Ask Lemmy

sure, it's really easy and if you like hotc sauce it's both fun and saves you money.

The only special equipment I use are wire bale jars, a stick blender and xanthan gum for some sauces. Can get jars and bottles cheap at goodwill. I also keep sodium benzoate and add it to sauces i give away but just keep the ones i make in the fridge and they are always gone fast.

My method: Boil a big pot of water and let it sit with a lid overnight to get all the chlorine out. We are counting on lactobacillus to outcompete any other bacteria and to provide us with the lactic acid that preserves the peppers. Don't want to kill the lactobacillus with too much heat or chlorine but she can handle a little salt.

Wash (with some of the de-chlorinated water) and cut a pound or 1000 grams of peppers up (it's easier for me to buy a pound but easier to calculate the additives with a kilogram just go with whatever you got), leaving the stems on a few of them for flavor. You can add in garlic, onion, whatever. i have big jars that can hold this many at once but you might use less peppers or more jars as needed.

Whatever amount of peppers you end up with, stuff them in your jars leaving a couple inches at the top. sprinkle them with 3 to 5% of their total weight of kosher salt. Then top it up almost to the top with dechlorinated water.

Then I put a plastic bag filled with water in at the top of the jar so all the peppers are submerged and clamp it shut.

brine may ooze or even spray out under pressure so i put a towel over the top.

let it sit for a week or a few months and when your're ready separate the brine from the soft pickled peppers, blend up the peppers and add in your cloudy brine until you like the consistency (lean towards watery), then add in 2-3% by weight of xanthan gum to stabilize it, thicken it and keep it from separating in the fridge.

I put mine in those sealable glass bottles with the rubber gasket and wire clamp and they last months in the fridge and are so good! I get all my equipment at goodwill I wait until they are half priced or marked cheap and only pay $1 per bottle or jar unless it's very big or has cool designs.

good luck!

oh yeah if you get farty smells or you just want a more mellow flavor or you are storing it in bottles without a rubber gasket seal you can cook the pepper mash and brine and that'll mellow it out.