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.

Left to dry for 30-60 days, then placed in either glass vials or plastic prescription drug sealed bags. No problem whatsoever. In future years, they have ALWAYS come up as well as ever. Sometimes the KISS principal can be your best friend Yea John, I agree that over-engineering and unnecessarily complicating things is not very productive and is, in fact, usually a waste of resources. Now my buddy in OH has done it both ways and now does not ferment any seeds for saving. And has had no problems either. I ferment primarily because the process "cleans" the seeds and no repeated rinsings are needed to remove unwanted detritus. If some nasties are dispatched in the process, fine. Below are about 42 gms of fermented and dried seed of one variety, saved in 3 ferments and dumps. These are now in equilibrium (constant weight... ñ 0.1% weight change on successive weighings), with ambient conditions. Reggie

First no chutney recipe must be canned, it is just as option. So you can cut any chutney recipe in half or quarter and just make enough to store in the fridge just like you would a pickle. I'm all for probiotics but a chutney wouldn't be one of the better sources of them so if it is probiotics you are after then fruits wouldn't be the first choice much less a chutney. The primary point of fermenting fruits is to make wine or similar beverage. No vegetable ferment (like cabbage) requires a starter. It is just an option for faster fermentation. So kraut with some apples would work fine but the apples would be a small part of the total and not the source of the fermentation. They are just along for the ride. EX: Some recipes call for 2 cups of diced apples in 4 quarts of kraut. Same applies to carrots they would have to be the majority of the ingredients. "Is it correct that once I have some vegetable ferments (say carrots) I could use some of the brine from the fermented carrots to ferment fruit? I read that online but wasn't sure if it was correct." In theory yes, but reuse of any brines isn't recommended because it now has a diluted salt content, the salinity of any reused brine is unknown. Plus it would take an awfully lot of it to over come the acidity of the fruit. Why are you so opposed to using starters if fruit is what you really want to do? What is your objection to kefir or even whey? Look into malolactic and other wine starters as they are the most common fruit fermenters. Dave

Hmm. I guess I never really answered the question you asked in your opening post: "Can someone explain how this is safe and if I am missing understanding a step in the process?" There are different ways to ferment stuff. However, with lacto-fermentation (which is what will get lactic acid and LABs, vitamins and nutrients in your sauce, hopefully without much else), usually people try to avoid oxygen getting to their ferments, as much as possible. People normally recommend using an airlock, but some people burp the jars, using lids without airlocks. LABs can thrive in anaerobic conditions with a fair bit of salt (sodium chloride), while many other organisms prefer or need oxygen and less to no salt. Not all lacto-fermentation uses salt (yogurt is an example here), but the process can be a lot different without it. The more salt you add, the slower the ferment will likely be, but the safer it will likely be (don't add more than a couple tablespoonfuls of fine salt, and even that can be too much, depending; 1.5 tablespoonfuls ferments much faster). Be sure to use pure salt (just sodium chloride; no anti-caking agents or iodine), or it may interfere with the ferment. Pickling/canning salt is pretty inexpensive in stores (but much more expensive online). People don't usually add vinegar to a lacto-ferment, but you can if you want to. LABs can still live in it. Things that are lacto-fermented include, but are not limited to sauerkraut, kimchi, some knds of pickles, etc. LABs are naturally on freshly picked produce, and if you're doing raw ferments, as most people probably do, the fresher the produce the better (don't use old, raw produce). You can add a starter to make it faster. You'll probably need a starter if you cook it first. Disclaimer: Keep in mind, after I explain the next two items, that I don't drink alcohol, but I am trying to make vinegar, and it helps to know about alcoholic ferments if you want to make vinegar from scratch. It's also helpful to know so you can know how to avoid alcoholic ferments. Another way to ferment will create significant amounts of alcohol, and is similar, but it requires no salt, and whatever you're fermenting should be sugary. Microbes will turn the sugars into alcohol. Yeasts like sugar, and they're good at making alcohol from it. At least some yeasts can make lactic acid, too, I believe. Yeasts don't require an anaerobic environment, but an anaerobic environment is probably going to be more successful for this kind of ferment, to avoid spoilage organisms and other issues. After making alcohol, you can do pretty much what you're doing with your hot sauce (except without salt) to turn the alcohol into vinegar. Alcohol needs oxygen for acetic acid bacteria to change it into vinegar. People might cover it with something that breathes to keep flies out, but I think fruit flies are normal and shouldn't hurt the vinegar. Acetic acid bacteria can be in the air naturally, but people like to add mother of vinegar (essentially acetic acid bacteria) to make the vinegar-making process faster. I've read that you can make vinegar without turning it into alcohol separately, but it's more likely to work if you turn it into alcohol first. When making vinegar, it's normal to see vinegar eels (which are harmless nematodes that I've read eat acetic acid bacteria, apples and probably other stuff). You don't need to take them out after it's done, but I understand if you want to. Making vinegar can take a while, potentially. After the vinegar has finished fermenting, you might want to strain or cook it. You may also want to freeze it to separate the water and vinegar from each other. Another way to ferment is often done with beans, grains, and such. People will soak them, and periodically rinse them, without giving them a strictly anaerobic or salty environment (this is why they have to rinse them*). They typically only ferment legumes/grains in this fashion, and only for up to a few days. Then they cook them. Some people might not realize that this is fermentation. They may just be softening their beans. *I've lacto-fermented beans in a salty, anaerobic environment without rinsing them, for a couple weeks or so, and it does work. I'm sure they taste much different this way: they taste like smoked fish to me, and quite strange, but they were safe to eat (and I noticed some cool health benefits). Most people probably wouldn't prefer the taste or smell. People ferment grains for livestock, for healthier animals, but I'm not 100% sure of the process. Even just letting bread rise is a form of fermentation (as long as yeast or bacteria are rising it). Some people do open air ferments similar to lacto-fermentation. I'm calling covering with a paper towel or cloth an open-air ferment; I don't know that this is standard terminology. Whatever the case, it's not anaerobic. This typically only lasts a few days at the most (unless you're making vinegar). It would assuredly have a wide variety of microbes in it. Whether it's safe or not is a matter of debate, so far, but some people say it's great and some people err on the side of caution. I probably wouldn't do it without knowing and trying safer methods first to get a better idea of what fermented food tastes like, and of how the science behind them looks. I imagine a greater salt content would help. Open-air ferments will ferment more quickly. Some people ferment flour in water (with or without sugar) in a somewhat aerobic fashion to create a sourdough starter, to rise bread. What you're doing sounds like a hybrid between the open-air method I mentioned and the quicker way to make vinegar without turning it into alcohol first (except there may not be enough sugar in the peppers for much vinegar to be produced). I'm not really sure what kind of microbes are brewing, but I did something like that once with blended up, salted cantaloupe with extra sugar added to see if it would make salty vinegar. It did become acidic enough to bubble somewhat if I added baking soda, but it got lots of kahm yeast, eventually. I didn't feel good about it after a while (it didn't seem to be getting acidic enough); so, I threw it out. I never tasted it. It never got vinegar eels. It did produce a lot of some kind of gas as it fermented that smelled dangerous (kind of like chlorine and something else), though (although sniffing the contents did seem to clear my sinuses and my head, and did seem to me to have a positive microbial influence, if you believe that; maybe that was the kahm yeast). I made sure to stir it often, to prevent mold. Stirring does help to prevent mold. I did something similar first, without stirring and without adding extra sugar, and it smelled like vinegar after a few days, but it molded. I've probably missed several methods of fermentation in my list above, but I hope that helps. I'm glad what you're making tastes good. That's usually a good sign. Fermentation should make the food more acidic (sour), however, but IMO not all lactic acid ferments get very sour. The worry some may have is that it might attract too many yeasts, which might not be beneficial to the health if you consume too many, but some people might not care. I don't claim to know what's best for people there, but caution might be advisable, especially if you're on anti-biotics or something (which may give yeasts a clear advantage over LABs). You could probably cook it afterward to make it safer if you're concerned. My concern is that adding salt wasn't in the original recipe (and you're still using the same recipe besides that). Salt should in theory only make things safer, however, but it could maybe disrupt a lesser-known fermentation process that the recipe maker intended. You're probably somewhat safer fermenting hot peppers than you are many things. If health/safety is your primary concern, I'd go with the salty, anaerobic LAB (lactic acid bacteria) ferments, since those are very common and well-established. But if you're feeling adventurous, there are lots of other things to try. I meant to mention earlier that in lactic acid ferments, the LABs produce carbon dioxide as they ferment. Carbon dioxide is heavier than oxygen; so, as it builds up, it pushes oxygen out of the jar (hence the need for an airlock or burping your jar). When there's only carbon dioxide by the top layer of your ferment, it shouldn't mold. Fermentation is usually done at a cool room temperature. Yogurt, however, requires much warmer temperatures for a faster fermentation, but I believe the process is more controlled, to prevent dangerous microbes from proliferating. Warmer temperatures fit to ferment yogurt may cause dangerous microbes to flourish (as well as the good ones); so, you have to be careful and really know your stuff there. I've never heard of anyone fermenting anything but yogurt and maybe the starter for salt rising bread at those temperatures. Salt rising bread starter actually does at least sometimes contain dangerous microbes, but I believe cooking the bread kills them (and there are no known deaths from salt rising bread, from what I read about it).