Small batch · Frome, Somerset
We crush chillies, pack them in salt and leave them in oak for six to twelve weeks. No thickeners, no cheap vinegar hit — just slow, deep heat that tastes of something.
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The range
Every jar starts the same way: crushed chillies, 3% sea salt and time. What separates them is the fruit, the smoke, and how long they sit before we bottle them.
Bright, grassy, gone by Tuesday.
Fermented Fresno chillies with sweet carrot and a whisper of oak-smoked salt. Sharp at the front, mellow behind — the one you reach for at breakfast.
Charred, smoky, quietly relentless.
Red jalapeños fermented with charred onion and toasted cumin. Rounded heat that keeps building without ever turning bitter. This is the house sauce.
Honeyed, roasted, dangerously easy.
Habaneros fermented with wildflower honey and a whole head of roasted garlic. Sweet up front, then the habanero arrives about four seconds later.
Black garlic, blackcurrant, midnight.
Ghost peppers fermented for twelve weeks, then blended with black garlic and blackcurrant. Genuinely hot — but there’s a fruit note underneath that makes it worth the trouble.
How it’s made
The chillies come from a grower in the Vale of Evesham who picks to our schedule rather than to a supermarket’s. They arrive on a Tuesday, are destemmed by hand on Wednesday, and go into salt the same afternoon.
We pack them in a 3% brine and weigh them under oak, then leave the crocks in the corner of the dairy at whatever temperature Somerset decides to give us. That’s the whole trick, and it means no two batches taste exactly the same. A cold spring gives a slower, sharper ferment; a hot August gives something rounder and sweeter.
When the ferment tastes right we blend it with the fruit or smoke that particular sauce calls for, bottle it by hand, and stamp the batch number and ferment date on the label. Nothing is pasteurised, so the culture is still alive in the jar. That’s the point, and it’s also why it wants keeping in the fridge.
No thickeners, no gums, no added water beyond the brine, no preservatives. If a jar separates or fizzes gently on opening, that’s a live ferment doing its job. Shake it and carry on.
Subscriptions
Subscribers get the first pour of every batch, including the seasonal specials that never make it to the shops. You can swap a sauce, skip a month, or stop entirely by replying to any order email.
Two jars a month, your choice.
£16 / month
Billed monthly. Cancel any time.
Most subscribers choose this
All four sauces, every month.
£29 / month
Billed monthly. Pause for a month whenever you need to.
Two jars, six times a year.
£17 / box
Billed per box. Cancel any time.
Want a one-off for a birthday or a stubborn colleague? Email jar@emberandoak.co.uk and we’ll build a gift box around what’s in the crock that week. No subscription, no reminders afterwards.
Where to buy
Most of what we make goes out through subscriptions, but we keep a shelf or two for people who’d rather buy a single jar first. You’ll find us at these shops and at a handful of markets across the South West and London.
Shop for us and we’ll list you here and keep you supplied at trade rates. Say hello at trade@emberandoak.co.uk.
What people say
Nightjar is the first hot sauce I’ve had to keep away from guests. It’s hot enough to be a problem and good enough that you forgive it.
Hearth on roast chicken. That’s the whole review. I’ve written six hundred words about it and thrown them away twice.
The Full Set is the only subscription I’ve never cancelled. It arrives, it disappears, it arrives again. My fridge has a corner that belongs to Frome now.
Questions
We score everything out of ten and print it on the label. Daybreak is a 2 — a lift rather than a burn. Nightjar is a 9, and we mean it. If you’re starting out, The Pair with Daybreak and Ember is the gentlest way in.
Yes and yes. The sauces aren’t pasteurised, so the ferment keeps working slowly. A little separation, a soft fizz when you open a jar, or a bloom of sediment is normal. Shake it, keep it in the fridge, and it will hold for months.
All four are gluten-free and made without thickeners, gums, colourings or preservatives. Hearth contains wildflower honey, so it isn’t vegan; the other three are. Everything is made in one kitchen, so if you have a mustard, celery or sulphite allergy, email us before ordering and we’ll talk you through the batch.
Swap a sauce, skip a month, or stop altogether by replying to any order email. There are no forms and no phone queues — a person reads it and does the thing. Changes made before the 20th apply to that month’s box.
Not yet. Because the sauces are unpasteurised, we’re working out the paperwork before we send any further afield. Add your name to an order email and we’ll tell you the moment your country opens up.
Chillies, salt, jars, labels and two people’s wages, in about that order. We buy jars from a co-operative in Stoke, labels from a printer in Radstock, and cardboard from a plant that’s a twenty-minute drive from the dairy.
Next batch
Subscriptions open at the start of each batch and close when the crock runs dry. If you’d rather try before you commit, the independent grocers above always have a jar you can open in the shop.