mead, hotsauce -- they're both fermented so I figure why not save yourself time and carboy space and ferment the two together?
Green Chile mead hot sauce:
Get a good sized jam jar and enough green chiles to fill it up about 2/3 of the way (between 6 and 8 good sized chiles will give you 1 cup of chopped chiles). Cut the tops off and chop up the chiles. You can puree them now or leave it chunky and puree them later. In either case you need to get them into the jar and add around a tablespoon of rice wine vinegar per cup. Don't use distilled vinegar, it's way too strong; apple cider vinegar is a better sub if you can't find rice wine. Add two teaspoons of salt per cup and stir to dissolve. Next you need to add at least 2 teaspoons of honey per cup. Cover the jar with a paper towel, secure with a rubber band, and let those magical little fungi go to work. Give it a stir every few days to keep mold from forming on top. If any does, just pull it out and keep on fermenting. When it's done fermenting, puree (if you haven't already), strain through cheesecloth, and bottle the liquid. You can use the solids to help start up another batch so the lag time is less (usually it lags for around half a week). Lay down the sauce in a cool cellar for at least a month, or as long as three years. Some people age it with oak, but I don't bother with it.
Green Chile mead hot sauce:
Get a good sized jam jar and enough green chiles to fill it up about 2/3 of the way (between 6 and 8 good sized chiles will give you 1 cup of chopped chiles). Cut the tops off and chop up the chiles. You can puree them now or leave it chunky and puree them later. In either case you need to get them into the jar and add around a tablespoon of rice wine vinegar per cup. Don't use distilled vinegar, it's way too strong; apple cider vinegar is a better sub if you can't find rice wine. Add two teaspoons of salt per cup and stir to dissolve. Next you need to add at least 2 teaspoons of honey per cup. Cover the jar with a paper towel, secure with a rubber band, and let those magical little fungi go to work. Give it a stir every few days to keep mold from forming on top. If any does, just pull it out and keep on fermenting. When it's done fermenting, puree (if you haven't already), strain through cheesecloth, and bottle the liquid. You can use the solids to help start up another batch so the lag time is less (usually it lags for around half a week). Lay down the sauce in a cool cellar for at least a month, or as long as three years. Some people age it with oak, but I don't bother with it.
