Hello chums! Great forum!
Sorry in advance for extremely long post. Hope I can hold your attention!
I've spent what seems like forever trying to work out the exact procedure to suit me for fermenting my Dorset Nagas for a Bengali style pickle I'm working on but I can't seem to get a solid and simple approach. I've just stumbled across this awesome place and so I've got my fingers crossed that someone super kind and in-the-know might give me a bit of guidance?
I guess the best thing would be for me to write down what I think I know so far and how I intend to go about it and include the bits I'm not sure about?
Ok so to start, here's one of the fermenting vessels I have home made out of cocktail jars and an airlock. Keeping the experiements small scale for now:
Probably important to note that at this stage I'm just looking for a fermented chilli mash to go in my Indian style pickle (a bit like Mr Naga) rather than a fermented hot sauce BUT if anyone knows for example that certain spices might lend themselves well to being added at this stage I'd love to know! Otherwise I'm kind of intending to just fermenting the nagas alone.
Ok so: I have 5KG of juicy red nagas in my brand new freezer and from what I have gathered so far this is hopefully a decent working method, however there are some things I'm not sure about, so if anyone can help I'd be super grateful. I'm not sure what I can offer in return, maybe a really good BIR style curry recipe from scratch?
Ok so I gather I need a 5% Brine solution which seems simple enough, and then a starter culture of some sort as at least this stage I don't want to wait months to see initial results. I've read stuff about soaking the culture in celery juice but I'm conerned about keeping the naga flavour as pure as possible so I'm hoping it should be ok to put it in the brine solution?
The culture I have is a wine yeast sachet I found in the local Lakeland store. (I heard wine yeast is ok for chillis) It says the sachet does up to 25L, and it's only a couple of tablespoons or so, so I'm guessing just a pinch for a 3L jug of brine (6 x 500ml jars).
So, I guess I just puree the chillis (thinking I'd like to keep the seeds), add them to the jars, about 2/3 full? Then add the brine/starter culture solution enough to cover. I've also read that a cabbage leaf stops the solid stuff rising too high - again, not sure about the smell/flavour and I gather you can get fermenting weights (or even just a pebble?)
Then I guess it's just a case of closing the jar, putting some water (or vodka?) in the top of the airlock and wait for 3 weeks or so, shaking every couple of days? I gather it's important to keep the jar sealed throughout the process? Not sure if I leave the red cap on top of the airlock?
Another thing - I have a small jar of Chilli Wizards (I think) chilli mash - I'm not sure if it's even fermented but I did read that previously fermented mash can be used as a starter? Not sure if this is a good idea for me or not?
So there you have it. I've read mixed articles about how to go about it, so I guess I'm looking for either confirmation that I've got it right, or corrections or pointers to better ideas? I realise it's a long post full of questions so MASSIVE than ks to anyone who can help.
Rod