My Dad used to make this using only the peppers and vinegar. He used long slender green (and an occasional red) cayenne peppers which he grew. He packed the peppers in bottles with a small neck (such as Worcestershire or Tabasco) and heated the vinegar before pouring it over the peppers. He called it Hot Sauce and sprinkled it over turnip greens, black eyed peas and almost anything else which needed a kick. If I were making it today I'd put it in the fridge when it cools. Pepper Pique Source: Ziedrich The Joy of Pickling 12 medium long or conical chili peppers such as cayenne, de arbol or jalapeno 4 cloves garlic 12 black peppercorns 1/2 tsp pickling salt 1 cup cider vinegar Put the peppers, garlic cloves, peppercorns and salt into a bottle with a capacity of about 12 ounces. (A rum bottle is most authentic, but a small wine vinegar bottle will do, particularly if you've kept the plastic inner and outer caps.) Using a funnel, pour enough vinegar into the bottle to cover well. Put the caps on and shake to dissolve the salt. Let the bottle sit 2 to 3 days undisturbed so the vinegar can absorb the other flavors. The longer it sits the hotter it gets. Store the bottle in the refrigerator or in a cool place. Until the pepper flavor gets weak, you can top off the bottle with fresh vinegar as needed.

gagger, you could be right. I plan to spoon as much of the salt that I can off. It's mostly very crusty and easy to see! I have tasted the liquid at the edges, and it's YES! VERY SALTY! Underneath, there is no salt, so I'm hoping it will equal out. I will definitely update this thread when it happens, but it sure is fun to watch the ferment. I'm thinking 2 or 3 weeks, and then hit it with vinegar and bottle. If it is too salty, lucky me, I've got a bunch of frozen jalapenos in the freezer, so I may have to ferment those without salt, and add them to the salty batch. I could probably kick up the ferment with a little sugar and some wine yeast. Tobasco ferments in oak for 3 years! I don't think I could do that! Waaay too long. I even have an oak barrel, but that is for wine! Most of the joy of doing this is anticipating the flavors that happen, and sharing it with family and friends, with them knowing they can't BUY this stuff! They have to come for a visit to get a taste!! My family likes heat! We are California natives, and have lived close to Mexico forever, so we do like it Spicy HOT!! tracydr, So you added vinegar after 10 days, right? Good luck with your canning! I prefer freezing, fermenting, brining, stuff like that. I fear the lid of the pressure cooker flying off and hitting me! LOL!! Nice to see you post, so i know the garlic in your ferment did not kill you! The sour dough starter gave me a lot of comfort with fermenting. half flour/half water, the bubbles come, and over the years, it just gets better! I don't have a dog or a cat or a fish. Just my Yeasties! And I only have to feed them now and then! Suzi

Hi Dude, Pepper Fool has many good sauce recipes. See the link below. For what you are looking for, you might want to try one of the basic pepper sauce recipes using Rain Forest peppers. They are very fruity and not too hot. If you do want to use habs, see their Habenero Pepper Sauce recipe. I have used that before with a combination of Yellow Habs and Jamaica Scotch Bonnet. The carrots tone it down a bit. Enjoy your peppers. John A Here is a link that might be useful: Pepper Fool Recipes

I know this was said before, and I appreciate everyones advice. I just ordered 100+ "Red Cherry Bomb" seeds to be the bulk base of the sauce and now wondering what I should go with to make different variations. I only saw 2 options to buy from at "Amaz" for Red Cherry Bombs and I like the idea they are fruity and not as hot as others. Now for my next purchase. For example I will do a (Hot, very Hot, and Extremely Hot). But still looking for the best flavor with the 3 variety of sauces, I will just ad more or less of the following Hotter peppers below. 1.) Orange or Red Scotch Bonet? 2.) Orange or Red Habenro? 3.) Red/orange BHut? 4.) Other I prefer red or orange for the color but if you think different let me know about chocolate. I just love teh look of a bright red or a redish/orange sauce. The other thing is I would like to grow these in containers if possible so smaller the better. My area is 6b located between Philly and Princeton Thanks Again -----Edit Updated--------- Sorry for update but just saw a good deal on teh web and just purchased the following below, 1. Cayenne Red Long Pepper (100 seeds) $2.30 2 Caribian Red Hot Habenaro (50 seeds) $1.29 I figure for about $3.50 I could not go wrong. I am still interested in Scotch Bonnet and the other Habaneros ect... and after further research I think the Bhut may be too hot. But with the Cayenne, can use it for sauce or just make a bunch of powder and the Caribean for $1.29 was a deal with free shipping and they were running out of stock.. This post was edited by thebutcher on Tue, Apr 2, 13 at 15:17