Vera did it take John a full one year plus one day to answer your last question? I hope he is quicker this time. haha.

little gas bubbles form on the water surface around the edge of the jar. You can also check by opening the lid and there should be a little pop noice from the gas coming out.

John F

when you make the kin chee and cukes. do you add water? I thought cucs need a brine of water and salt. I know nothing about kim chee except it is fermented veggies.

What do you mean by kefir whey. I have only heard about the dry kefir powder.

I pickled some cucs years ago. I filled the container with cucs. added salty water and a plate on top to hold it all down. then took them out in a week or two and bottled them in vinegar with spices.

from the wonders of the internet here is a kim chee recipe

http://www.fabulousfoods.com/recipes/appetizers/pickles/kimchee.html

I used the recipe for cabbage Kimchi in the book "Wild Fermentation" by Sandor Katz ( adapted a bit for vegies from the garden like bok choy and using jt's method of sealed jar.).I won't type out the whole thing here but if you email me I can scan and send it. It's quite easy and my wife loves it.Only takes about a week of fermentation at room temp and then into fridge. You use water to make the brine for the initial soaking but that is drained off and a tiny bit added back to get the vegied covered. Kefir whey is the watery part of the Kefir that I have going on my counter. jt also use sour dough starter which I haven't tried.

My wife took some of ours in for a Korean woman she works with to taste--her verdict: too salty, too much ginger, and not enough chiles. But she says there are as many recipes as there are families so you can experiment until you find what you like.

JohnF

Forgot to say I use the whey in sauerkraut too- comes out really good-on my third batch and I have my first batch of fermented pickles just moved to the fridge--two more weeks 'till tasting time. jt got me started on this stuff and it's been fun. The biggest surprise is how into it my wife has become. Anybody have ideas for using sauerkraut? Don't want to heat it hot or it kills the good stuff.

Vera

John is using a wine making air lock or water lock. If you stop in at a wine making shop or do a google search you can see how it works. You put a little water into the chamber above and the gas is forced to bubble through the water. the water acts to seal things from going the other way.

the picture below shows how it works. this is another kind and easier to understand the first time. Johns is smaller but doing the same thing.

For the water lock to work you must have the container sealed so all gas goes through the water lock. remember the fermentation is producing more gas all the time.

> My wife took some of ours in for a Korean woman she works with to taste--her verdict: too salty, too much ginger, and not enough chiles.

John,

Don't you just love an honest appraisal? Seriously.

What I love about the starters is that you can do ferments with no salt at all if you so choose. You can always add salt, but it's hard to adjust to something that is too salty. And there will be a somewhat predictable outcome. Much more so than if trusting wild bacteria to do the fermenting and faster.

jt

jt

You have made a believer of me. Your system works for me and is so much simpler than weights and airlocks. . I thought the second batch of Kimchi was too salty too and also not hot enough--trying to please Mary's palate. The first two batches of kraut were good but I put less salt ( and some kefir whey) in the batch that's going now. Tasted it today and it was not very sour--does it take longer with less salt?

John

> ...does it take longer with less salt?

John,

No, just the opposite. Ferments differ for some reason. I can make 4 jars exactly the same from the same batch and quite often one will go crazy and froth all over the place. Especially true with pepper mash.

jt

O.K., dumb question here. How does one know how much Kefir to put into the mash. Is there a mixing rate?

> Is there a mixing rate?

Not that I know of. It just makes sense that the more starter the more bacteria will multiply per whatever volume of mash in a given amt of time. A tsp per pint works really well. Perhaps an 8th tsp would work just as or almost as well in the final result even though might take a few days longer?

Thank you! - Mark

John, Do I understand that you no longer use the air locks? I was thinking of fermenting a pepper mash, then make sauce out of it.
John A

John,

No more air locks, water locks, balloons or condoms. I've done enough now that know by looking at the bubbles when a ferment is going well. Just another advantage of clear glass rather than using crocks.

jt

This thread is a gold mine for newbies (like me).

I need your help. I remember my father making a pepper mash using Portuguese hot peppers. I am tryin to recreate this process. Quite simply you remove all seeds from the long red peppers, grind them, and let them sit until they bubble and the jar them up after they stop bubbling. Salt is also added into the mash at the beginning.

I screwed up and also added some vinegar and lemon juice and I have yet to see any signs of fermentation. I assume it is because of the vinegar and lemon juice.

So the question - is there a way to conteract the vinegar and lemon juice and kick start the fermentation???

I would greatly appreciate your help.

Regards,

Kolchak

There's been some talk in this thread about what is in kefir. The starter powders aren't nearly as good as the grains. They are a polysaccharide complex that is secreted by a community of bacteria and yeasts. These communities will bud off and start new communities and make new 'grains'. Anyway, there are many forms of beneficial bacteria and yeasts in them- they are much better for you than yogurt. And the grains themselves (the polysaccharides) are highly medicinal. Anyone that is interested in them should check out the link below- its THE source for kefir info.

Something I am trying this year is pureeing raw peppers throughout the season (as they are picked) and then storing the puree in the fridge in jugs with kefir grains. Slow ferments = better flavor. I'm now to the point of needing vinegar. But instead of adding it, I'm trying to brew my own. I just took my puree and added an equal amount of fresh apple cider without preservatives. Also a cup of honey. Its all in a covered bucket and stirred every day with a hand blender. Some new grains were added to this. I'm planning on adding an aquarium bubbler with a filter on the end to increase airflow. Better for fermenting and will *hopefully* increase evaporation so its a little thicker. I'll pasteurize and add salt when I get the acidity and consistency that I am looking for.

Not sure how long I have to wait for it to become vinegar tho, I mean after it becomes hard cider-pepper mash. Fingers crossed!

Kolchak, you could try adding something to raise your ph. Baking soda or bleach perhaps. (100% pure bleach, not the 'no drip' or scented stuff)

I would not add bleach. Are you sure it would be safe as a food. bleach kills everything. It is a super strong poison. chlorine bleach is anyway. I will bet the food and drug admin outlaws the use of bleach in food. Also I dont think it will raise the PH. I suspect it will lower the PH. But I am only guessing on this one.

http://osuextra.okstate.edu/pdfs/FAPC-116web.pdf

discusses bleach and food.

I get real nervous someone is going to kill themselves making hot sauce. Please learn to make the standard vinegar hot sauce

Let me see if I have this right, bobcat. You are pureeing peppers throughout the summer and adding them to a container in the fridge as you get them? No salt barrier? No airlock? The grains are a good thing, but the gas they are producing is not protecting the surface the way I picture it. Have you seen any kahm yeast mold? It's just a matter of time if you haven't.

I don't even know where to start so will just wish you luck and hope you do more research on the subject.

Yesterday I ground for powder 3 5oz woozys of Manzano, carrot, apple, onion, garlic, raisin sauce that I started on 4/30 this year at 80° and put in 45° fridge on 4/7 until just a few days ago. Sourdough was used as a rapid starter and the bottles kept tightly capped throughout. 2.95-3.1 was the pH range when I opened them. Certainly no vinegar needed.

On a positive note... if you use proper home canning techniques and pressure process your sauce for 35 min at 15 lbs pressure in pint jars then the sauce would not be as risky.

Things change. The universities, extention services etc are learning more and more about food safely and the guidelines change. Bacteria are evolving. What worked for granny just might not work now. I recently heard some talk about listeria in refrigerator pickles. Something I need to find out abt soon. Many of us bought "The Joy of Pickling" and "The Vinegar Book" when they first came out. They might be outdated now. The Ball Blue Book hasn't been updated since '94 and I understand it is being revised.

Sorry that this post seems so negative and I perhaps shoud rewrite it. But I am just too lazy. Did not mean it to sound like a lecture.

Hot regards,
jt

Its all cool. We're here to protect each other and exchange ideas for the greater good and all that, right? My response is a little long, but it covers both of the last comments, so pls read thru it.

I've been culturing milk (and other things) for some time now, using grains. No, I have had no kahm's. Its a yeast, btw, not a mold- which would be a fungi. Another reason why grains are better than powder is exactly because they are grains. That polysaccharide housing protects and stores the mother cultures. And they keep pushing out more and more good guys to protect your food. With powder, if your colony collapses or succumbs to bad guys, then its done. This is especially important when considering PH changes because grains have 'sleeper cells' that won't colonize the foods until the PH is right. So as one set dies off, your next line of defense begins anew.

Maybe that is why you are experiencing such growths. Your PH might be changing and rendering your cultures ineffective. Leaving your product wide open for colonization by what-have-you. And even kefir, if over cultured, can "flower" when strains start to reproduce. Hence, another reason to cold culture, as it slows everybody down a bit.

Did I mention that I started out blending the pepper mash with whey, not water? So between the whey and grains, the refrigerated mash is already colonized by the good guys. Very hard for bad guys to get a foot hold. Same theory applies to why people should eat kefir and yogurt, so we get colonized.... Anyhoo, I'm past the pureeing and cold culturing point. I'm on day three of the plan. My 100% non-mouldy mash is turning into spicy apple wine right now....

Per the bleach, you can use bleach to purify water in emergency situations. I'm providing one of many sites explaining this. You can google it, too. Basically, bleach will react with your food and break down into salt, water and gas in very little time. It is also used in root canal surgery to cleanse and sterilize tissue.

Bleach is VERY basic. PH 11. Will it affect the PH of the sauce? Of course, most certainly and by all means, yes. How much you would have to use to neutralize your formula.... I don't know. Also, I don't know what PH you would ultimately want to be at. I also don't know what it would do to flavor- although time should take care of 'bleach taste', there may be other oxidation issues.

It was an off the cuff suggestion. One might try baking soda first, as a better solution to the problem. Enough of it should get you in the PH 8 range- but your dealing with more sodium.

BC,

I'm not sure yet that Kahm isn't a mold, but since it's harmless and only imparts a bad taste we can move on.

And I am not afraid of bleach. We've had that discussion here before re using to remove capsaicin oil from hands.

As to the whey vs grains I'm not yet convinced that say a tsp of grains (might be just a grain or two) is better than a tsp of whey mixed in.

I'm going to be on the road for a few days, but looking forward to continuing this conversation later.

One question that I have that you might know answer to... When I feed my kefir cultures frozen milk they do not do as well and instead of having a somewhat clear liquid suspended in the middle of the culture the liquid forms on top such as with sourdough 'hooch'.

jt

bobczt

very interesting reading. Glad to see bleach is not so dangerous as I thought. Backing soda is a good buffer used to modify ph.

However, I still favor the vinegar hot sauce. It is very fast to make. I can make it completely in one day. It is very safe to eat. The vinegar protects everything and the boiling kills off germs also. I think it tastes the same. It delivers the hot punch to my taste buds. Lastly, it has to be good since almost all commercial hot sauce is made this way.

Even Tabasco company takes the mash and adds more than an equal amount of vinegar to it. They do not want to say how much. But they admit to an equal amount early on and then more vinegar later.

John, the bleach stuff was directed at Dan (thanks for bringing that stuff up, btw, cause the soda would surely be better).

The term 'mold' is thrown around as anything fuzzy growing on your food. But yeasts can do that too. Everything I've seen calls Kahm a yeast. Mold is, by definition, a fungi. However, there is a line somewhere between the Fungi Imperfecti and the yeasts. I dunno, maybe kahm is there somewhere.

Grains v Whey: This is how I understand it. Take a tablespoon of whey and you are going to have a certain number of living good guys in it. They will reproduce and do their thing. Thats all fine. But those good guys have some faults. First of all, once they sit in enough of their own wastes, they are going to rest or die. The colony will collapse due to unfavorable conditions (mostly being the Ph). At that point, 'secondary infections' by other creatures will take place- including some you don't want. Of course, this can happen before the colony collapses. Because that set group of living things can defend their land well against some things but not others. So a war is waging when you culture food. Good v. Bad.

Grains hold many more types of good guys and many of them stay at rest until the conditions are right (they have various good guys that like high Ph, neutral Ph, low Ph, aerobic, anaerobic and combinations thereof). And since there are so many types, most secondary infections are effectively held off.

What do you mean you feed them frozen milk? I have read that you are not supposed to freeze the grains, so maybe there are cultures (some in the whey you get?) that have a problem with the cold? Perhaps a colloidal issue? I dunno, but when I age my kefir, prior to seperating the whey, the whey and kurd will move around.

John and everyone else.

I took some Jalapeno mash and added a large amount of Yogurt. It is a Greek Yogurt and it said it guarantees live culture at least up to the expiration date on the package. I did not read the expiration date but it was new from the store. It was a very plain yogurt. I put probably 2 ounces into a quart jar. it turned the red peppers pink. haha.

I also put a "normal" amount of salt in the jar. a good heaping tablespoon of salt. about 2 level tablespoons or a liquid ounce.

But I am not getting any bubbling action. It has been several days now. Although the room is cool.

Has anyone tried yogurt. Is this the "correct" culture. Will Yogurt work? Will it "spoil" the mash ??

Did I make a mistake?

what is a "correct" temperature for making yogurt? maybe I am keeping it too cool for the "action" to take place.

John I have another interesting question.

If I save my tomato seeds I let them sit and ferment. I wonder if the fermentation is the same as we have here for making hot sauce. I was wondering if one can use the left over tomato juice after fermenting the seeds and put it into pepper mash as a starter for the mash.

I also wonder if you can go to the store and buy some naturally fermented sauerkraut and use the juice as a starter on the pepper mash.

part of the problem with this approach is that a natural fermentation starts with different organisms then it finishes off with. so the sauerkraut would have only the ending organisms. The early stuff would be long ago dead from the low PH.

Dan: I used kefir but I used the clear whey floating at the top of the container - likewise with my sourdough starter - I used the clear liquid floating at the top. I think the same holds true for yogurt - you want to use the whey - not the yogurt itself. The sourdough starter ferment started faster and lasted longer than the kefir - I haven't finished the sauce so I can't speak to which tastes better.

Dangould, I have never fermented peppers but I've made alot of yogurt. I think my machine incubates the milk + culture at about 110 F. If I scald the milk first, it must cool to 118 F or less(if I remember correctly- there's a mark on the thermometer I look for) before adding the starter. If it is above 118 F the culture gets killed off. I don't know how any of this would work with peppers.

On a somewhat(?) related tangent: Heating tomato seeds in 122F water for about 20 minutes kills most pathogens.

BTW, the red to pink color change is interesting. Pink hot sauce sounds quite unusual.

Well good news to report.

The Pink hot sauce with Yogurt is bubbling away just fine later today. I am sure it will keep going. Lots of bubbles in the bottle now. I guess it took a while to get going. I moved it last night from a cool kitchen cabinet to a warm room.

John this is a lot of trouble. The boil in vinegar is so easy and fast. But lets see how it tastes. probably kind of yogurty. haha. Next time I will take the "water" (aka whey) off the top of the yogurt and try that. That makes sense to me now. hehe.

BTW it is bubbling very nicely today. It is a good strong ferment for sure. The room was probably about 75 today. it was probably 65 the past couple of days. so the extra warmth seems to do the trick.

I just thought of something - when I finish my sauce I'm planning on running it through a food mill, heating it up to a boiling for 5 minutes, add vinegar, adjust seasoning and can it. If Dan follows a similar process will the yogurt curdle? hmn, maybe not, since creme fraiche can be boiled without curdling and it's a similar product it might be fine.
Dan, do you really think it's a lot of trouble? I thought of it as a science experiment that you can eat. hours of entertainment.

If I save my tomato seeds I let them sit and ferment. I wonder if the fermentation is the same as we have here for making hot sauce. I was wondering if one can use the left over tomato juice after fermenting the seeds and put it into pepper mash as a starter for the mash.

Dan,

I'm not saying that it wouldn't work, but not something I would try w/o a lot of searching for additional info. I think it might taste horrible. Having fermented tomato seeds for years can sure say that it smells terrible. Sourdough "hooch" I use quite a lot because it can be a day faster to get things started than Kefir whey, but I use only white flour because the even more active flours such as rye impart such a strong (one I don't like) taste to the mash. I think a fast start in a closed system that doesn't use a salt barrier is important, but I must repeat that I am not an expert at this.

Peppers take longer to get started than any other veggie I've fermented (other than garlic) and like warm temps in the 80s for the first few days. Adding mashed carrots, apples, canteloupe etc to the mash seems to speed things up too.

For the fastest possible pepper mash start I would

1. 80° temp
2. sourdough hooch for a starter
3. add ripe canteloupe mash

I do not have a USDA approved boiling water bath canning method for fermented pepper mash that wouldn't call for adding additional vinegar and adding more acid just seems stupid. Pints can be safely pressure processed for 35 min at 15 lbs pressure as is.

JMO

jt

Yes it is a lot of trouble and it makes a real mess for me.

Yes Hours of entertainment cleaning up the mess. The stupid mash blew right out the top of the bottle all over the table messing up some things and down onto the rug on the floor. I hope it is not stained. This mash dries sticky and gooey.

Lamalu, My advice to everyone is go back to easy method. Put the peppers into a pot of vinegar boil it up. let it cool down. run through a blender or whatever. then bottle it up. simple. fast. easy. no mess. no fuss.

If you are going to boil it then why bother with the fermentation. May as well skip that messy step.

you can filter out the solids and seeds with a kitchen strainer.

If you do not want to boil it up then let it sit in a bottle of vinegar for a few months to soften up.

I have been trying to get some comparisons between the methods but so far no one really chimes in. Someone did agree that the fermentation was a bit messy and not easy.

Well, John, since most hot sauces contain vinegar I won't take offence to you calling the addition [and by default, me] stupid! Actually, I am too lazy to buy a ph meter so the vinegar ensures that I have an acid product and is safe to water bath.
Dan: I think that the fermentation is going to add a special flavor to the hot sauce. Soon I will have sauces made by a quick method and fermentation and will be able to compare. I'm going to boil as a prelude to canning to kill off whatever lurks, I don't expect the flavor to change all that much but I'll taste it in the interests of science top be sure.
You must have had some wicked ferment going! I left at least an inch of headspace in my jars and covered loosely and didn't have a problem with overflowing. I'm a little jealous...
I'm hoping to finish my sauce this week and will post my findings.

> Well, John, since most hot sauces contain vinegar I won't take offence to you calling the addition [and by default, me] stupid!

Oh please, give me a break! It's the USDA!!!!!!!!!!!!

adiós

Fermentation does add a flavor but it only lasts a week or so. Then it goes away. It is like fresh half sour deli pickles. the deli makes them fresh every 2 weeks. Kim Chee can not maintain the flavor and has to be fresh fermented.

I fermented some green tomatoes last fall and they were good for about 2 weeks then they lost it.

I will bet that the hot sauce has a different taste but that it goes away. give it a month or so. It will be just like the vinegar one.

another thing is that you get used to the flavor. Lets say I dump some on my pizza every day. after a while it is simply hot sauce on my pizza to spice it up. the difference between A and B is not relevant if it exists. My taste buds will be just as happy with A as with B after a month.

Well good news the fermentation is slowing down. Thus I do not have to relieve pressure so often. I did make a mistake I should mention for others. I used the plastic screw caps on the mason jars. These do not seal as well and the pressure was able to push the juice out of the jar.

I switched to a metal lid and metal screw band and it works fine that way.

My other mistake was putting too much into the jar. Best to leave a huge air space up above the mash for expansion. I filled them up high. This is a big mistake as the mash expands from having bubbles all through the mash.

I still say the boil in vinegar method is better.

The mash is still pink colored but more uniform in color. less of a white look from the yogurt. I believe it will be fine in the end. Although I would prefer a darker red color and using the whey or liquid on top would be preferred.

Well, I am super happy with my hot sauces. I'm up to version #4, 3 of them are based on the red hot sauce recipe from the Ball Blue Book, with adjustments, I added garlic, reduced the sugar to 1/4 cup plus 2 Tabs, used brown sugar instead of white and about 1 Tab of molasses. I varied the mix and amount of hot peppers, and roasted a portion for batches 1 and 2.
Hot Sauce #4 is the fermented pepper mash and I'm very happy with the result. I finished it as described in an earlier post and used 1/3 vinegar to 2/3 pepper ferment. I hope you are wrong about the flavor dissipating, Dan. I really like the way it came out. I could not discern any taste difference between the kefir whey ferment and sourdough hooch ferment.
I'm ready for winter, bring it, I've got about 32 1/2 pints of hot sauce stockpiled!

Holy Hot Peppers. 32 half pints. You are set. What kind of peppers.

Try to keep the jars closed up and in the dark and cold as long as possible. a dark basement or inside a box in a cold spot in the basement maybe. Too many jars for a refrigerator. But you might put one or two in the refrig for comparisons.

I do not have the Ball Blue Book can you list he recipe.

cup = ounces liquid.
2 tablespoons = 1 ounce liquid.

therefore you used 3 ounces liquid of sugar. How big was the amount of peppers. was this 3 ounces in a quart jar ??? or 3 ounces of sugar to 100 pounds of peppers. haha.

I like your idea of "1/3 vinegar to 2/3 pepper ferment" it sounds good to me.

I dont think there is a difference in taste between different ferments. the question I always wonder about is if you skip the ferment and just do a vinegar boil will the taste be the same??? No one has reported on that.

I think it would be cool to start a thread on how you did your hot sauce this year and we can all respond and learn. It sounds like you are doing a good job but a thread would give more complete information to help everyone.

I put my last year hot sauce in a half gallon jug. I left it out in the light. It went flat tasting compared to new. It also lost its nice color and turned kind of brownish. I am pretty sure the color loss was from the light. I also believe the light will affect the flavor. But a warm room probably does the trick also.

I started a new batch of hot sauce yesterday. Kind of exciting but then who knows. I found a tree with some crab apples and picked some. then I boiled them in a pot with some apple juice. they got soft and I ran it through a food mill. I wanted apple juice but got apple sauce. I mixed in some mixed hot peppers ground up and now I hope it ferments. I added some from the older fermenting jar.

Anyway. I have to mention this because people were asking about a way to thicken up the hot sauce with some chemical. xanthan gum or something like that. Anyway the preliminary mash if it can be called that is thick like a thick apple sauce. kind of terrible in a way. Have to see if I get a thick fermented hot sauce.

crab apples apparently have a lot of pectin and cooking them might have affected the pectin. pectin thicken things up also. I did not add sugar to the brew so lets see how it goes. I did add salt. I have a quart jar going but I left a good amount of air space for expansion.

Right now I hope I did not ruin my hot sauce with the crab apple sauce. It tasted pretty good before fermenting. I kind of liked the taste. slthough it was a bit salty but that should go away as it ferments.

I'll chime in. I do not believe a fermented pepper sauce loses it's flavor in a couple of weeks. Try telling most of the cayenne sauce makers that using mash does not make a difference.

I have been mashing for a couple of years. Right now I have 5 gallons of Super Cayenne and 10 gallons of Mesilla. The only thing I add is salt, at a rate of one cup per gallon. With this, the PH is always around 3.9-4.1. Then, once I blend the vinegar with the mash (as McIllhenny) the PH soars down to around 3.3-3.5. Then I strain. I have brought some strain up to 185 but the taste has a slight "medicine" taste. Without cooking, the strain tastes awesome. And, I have left a couple of test bottles out (never refridgerated) and tested them throughout the year and they have always maintained the same PH. And, I can still taste that unique flavor of the mashed pepper.

That's my 2 cents.

Zanker

So Glad to see you post here. I am glad to hear everything you have to say but I dont understand everything that you do say.

Can I ask you how you do 5 or 10 gallons. I assume you are not using quart jars.

How much vinegar do you add to the mash when done to drive down the PH as you mention.

so you say if after the ferment if we heat it up to 185 F that the taste will change.

I use half the salt but then I dont use Cayenne. Cayenne mash tends to use about twice the salt. I think it is because the salt is used to suck the moisture out of the pepper and the cayenne is a more dry pepper so it takes more salt. Just a guess on my part.

Do you add only salt and no kefir starter????

Mesilla Green maturing to red Cayenne Hybrid pepper. Grows to 11 inches long by 1.5 inches wide. Resistant to TMV, PVY and TEV. Thin walled. 2000-4000 SHU.

WOW that seems kind of mild. Cayenne is about 30,000 to 50,000 SHU Do you mix the two together. How is the Mesilla all by itself?

When you say you make 5 gallons how do you measure or ferment that. did you add a liquid to the fairly dry peppers to fill in the air gaps.

I hope you stay around here and share your expertise with everyone. I want to say thank you for sharing. we all can use your sharing.

Hi all, sorry I've taken so long to respond.
Red Hot Sauce (from Ball Blue Book)
2 qts chopped peeled cored tomatoes
1 1/2 cups chopped seeded hot red peppers
1 qt vinegar divided
1 cup sugar
1 Tab salt
2 Tabs pickling spice
Combine tomatoes, peppers and 2 cups vinegar in large pot. Cook until tomatoes are soft. Press through sieve or food mill. Add sugar and salt. Tie spices in spice bag and add to mixture. Cook about 30 minutes or until thick. Stir frequently. Add remaining 2 cups vinegar. Cook until as thick as desired, about 30 minutes. Ladle hot sauce into hot jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Process 15 minutes in water bath. Yield: about 4 half pints.

My method: Cut up and dump tomatoes and peppers in pot with 2 cups vinegar(it makes no sense to me to peel tomatoes that are going through a food mill anyway and seeding peppers makes a wimpy sauce). Char some of the peppers if you want(I used a blend of thai, poblano and jalapeno for one batch roasting about 1/3 of the peppers, I've also made a version with just Habaneros, or the previous blend plus 1 or 2 Habaneros). Add some garlic. Cook until soft, then let it steep for 2 hours or overnight or when youi finally find the only store in town with 1/2 pint jars. Run through food mill. Add 1/4 plus 2 Tabs brown sugar, some molasses, the pickling spice and salt. Follow rest of recipe. Sometimes I add a dried hab and sometimes a dried chili to each jar. I also went for a Tabasco thickness and got more than 4 1/2 pints.

This kind of recipe is confusing to me. I has 2 quarts of tomatoes and a quart of vinegar plus more and it winds up with only 2 quarts total. what is going on.

Anyway I also have canned tomatos basically this same process. I call it tomato juice. I took tomatoes and ran it through a food mill and bottled up the juice and pulp together as tomato juice. Do I use 2 quarts of my juice as the same thing ???

I also dont like to hang spices in a bag and boil and throw out the bag. I like to put spices in and leave them there.

However, I do like the recipe to me it is basically tomato juice with chiles and spices. only 1 tablespoon of salt in 2 quarts seems easy on the salt. My usual hot sauce uses 4 tablespoons or 2 ounces liquid in half gallon or 2 quarts.

I think there is a typo. You have

"Run through food mill. Add 1/4 plus 2 Tabs brown sugar,"

add 1/4 what ????

I would never seed my hot pappers either. That would remove too much good heat. the placenta. I did Annies Salsa and doubled the chiles and made them all habanero. Now that was salsa. Annie was using red bell peppers. haha.

I like this recipe because I have felt that combining my tomato juice with hot peppers should make a good hot sauce. I have not been figuring out how to do it however. The good thing about tomtoes is that they already have a low PH. maybe not real low but sort of low. the vinegar knocks it down real good. Also because the tomato juice is already low not so much vinegar is needed. And the tomatoes should give a smooth taste. I like this one.

dangould,

I try to answer with what knowledge I have learned thus far....

Can I ask you how you do 5 or 10 gallons. I assume you are not using quart jars.

****I grind (fresh and washed)~100lbs of Mesilla red that I buy (or used to anyway), 50-60 lbs Super Cayenne that I grow. I use 5 gallon buckets, and once I strain the mash, I bottle it in sterilized woozy bottles and nip bottles. I buy my bottles from SKS bottles. Right now I plan to only bottle a hundred or so while the rest of the concoction ages (like Tabasco, so to speak. For me the wait is because I would get thrown out of the house by my wife if I bought $500 worth of bottles and gave them all away!!!

How much vinegar do you add to the mash when done to drive down the PH as you mention.

*****using 1:2 vinegar. That a lot vinegar purchase!!

so you say if after the ferment if we heat it up to 185 F that the taste will change.

****I am not sure yet if the flavor is that of the vinegar cooking or the mash. But it does have a medicine tast after maintaining 185 for 20 minutes. I asked a major mash supplier if I needed to pasturize their product like that and they said "NO", never needed. We'll see.

I use half the salt but then I dont use Cayenne. Cayenne mash tends to use about twice the salt. I think it is because the salt is used to suck the moisture out of the pepper and the cayenne is a more dry pepper so it takes more salt. Just a guess on my part.

****Yes, I think you are right. I bought some mash that has 15% salt, which would take a bit of dilution to be palatable.

Do you add only salt and no kefir starter????

****Just salt. I studied as much information as I could about McIllhenny's methods and stuck with that. Though I have been a lurker on the kefir thread, I have had great success with straight Kosher salt.

Mesilla Green maturing to red Cayenne Hybrid pepper. Grows to 11 inches long by 1.5 inches wide. Resistant to TMV, PVY and TEV. Thin walled. 2000-4000 SHU.

****Mesilla Red

WOW that seems kind of mild. Cayenne is about 30,000 to 50,000 SHU Do you mix the two together. How is the Mesilla all by itself?

****Too mild. that's where the Super Cayenne comes in. the people that ask me for this stuff dont want to be burned but also want a little bit of zip.

When you say you make 5 gallons how do you measure or ferment that. did you add a liquid to the fairly dry peppers to fill in the air gaps.

****I grind the peppers and dump them in a steril bucket until they are close to the top. Then mix the salt, pop the lid (with a beer-making type airlock) and seal. Every week I open it and give it a stir.

I hope you stay around here and share your expertise with everyone. I want to say thank you for sharing. we all can use your sharing.

****There are a lot of people with a ton more knowledge than myself for sure. I have had some success, however, definately do not claim to have all of the definitive answers. I have learned a ton from this the people on this site and continue to check for any bits of info that will help. Hope I answered your questions!

Zakker

Dan: I meant 1/4 cup of brown sugar plus 2 Tabs brown sugar - took a little shortcut - sorry for the confusion.
If I were using ground spices I might not use a spice bag but the pickling spices are seeds and leaves and stuff so I toss them - I suppose you could grind the spices first so you didn't have to remove them. I've also thought about using other spices but laziness took over. The finished volume will vary depending on how thick you cook your sauce down - keep tasting it - if you use too much salt and cook it down thick I think it will be too salty.
I bet you could use tomato juice - I happen to have a ton of tomatoes this year so this recipe was ideal. There is another hot sauce recipe floating around Gardenweb called 'easy hot sauce' that is very similar that calls for canned tomato. I'll try to find the link and also my notes on my ferment to post tomorrow.

Here is the hot sauce recipe from Harvest forum that I mentioned above.

"Posted by readinglady z8 OR (My Page) on Tue, Jul 3, 07 at 10:58

Easy Hot Sauce

If jelly is not your canned food of choice, try an easy hot sauce recipe to spice things up. Easy Hot Sauce is great for stirring into vegetables or cheese dips and spicing up soups and chili.

You'll need:

8 cups (64 ounces) canned, diced tomatoes, undrained
1½ cups seeded, chopped Serrano peppers
4 cups distilled white vinegar (5 percent)
2 teaspoons canning salt
2 tablespoons whole mixed pickling spices (optional)

This recipe yields four half-pint jars. Wear gloves when handling, cutting and seeding hot peppers or wash hands thoroughly with soap and water before touching your face or eyes.

Start by washing half-pint canning jars; keep hot until they are filled. Prepare lids according to the manufacturer's directions.

Next place mixed pickling spices in a spice bag and tie ends firmly. Mix all ingredients in a Dutch oven or large saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Simmer for 20 minutes or until tomatoes are soft.

Press mixture through a food mill. Return the liquid to the pot, heat to boiling and boil for 15 minutes.

Fill hot sauce into clean, hot half-pint jars, leaving ¼-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace if needed. Wipe rims of jars with a dampened clean paper towel; apply two-piece metal canning lids.

Process in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes (15 minutes if 1,000-6,000 ft altitude; 20 minutes if over 6,000 ft). Allow hot sauce to cool, undisturbed, for 12 to 24 hours and check seals. You can remove screw bands after the food has cooled if the lids are sealed.

Carol"

the 2 recipes are almost identical.

2 qts chopped peeled cored tomatoes
1 1/2 cups chopped seeded hot red peppers
1 qt vinegar divided

is the same as

8 cups (64 ounces) canned, diced tomatoes, undrained
1½ cups seeded, chopped Serrano peppers
4 cups distilled white vinegar (5 percent)

the rest is minor. But I like the recipe or both recipes.

but I still have a question for Zakker.

How do you grind up the peppers. blender or food processor or something else.

*****using 1:2 vinegar. That a lot vinegar purchase!!

I take it you mean 1 part mash to 2 parts vinegar. I suspect this is a common ratio that commercial people use.

I suspect some of the cayenne people use more vinegar to dilute the salt. but lousiana hot sauce is cayenne mash with vinegar and it is kind of salty. Might be able to figure the dilution from the final salt and a good guess on the starting salt.

Of course all mfg will rave about their process of making hot sauce. Tabasco sure does. But it seems to me that if you add 2 units of vinegar to the 1 unit of mash then why bother fermenting. You have so much vinegar that you may as well just use the pure vinegar method. Just putting the question to you to see what you might say. I really wonder if you can taste a difference.

I would say that any fermentation taste is gone from tabasco. It tastes like flavored vinegar to me. And aging the tabasco sure is a waste of time and energy. I can not imagine that doing it with say a couple of weeks aging would be just as good as the 3 years of aging they claim. and the oak barrel might be ok for wine but I doubt it does anything for hot sauce.

and what do you think of lamalu's 2 quick easy recipes. no fermentation. nice tomato taste.

John do you know if you can ferment the tomato juice. Can we mix tomato juice and hot peppers and ferment them. The problem I see is that the tomato juice is already pretty low acid so it might not ferment properly.

by the way pretty cool that you could purchase 100 pounds of hot peppers. I assume at a good price.

Bye the way I have never been a cayenne fan. To me they always seemed hot without much flavor. just blind heat. well at 50,000 SHU they are hot and I dont find much flavor. For example I like habanero at say 350,000 SHU with good flavor. for some reason they do not have that same heat that cayenne has.

However, It is interesting they have a new hybrid cayenne type with low heat. that has possibilities because the cayenne has nice high yield. so in a small garden maybe I can get more pepper for my hot sauce. then heat it up with other stuff.

but zakker you seem to talk about the flavor of cayenne. so i find that interesting. what do you think of other pepper flavors. or maybe you like to get the flavor from the food and add the heat using cayenne.

Bye the way ship 100 bottles to me pronto.

dangould,

I am meaning 2 parts mash to 1 part vin. If it is too salty, I would go to 1:1. I do not ever want vinegar to control the taste of the pepper (just to dilute some salt and make it thinner). That's why I started experimenting. And, I totally agree with you on the Tabasco flavor, it is definately more "perfume" vineger than ferment pepper. The best commercial Cayenne sauce I have found is Trappey's Red Devil. Not regular trappeys, just the Red Devil.

As far as other peppers, I do blend my own "personal use only" concoction using Hab mash as an additive to what I currently make. That spikes the SHU level higher than what most of my friends want tho. Last year I even bought some capiscum oleoresin at 1,000,000 SHU and added the entire bottle to my "personal stock". That tainted the flavor big time.

Personnally, I prefer the Louisiana style sauce over the hot sauces that have added this and that. I am not much on fruit or any of that stuff in my hot sauce. Nor do I really care for the "just the burn" sauces (even tho I have a bunch in my collection). Pure hab flavor I do not favor. Not that it is bad, I am always up for doing spoonfuls of the stuff, but when it comes to putting hot sauce on my food, I stick with the Lou sauce. I do love the flavor of Cayenne, and when mixed with salt and vinegar, it goes well on EVERYTHING.

In the past, I tried all methods of making this stuff. The quick methods as some described above and also "juicing" the peppers. One year I actually ran 20lbs of peppers through a juice man jr. and blended with vinegar. What I got was hot pickle juice....Now, I grind all of my peppers in a food processer. It's a long process, but I have found that to be the answer for me.

My "staff" consists of my wife, 13,and 11 year old. They are my "official" taste and heat testers and they prefer a little burn with more pepper taste....they also let me know when my blends are not up to snuff!

100 bottles??? I might be able to hook you up soon! I have a guy who owns an actual smokehouse store that really ordered 200 bottles. However, I am hesistant as I am not doing this in a commercial kitchen and definately do not want something coming back to bite me in the end. I have given out more than 100 bottle though to people with a "deposit" precursor that if you want any more, I need the bottles back. I got all but 9 bottles back so far, of course it is in trade for some more.....

Update on yogurt fermentation of hot pepper mash.

Well I am not eating the quart jar of red jalapeno that I had added a big spoon of yogurt. It fermented strong and now I am eating it. It tastes good and has a smooth overtone to. A smoothness that is missing in other hot sauce. The jalapeno taste is still the predominant flavor. It has a toned down color from the strong red. The white yogurt changed the color a bit.

I like it but will not add the white yogurt in the future. If I ever try this again I will use only the clear watery whey that floats on the top for a starter.

I fermented it in a quart mason jar and it overflowed a couple of times. Not a real lot but enough to make it a bit messy.

I have since made regular yogurt and read instructions on making yogurt. I suspect it is similar organisms but the yogurt has the fermentation stop early. About 10 hours of fermentation and then into the cooler to stop fermentation. They also ferment around 110 F for warmth and faster fermentation.

The kefir is fermented longer at a lower temperature but I suspect it is similar if not identical organisms. So using the whey on top of the yogurt is good. You can get more white watery whey by straining the yogurt in a strainer. the watery whey will strain out. well more will giving you more starter without the white yogurt itself.

Hasn't been any movement on this thread in about 3 years, and i don't see anywhere that it's locked, so i'll throw out a question or two.

Anyone have any info or links about what a safe method of bottling fermented sauce in woozies would be? If you have a sauce with a pH of 3.6, is it safe to just boil it at 185 degrees for 5 minutes, place in sterilized woozies, cap, and store on a shelf?

Whatever the "safe" pH level is, if you can reach that through fermentation produced lactic acid, is there any need for ruining the taste with vinegar? Can powdered lactic acid be used to lower the pH instead?

Well, that's it for now i guess. Interested to see who's still lurking in this forum.

Well it's a year later than the last post anyone fermenting peppers (making mash) to make hot sauce?

This thread has me pretty excited. I just made sauerkraut for the first time this season and it was a success!

My plan is to take 5 pounds of chiles, smoke them and then place them in my stone crock. Add 2 tablespoons of coarse kosher salt and the kiefer (not sure how much?? - any help here would be great.)
Weigh this down to keep it submerged, let the peppers ferment for about 2 months.
Blend with some vinegar and process in jars using a boiling water bath.
Is this the basic process? Any flaws in my plan? I have been wanting to do this for a few years, and I learned a lot by reading this thread....thanks to all who posted.

Well I can't wait any longer the weather is in the 70's in Wisconsin but not for long. I have one more mega harvest of habaneros and they will be done so... I chopped up yesterdays harvest seeds and all put it in a quart canning jar weighed it and added 6% by weight canning salt to the peppers as well as 2 TBS fresh kefir and topped it off with enough distilled water to just cover the peppers with liquid and wallah we'll see what ferements. No airlock but I'm hoping the kefir will cause enough co2 to expell anything bad. 24 hours latterlooks ok No spoilage...

I began fermenting Habanero peppers 9 days ago. I used a food processor with salt (about 1 tbsp per pound. I have several jars working and one / one gallon crock. I opened the crock which only has a small plate over the top and noticed white and black mold. I took the layer of mold off, it was a solid skin covering the entire top about 1/8 thick. The layer of mold smelled odd; however, after I removed it, everything smelled as it should. Is this ok?
I only used habanero peppers and salt so my fermentation started slow and the juice was below the peppers. Now the juice is above the peppers and slow fermentation is observed.

This is the best thread! I just got to the pictures with the semi-inflated condoms and could not stop laughing!
Seriously, there are some great ideas here, and I will be using some of them in my next batch of hot sauce. Thanks, everyone.