Why is my fermented hot sauce bitter?

Question

Three weeks of a beautifully behaved ferment, smelled great the whole way, blended it up last night and it is bitter. Not hot bitter, properly bitter, the kind…

stems_went_in · Accepted Answer

You have listed four causes in one sentence and the batch is almost certainly salvageable. Green jalapenos carry a grassy bitter edge that fermenting does not remove and sometimes emphasises. The stems definitely contribute. A whole head of garlic over three weeks turns harsh. Coriander stems go bitter on a long ferment.

So nothing has gone wrong, it is the recipe. Which is good news, because flavour is fixable and spoilage is not.

mango_fixes_it · Answer

Fruit is the fix and it works better than sugar. Mango, pineapple, peach, or roasted carrot or roasted red pepper if you want it savoury. It rounds bitterness off rather than covering it.

Add a little, blend, taste, repeat, and stop before you have made chutney. A splash of vinegar or lime afterwards lifts the whole thing and helps it keep, and a small pinch of salt suppresses bitterness more than people expect.

Why is my fermented hot sauce bitter?

3 answers