9 posts
Inspired by Vietnam's Red Boat fish sauce, I'm attempting to make premium fish sauce using Taiwanese whitebait. Breaking down fish selection, onboard salting, and traditional fermentation techniques to explore Taiwan's fish sauce potential.
Using Taiwanese bird's eye chili, coarsely ground with salt, fermented in a vacuum bag at low temperature, then finished with homemade white wine vinegar. This isn't a Tabasco clone—it's using Tabasco's logic to make a local fermented hot sauce.
At the 50-hour mark, the bag shows clear signs of water release and gas buildup. This signals that fermentation has entered the liquid-dominant phase, and the operational focus needs to shift.
Fermentation isn't just about time and microbes—geometry itself is a control variable. Documenting why I flattened a vacuum-sealed bag of anaerobic coffee cherries at 36 hours, and what I observed.
This isn't a German dried sausage, nor a Taiwanese fresh sausage. It's a hunter's sausage that stops at the border: short-term drying, no curing salt, no fermentation—all just to prepare the structure and flavor.
Balancing structure with home-milled whole wheat and bread flour. In a cool environment, starting from levain, controlling hydration, not chasing big holes—just observing whether the structure holds and fermentation is on point.
I bought a small drum coffee roaster from China that sits directly on a gas stove. It's motor-driven with adjustable speed, and delivers surprisingly even roasts. This time I blended Brazilian and Guatemalan beans, aiming for something close to Starbucks' medium roast style.
No salt, no sugar, no water — a whole cherry anaerobic fermentation at 18°C room temperature. This isn't about showing off techniques. It's an experiment in restraint and judgment.
Documenting my fourth attempt at European-style bread, analyzing the failures: not enough hydration, unhealthy yeast, folding too early