Thanks for the heads up on Vorlon tomato, google shows it to be greatly gaining in popularity; Lord willing I will grow it next year. How would you compare it to Cherokee Purple? I presume where you're at in CO the climate is very low humidity, excellent conditions for drying food, right? It's typically very high humidity here during tomato season, takes longer to dry tomatoes especially when the dehydrator is outside. I'll try your tip about selecting 'just turning ripe' tomatoes for drying, my observations support that also. Don't know how much you can tell from the OP photo of the Brandy Boys in the tray, but all those chunks of tomato have the skin on the backside. I was trying to replicate the success I had with drying the cherry tomatoes on their skins, and for the most part it was successful, just some turned dark/black, but I honestly couldn't even taste the black, it just didn't look good.

As woohooman mentioned above, fermenting your own, making your own mash, is the way to go. That link is pretty good - although once you understand the basics, then its an art form. Essentially, its the same thing as making sauerkraut - the fermentation eats up the sugars in the peppers / fruit, etc, creating lactic acid, which in turn preserves it, eliminating the need for any added vinegar. You can either keep it refrigerated or water-bath can it. I start off by saving any and all peppers that turn red - pull off the stems, slice roughly, put in a ziplock and into the chest freezer. At the end of the growing season, most of whats left on the plants is red, and the still-green peppers I leave on a tray, most turn red as well. Then thaw out the frozen ones, saving any liquid, and use a blender or food processor to chop them up into a 'mash'. Add salt, and then into the fermentation chamber. You can also do this with green peppers as well. You can mix red and green, but the end result looks a bit like mud. I use 3 gallon ceramic crocks, plastic bags filled with water as the seal. however you can use a mason jar with a special lid, see link. The whole idea is an anaerobic fermentation, just like they use to make wine, or sauerkraut, or the old-fashioned way to make pickles. The longer you leave it, the more complex the flavor. Its better to do this in a cool environment, perfect is 65 - 70 F. You can add mango slices, apple slices, onion, spices, what ever. I don't add a 'starter' unless I'm making something with roasted chili - a whole other world of good. Because then, the roasting process killed the natural bacteria, and ya have to add something, I use a splash of kefir because it gives a great flavor and result. Each time its a bit different. Its also pretty safe - there are a bazillion utubes out there on how to make sauerkraut, its the same process. When its done fermenting, for me usually 6 weeks, I run it through a food mill to remove the seeds and skin. Its still 'alive', so be careful because its still fermenting and can pop off lids and such. I do about 15 quarts of finished sauce a year. It doesn't last. Here is a link that might be useful: link to special lids

I make a lot of refrigerator salsas, and use little vinegar, mostly Goya Bitter Orange juice, like is used in the Oaxacan habanero salsas. This is my current favorite. 2-cups dried Numex Suave Orange habaneros 5-dried Ghost peppers 1-small onion, sliced thin 2-medium carrots, sliced thin 6-cloves garlic, smashed 1-teaspoon white pepper 1-tablespoon table salt 1-1/2 cups Goya Bitter Orange juice. 1-cup water, maybe more Put liquids in blender, add salt and white pepper, and all dried chilies. Process until smooth. Do this first so they can start reconstituting. Preheat oven to 425 and place rack in next to highest position. In a large bowl, toss chopped onion, carrots, and garlic in a little olive oil. Spread parchment paper on a baking sheet, and spread veggies evenly over it, place in oven, and roast for 20-25 minutes or until some charring takes place on the onions. Remove, and let cool for five minutes. Pick up parchment paper, and funnel veggies into blender and process until smooth. You may have to add more water if it gets too thick Taste for seasoning, and store in fridge. This lasts me about a week or so. You can also use fresh habs and ghosts sliced in half and roasted with the veggies, but it does require a good vent hood on your stove. Damn, forgot to add the pic...

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.