It should be fine. I finished processing mine yesterday, which was just around a month long. I opened the crocks up, skimmed off the funny looking stuff, then used a food processor to break it down in smaller bits, and then ran it through a food mill on the medium sized screen, the one that won't let the seeds through the holes. Its fizzy, thats the Kefir, and what makes it so good to eat. I had some on a burrito last night, and just for lunch, I finished a big bowl of that imitation crab with the stuff poured all over it. Ate a pint already. The best way to keep this is fresh in the fridge, where it should last weeks. Next best is freezing. Yesterday I tried canning it, and its ok, but separates. Don't use quarts, that just made a big mess - boiling up and out of the jars, and I had to redo them in pints.

Ah, okay great. Thanks. I'm so used to home brew starting so quick that I think I expected to see something sooner. I think I'll follow your advice and keep oxygen to a minimum next time. do you use any kind of culture to help things along or just rely on whats on the peppers? As it happens, I gave it a stir this afternoon and quite a lot of bubbles poured up to the surface, so something is happening. Might have just jumped the gun. I'm also starting to see a layer of liquid forming at bottom of jar. Do I need to worry about every spec of pepper that sticks to the jar? Should I be pushing those down? Or does the air lock take care of the risk of mold? Should I keep stirring or just leave it alone for a month? Sorry, new to this. I've uploaded a pic of current state. You can see a few bubbles against the glass. But it's very subdued compared to anything like home brew.

Maybe I'm slow witted, I don't know... but I read this thread and I just cannot get the exact answer I'm looking for... Under the following process, can I safely bottle without heat treating or cooking the sauce using sterilized bottles? 1) Pepper mash fermented with salt and enough saltwater to cover and air lock lid 2) Mash put through food mill and vinegar added 3) Bulk refrigerator aged for 2-3 months. 4) Bottling COLD/never cooked sauce/no heat applied even at closing/shrink seal bottles. Please no "knee-jerk" reactions, I have test batches that are 1-2 years old now bottled and shelf-kept. Sauce definitely needs shaking (no xanthan gum) but the flavor is awesome.

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.