How to Ferment Peppers: Make a Pepper Mash

How to ferment hot peppers? How to ferment bell peppers? Doesn’t matter.

Lacto fermented Hot Sauce (or mild sauce) starts with fermented pepper mash. This technique is so simple and can be used with any type of pepper. It is up to you. Make what you like.

Adjustable to any pepper—banana peppers, carrot peppers, Thai peppers, Aleppo peppers, green chile peppers, ghost peppers, Fresno peppers, cherry bombs, jalapeños, shisito peppers…you get the ideaI. If you have it you can ferment it.

Pepper mash can be fermented in very small batches (say in a half-pint jar) or in a large-scale hot sauce plant. In this video we show you how to make a small batch. How long to ferment peppers? That depends on what you are looking for. At home fermentation you have the choice of how long you would like to ferment it. We suggest at least three weeks. Lacto fermented peppers develop more flavor over time. The thing is a fresh hot sauce is a flavor you will never be able to buy from the store. You can learn all the tips and tricks to make your own fermented hot sauce recipes in our self-paced online class. Our hot sauce fermentation book Fiery Ferments will also get you started with recipes that have been inspired from flavors all over the world.

Here's a fun fact. A large producer makes pepper mash by crushing whole red chiles with a hammer mill and adding a 5 to 8 percent salt ratio (our mash ratio is much lower at about 2%). This mixture is then put into barrels. Traditional Louisiana-style sauce makers procure the charred white oak barrels previously used by Kentucky whiskey distillers. The barrels’ wooden lids are fastened with stainless steel hoops and blanketed with a thick layer of salt. Tiny holes in the lids allow CO2 to escape. The salt blanket hardens due to humidity and seals the barrel fully after the active fermentation process stops.

Make Basic Fermented Pepper Mash

Here is a look inside the pages of our pepper fermentation book Fiery Ferments. Make your own fermented pepper mash—the first step to many a delicious hot sauce. We created a video of this lacto fermentation hot sauce process as well.

Hot sauce is not all the same. You might think its just cholula hot sauce, crystal hot sauce or your favorite Louisiana hot sauce and if you are talking about what is available on your local store shelf maybe. But if you want to make hot sauce its a new world of opportunity. How do you make hot sauce? Its actually really easy and usually it starts with a pepper mash. Pepper mash fermentation is the key to a great hot sauce by developing the flavors of the peppers before acidifying with an acid like vinegar.

Check out our fermentation masterclass on fermented hot sauces. You will learn to ferment hot sauce with any pepper you love. Learning how to make hot sauce from scratch is fun. You can choose blazing hot or super mild peppers, fresh or dry and blend in other flavors. This fermentation class will teach you everything you need to make your own safe probiotic hot sauces. If you are new to fermentation and just trying to figure it out you might start with this article that helps you to understand it from the beginning—what is fermentation and what are the benefits of fermented foods like this basic pepper mash.