Aguitas Moritas b4

Fermented Ingredients (783 days):
• Morita Peppers 88g
• Yellow Onions 126g
• Garlic 36g
• Brine 1/4 Cups 

Fresh Ingredients:
• Yellow Onions 244g
• Shallots 66g
• Garlic 47g
• Red Bell Peppers 146g
• Cosmic Crisp Apples 136g
• Chili de Arbol 15g
• Ghost Peppers 43g
• Carolina Reapers 26g
• Limes 1 Large 
• Cumin 1/2 tsp
• Paprika 1 tsp
• Salt 1.5 tsp
• Brown Sugar 1/3 Cups 
• Cinnamon Sticks 3"
• Water 1.5 Cups 
• White Vinegar 1.5 Cups 
• Apple Cider Vinegar 1/2 Cups 
• Xanthan Gum 1/4 tsp 

Heat your frying pan and lightly toast the chili de arbol until fragrant and starting to char. Remove and saute the fresh onions, red bell peppers, ghosts, and reapers in neutral oil until they start to lose color and char. Remove and replace with the fresh garlic and shallots, cooking until the garlic starts to brown. While that cooks, peel and core your apple. Remove and add everything except the cinnamon and xanthan gum to the blender, blending on high for five minutes. Afterward, simmer on low for thirty minutes with the cinnamon sticks, skimming solids off the top. Let cool, remove the cinnamon, then blend on low with the xanthan gum for sixty seconds. Bottle, refrigerate. 

Notes: 
• Maybe my favorite and definitely most complex sauce, let's get into it
• Morita peppers are sourced from my friends at Aguitas taco truck, hence the name 
• First thing I always want to note is the peppers are dry when I put them into the ferment. MOstly because I'm too impatient to properly hydrate them, but also because I think they get more flavor absorbing brine instead of just water 
• Because of that after the first few days I always have to top off the brine once or twice beyond what I lose when burping the jars. This leads to less brine overall to add in the final blend so I use more water and salt to account for that
• Flavor is sweet and smokey with a good tang, right where it's supposed to be 
• I used brown sugar instead of honey for this batch. I think I like the honey a bit more
• I also added in more fresh peppers to give it more of a kick. This sauce is usually between mild and moderate and I wanted to make it more solid in the moderate category
• It's a bit tricky doing that, there's so much going on with the flavor too much heat would eclipse all of that 
• I doubled the amount of cinnamon that I used last time and I think I nailed it here. It comes through right on the back end. I was afraid using too much would make it taste like christmas and was able to avoid that here 
• I used half the cumin as last time but wish there was a little more. Maybe 3/4 tsp next time 
• Another half lime would maybe work also. Other than that it's seasoned well 
• Aroma is perfect. Smoke, heat, sugar, acid. Follows the taste almost perfectly 
• Consistency is also pretty dialed in. The first time I made this it was almost a paste. It's definitely thick but moves around just right. 
• Color is right between dark red and brown with some black flakes floating around. I made this two weeks ago so I don't exactly remember, but I think I toasted the arbols just a bit. Regardless I don't think it hurts the flavor at all, just a small cosmetic blight 
• Overall I'm pretty satisfied. I think there's been better batches, but the last one was 1.5 years ago, so it's hard to remember and compare and contrast