Why we ferment for three weeks

You can make hot sauce in an afternoon: chop peppers, add vinegar, blend. We did, for about a week in 2021, and it tasted like hot vinegar.

Fermenting takes at least three weeks. The peppers sit in salt brine in a bucket in the corner of the unit, and bacteria turn the sugars into acid and a pile of other flavours that vinegar alone cannot. The mash bubbles, the whole unit smells of garlic, and Dan keeps a clipboard of pH readings.

The timetable

Sauce	Ferment time	Then
Mango Tango	3 weeks	Blended with fresh mango
Smoky Chipotle Cry	4 weeks	Slow-cooked 6 hours
Reaper Reckoning	8 weeks	Aged in the dark

Slow, then. You can taste the difference, and so can your toastie.