I've posted several times in the past about fermenting hot peppers, and IMHO, the result is considerably better than the sauces made with vinegar. I'm getting ready to ferment two batches, one with peppers that have turned red - these I've picked and frozen as they turn red - and one batch with green ones. I've grown several varieties of hot peppers - jalapenos, Chili Noir, several of my own inadvertent (eh-hem) 'hybrids' from saved seed. What I'll do is follow the salt ratio for sauerkraut - 3 tablespoons for 5 lbs peppers. So weigh the peppers, drag the food processor outside and chop up them up, then put the result in a 3 gallon crock with the appropriate amount of salt along with some whey or kefir powder, then weigh it all down with plastic bags filled with water, set the crocks in a cool place, put them in a saucer so any spillage won't eat the floor, and then wait 3 - 5 weeks, checking occasionally. That result will be run through a food mill to remove skins and seeds, and then I'll see what I've got. I may add vinegars to cut it, may add fruit juice, who knows. That result can say in the fridge for months. I generally leave a quart or two in the fridge and can the rest. There is a fizzy complexity of flavor thats just hard to describe, but it leaves tobasco sauce in the dust. Looking at the above-mentioned Canadian site, they have a completely different method, but I don't see why it wouldn't work out just fine for smaller batches of peppers.

Thanks, that's what I figured too - since it was a long-cooked sauce, there weren't going to be any chunks left. Sorry Dave I had typed this, went to make dinner and just came back and hit Submit. I goofed (was checking the Ball Complete book for the original spices) and used the full 2C of vinegar for my half batch. So used 1/3C brown sugar and added another 2C tomato puree. We had a pint with a lb of ground meat for dinner, have 8C left in Pyrex measuring cup in fridge. The "puree" was pretty thin - as you can tell since my half recipe with an additional cup of vinegar and total 10C "puree" (2 additional cups, quickly nuked some paste tomatoes in a big Pyrex measuring cup, drained in a colander and topped with ice to peel them, then milled them into the measuring cup) made 5 pints, and that's with reducing the peppers and onions to less than half of the original recipe (that used 16C tomatoes). So a half batch should have been 8C peeled tomatoes, 4 bell peppers (app. 5C?), 3 onions (app. 2C), and 1C of vinegar to make 3.5 pints. I used 10C milled tomatoes, 3C peppers, 1 onion (slightly under 2C), and 2C vinegar and got 5 pints. I made sure the big chunks of onions (I roughly chopped them) were used for dinner, the peppers are in smaller pieces. Do you think it's safe to can the 4 pints I have left (after reheating of course)? I have adjusted the recipe in my Word document for the spices (Malna used a spice bag), I will go off that from now on so I don't get confused with looking at original amounts. And I think I'm going to change the white vinegar to ACV ;-) Sorry for the hijack. This post was edited by ajsmama on Sun, Sep 8, 13 at 18:34

Dave, I do think it sounds safe, for all the reasons you say. But consider it this way...it is a bit less acidic than the NCHFP recipe for hot sauce with tomatoes, and it is thicker than pickled peppers (in terms of convection in the liquid), so either way the tested recipe (hot sauce or pickled peppers) is getting a less-safe change (rather than an equal change such as peppers for onions, or a more-safe change such as extra vinegar for water). I do think subbing all peppers for the tomatoes is probably fine, and I would eat sauce made that way. I was just wondering, because sometimes when people post discussions on tested recipes with multiple substitutions, you feel it's too different from the tested recipe. Nothing wrong with that opinion, of course, and it surely matches the official food safety opinion from the USDA. I just like to think scientifically about whether the changes really affect safety - whether each substitution affects acidity, oil content, heat transfer within the product, etc. I usually have no problem with combining 4 or 5 substitutions that are individually approved, but I did, for example, think it was questionable to sub a lot of garlic for onions in the roasted tomato salsa thread. One thing I really like about this forum is the way we conduct reasoned and thoughtful discussions on the issues, so it's nice to have different opinions around, and to be able to talk respectfully. I wasn't questioning the pepper substitution, Dave, just wondering how it fit into your food safety views. Hearing it from an extension class seems like a pretty good approval to me. Melissa

A friend gave me this recipe 2 years ago and it has been a frequent request since. COCOA 8 qt. Dry Milk Small bag of Powdered sugar 22 oz. reg. coffee creamer Small jar of French Vanilla Creamer Large Nestle Quick Mix in LARGE container. Divide into smaller quantities for gifts. Use 3T. per cup of hot water If you want to make Cappachino, Use; 3 Cups Cocoa Mix 1/2 c. instant coffee 1 T. Cinnamon Mix Well. 3 T. per cup.