend, or blend now with vinegar and refrigerate. I don't own a pH meter and I don't want to buy one for a single batch. Which gives more flavour for the effort?
Do both. Split the 3kg, half in brine, half blended with vinegar today. You get one bottle immediately, one in three weeks, and a direct comparison from the same chillies, which is worth more than any answer here.
This is the correct answer to almost every which-method question in fermentation.
One practical note if you ferment: 3kg of chillies makes a serious amount of gas in the first four days. Use a vessel with real headroom and an airlock, or burp daily, or clean your kitchen ceiling.
Freeze whatever you can't process now. Chillies freeze extremely well and thawed ones ferment perfectly, so you aren't actually on a deadline.
@weatherfront_wu · 8mo ago · 3 replies
Ferment, and the time cost is lower than you think. About twenty minutes to chop and brine, then two minutes a day of nothing, then twenty minutes to blend and bottle. The result is noticeably deeper and more complex than a vinegar blend, which is bright and one-dimensional by comparison.
The pH meter question is the real one. Brine at 3-3.5%, blend with a decent slug of vinegar, keep it in the fridge, and you're in normal home cooking territory. The moment you want shelf-stable bottles at room temperature to give away, buy the meter, because that's when the number stops being optional. Strips are not accurate enough at the range that matters.
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@keg_line_ken · 8mo ago
Write the date on the bottle. Fermented sauces keep a long time in the fridge but a long time is much easier to judge with a date on it.
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@leaf_litter_lou · 8mo ago
Fridge only, for me and two friends who know what it is. That answers it.
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