Home made chilli paste experiement .. interim results

In early September 2015 when we came back from Germany my glasshouse was crammed with crops needing harvesting , one of the crops to be gathered was two sturdy well laden mini chilli peppers .
I picked about 2 & 1/2 pounds off the plants and decided to experiment as there is no way we wold ever scoff than many fresh chillies in a year let alone a few days.
Six fresh chillies were retained & used in the kitchen over the next couple of weeks .

 First experiment was to thread two dozen or so on cotton threads and hang them in he warm dark airing cupboard till they wrinkled down  to about 1/2 the size in drying . I kept a few whole ones for pickling spice needs and put the rest int he liquidizer attachment on the food processor ..   . this gave several spoons of flaked chili bits, two or thre spoons of these flakes were then processed to dust in our mortar & pestle by me... boy did I get to do a lot of sneezing whilst grinding them to dust . Going to the loo mid way through for a pee was memorable .I didn't wash my hands first ..Yahroooooo that burnt things into my memory banks I can tell you .


What to do with the remainder of the fresh little red devils ?  As  we'd been discussing making chili paste similar to Tabasco's sauce  on the site around that time I decided to experiment.
 The rest of the chilies were mushed in the food processors liquidizer jug along with 4 oz of white sugar 1/2 an egg cup of vodka & a pinch of wine makers yeas that had been started off on 1/4 pint of tepid sugared water to get it going. 
 It was all put in a large tall wide necked jar covered and shaken well . I then put a layer of cling film /food wrap over the top of the jar ensuring that there was a big sag down /depression in the middle of the neck of the jar  and wrapped the remainder round the jar neck to seal if from the air.

 I filed this depression with common cooking salt  , then using two new unused cane kebab sticks pushed them point first one at a time down through the salt so that they were well down into the chili mush and sticking out up abpove the jars rimby about an inch .

 The food wrap ,salt b the skewers was my interpretation of slowly getting moisture out of the fermenting mixture .. . In a documentary about making Chili sauce they used oak barrels and covered the sealed lid with a layer of salt .
Now I know moisture will be lost through capillary action through the wooden sides top & bottom but what of the excess moisture in the liquid that rises up through the fermenting mush as a result of the carbon dioxide gases being produced during fermentation  of the mush .  I surmised it would be absorbed by the carbon dioxide so the use of salf on the lids may well have been to dry it out of the Co2
 Once all put together I put it in the warm airing cupboard and gently swill it around inside the jar every week end  taking care not to get any juices up high on the skewers .
 After two two months of this agitation I tucked the jar  away behind a set of towels ..out of sight out of mind.
In Jan 2015 I took a peek at it , it had turned dark and thickened quite a bit ..no moulds or strange smells save for a whiff of sneezing fit quality chili spice .

 This morning Sunday 28 Aug 2016 I revisited the chili , it's gone a very dark reddish brown , the salt had set into a solid cake , chili oils have worked their way up the cane skewers right into the salt cake area.
 
I carefully took off the salt & film of complete with the skewers  without disturbing it at all . It still has me in fits of sneezes.

I pulled out one of the skewers smelt it ..it smelt OK, then tasted a minuscule speck on my little finger and washed my hands straight away ( l learnt from the last time that this is essential for life to continue without mishap & pain ) .

It was rather hot ,  then after about four minutes the afterburner effect arrived with a vengeance. T'was that hot I had to go check my underwear & socks for holes . Half a pint of slowly sipped ice cold milk later it's still got legs and is running around my tongue giving it what for .

Now as I write four hours later there does not appear to be any adverse effects in my tummy or intestines , the after burn has subsided to a gentle awareness of a still sensitive tongue .

 I think I'll now add all of this chilli paste to 700 ml of boiled up tomato mush to dilute it , then pressure can it in some sturdy clip over rubber ring seal- able bottles till I can reprocess it in new smaller Weck bottles .

I love hot stuff, in fact, I have an entire section in my pantry of hot sauces....but that sounds like it's dangerous!  Lol!

Plantoid And, don't rub your eyes.

I did pretty much the same thing with my bumper crop of Thai Birds. chopped, salted them, and left them ferment for a week in my warm garage, then liquefied the batch with an immersion blender- seeds and all until it looked like ketchup. I stored the paste for 8 months, but it was way too hot in it's paste form, so I diluted the paste down with a 30% white vinegar and water, tossed in a liquefied cooked carrot (just so the liquid wouldn't look too watery) and continued to add the vinegar/water solution until I was sure my GI tract wouldn't start growling like a caged lion as the pepper sauce burned it's way through my insides. Next batch I'm going to add some cumin and garlic for some homemade taco sauce.

That's a very useful airing cupboard you have, Plantoid.

I love reading about peoples' efforts to make hot sauce.  Keep at it.