Aiden's Hottokikku Hot Sauce 2025
Hottokikku means hot kick, which is exactly what this sauce gives. It’s my first fermented hot sauce — made with my own jalapeños and garlic, sweet pineapple, and finished with homemade mead vinegar. It’s smooth, tangy, and just the right kind of fiery. I use it on everything, but it’s especially good as the base for buffalo wings.
- Batch name
- Hottokikku
- Style
- Fermented hot sauce
- Started
- 28 September 2025
- Fermended for
- 13 days
- Chillies & garlic
- homegrown
- Vinegar
- homemade mead vinegar
- Brine
- 3% salt
Details
What is Hottokikku?
It’s a fermented pineapple and jalapeno hot sauce. Fermenting the chillies makes them tangy and complex instead of just sharp and hot. I wanted something that still had a strong kick, but was fruity so that it didn't blow your head off.
What I made
I used 250 g of homegrown jalapenos, 230 g of pineapple, one small carrot, and a blub of homegrown garlic. Everything went into a jar with 3% salt brine and was left to ferment for 13 days. Once it tasted sour, fruity, and balanced, I blended it smooth and finished it with mead vinegar and a bit of oil for body.
It’s a proper hot sauce on its own, but when I mix it with melted butter it turns into my version of buffalo sauce.
Production
Ingredients
- 250 g homegrown jalapeños
- 230 g fresh pineapple
- 1 small carrot
- 2 cloves homegrown garlic
- 3% salt brine
- 60–100 ml homemade mead vinegar (for finishing)
- 1–2 tbsp neutral oil
- Salt to taste
Fermentation
Started 28 September 2025. I checked it every few days. The brine turned cloudy and started smelling fruity and sour — that’s how I knew the fermentation was working. Once the chillies softened and the flavour was tangy and clean, it was ready to finish.
Bottling
I sanitised glass bottles with ChemSan (no rinse needed), funnelled the warm sauce in while they were still wet, sealed them, and let them cool before storing in the fridge.
Storage
Stored in the fridge, it keeps for months. The flavour gets richer and smoother over time, but mine probably won’t last long enough to find out.