There’s good news and sad news, but let’s start with the good news:

Photo showing different size bottels of LAVA19 Habanero and Scotch Bonnet as well as Sambal Oh, Leck! 19 tubs

What happened so far

Early May we’ve set up the ferments with a total of more than 40 kg of raw chili thanks to sufficient pre-orders for the Habanero and Scotch Bonnet varieties. We’ve also decided to try something new this time with a slightly smaller ferment of Lemon Habanero.

The good news

Last weekend we’ve processed the Habanero and Scotch Bonnet ferments into sauce and it’s delicious! We’ve also managed to put together a few portions of sambal-inspired “Oh, Leck! 19” chili paste. :)

At this point we’d like to send a heart-felt “Thank you!” to everyone who pre-ordered for their trust and support.

The sad news

Despite being advertised and sold as stainless steel, one of our new 30 L fermentation vats had an aluminum bottom. We did not notice this until we opened the ferment last Saturday morning to find the liquid having a gray-ish tinge, the chilis not having fermented properly, and everything having a very noticable metallic taste much like chewing on a piece of aluminum foil.

Our suspicion was confirmed once we emptied the vat: the bottom was not stainless steel but raw aluminum, visibly oxidized by the acidic environment of the ferment.

This sadly is not simply a matter of taste but a serious health concern, so we were forced to abandon that batch entirely. This is also the reason you’re not seeing Lemon Habanero bottles in the above LAVA19 family photo. :(

The silver lining to all this is, that there was no official pre-order for Lemon Habanero, so if you pre-ordered sauce, this does not affect you. Nevertheless, this didn’t come cheap with the raw materials and three months of time we’ll not get back.

Moving forward we’ve established a new quality control process to ensure this will not happen again. Every new vessel will first undergo multiple tests to ensure it’s stainless steel and inert to the acidic environment of the fermentation.

Delivery of pre-orders

If you pre-ordered, we’ll deliver your sauce at Chaos Communication Camp 2019 in Mildenberg. Information regarding payment for the sauce will hit your email inbox later today.

You can come pick it up at the infuanfu village. If you want to make sure we’re there, simply dial LAVA (5282) on your DECT phone to give us a call.

We’ll arrive at Sunday the 18th and are planning to stay till Monday 26th.

Overstock

We have some overstock due to safety margins to ensure we can fulfill the pre-orders. This sauce is now available for you to buy, even if you were not part of the pre-order.

100ml bottles of Habanero and Scotch Bonnet are available for 15 € each while stocks last.

Drop us an email to info@k23v.de to order sauce.