Ghost pepper (or Naga Jolokia) hot sauce

I have to admit that I have been looking forward to giving these damn hot Ghost peppers a good blitz and discover what the results of 3 months of fermenting them tastes like. I started up the ferment mid December, after picking up these hotties at westlandpeppers.com, and made a couple of experimental small batches (playing around with the ingredients in the brine and combining different types of peppers). Every time I open the fridge I see them tentatively glistening at me. The time felt right to finish this bright red, fiery hot sauce. And hot it is!

Type of fermentation: lacto-fermentation
Level: beginners
Tools: small glass jar, small weight, gloves

Ingredients:
a handful of Ghost peppers, stems removed and cut open lengthwise
1/2 small onion, thinly sliced
1 clove of garlic, thinly sliced
250 ml of filtered water, 7,5 ml of dissolved Korean sea salt
1 tsp of sugar

Instructions:
1. Put the peppers tightly together in a small glass jar with the onion, sugar and garlic (wearing gloves is highly recommended!).
2. Add the salted brine until the peppers are submerged.
3. Put a small weight on top of it and let it ferment for 2-3 weeks at room temperature, releasing the carbon dioxide every other day.
4. Transfer the jar to the refrigerator and keep it there for as long as you can wait (at least 3 months).
5. Transfer the peppers, the onions and garlic with a bit of the brining liquid and blitz everything smoothly (if you have a mouth mask left from the Corona-situation, it comes in handy at this stage).
6. Strain the paste through a fine sieve helping the proces with the back of a spoon and transfer the hot sauce to a clean jar or a small bottle and place in the fridge.

Warning: the Ghost pepper is rated at more than 1 million Scoville Heat Units (SHUs). No need to say that even the fermented peppers  are insanely hot (although the heat mellows out a little, just a little)

Notes:
You don’t have to throw out the seeds and skins. Spread out the paste thinly on baking paper and put it in a dehydrator at 40 degrees for about 10 hours or until fully dry. This ‘hot cookie’ can be crumbled into a coarse powder. At Fermenthings, we even smoke the cookie and add the crumble to sea salt for a spicy kick on scrambled eggs.
What is left of the brine, can be used to start up a new ferment, don’t throw it out.