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.

There is a Carolina Cayenne listed above(developed in the U.S.A. 100,000-125,000)that gets in the range the add says. When I grew it ,it was hotter than regular Cayenne but I only grew it once. There are probably tons of hybrids/developed cayenne types out there that are in all different heat ranges. I was refering to Cayenne in general. Maybe it was my growing conditions but in general , I don't think Cayenne peppers pack that much heat. I haven't grown them in a while. I use mostly C.Chinense,Baccatums and Pubescens for my powders and rubs heat. Annuums I use mostly for flavor.Especially Chile Negro , Poblano and Cascabel. For short intense bursts of heat a lot of the Frutescens do the trick. I grow a lot of Pubescens too. They'll fool you though. They have all 3 kinds of Caspaicin in them so they feel hotter than they are. They hit up all the receptors in your mouth. I'm more into using several types of peppers to blend together to get the taste and heat i want. I'm growing several strains of 7 Pot,Trinidad Scorpion ,Nagas and Bhuts this year with a couple seasoning type peppers to mellow them out. I guess if the growers are using a similar strain to the Carolina Cayenne type for their powder it could reach up to 125,000 units. I've just never had a Cayenne that I thaught was anything to write home about as far as heat goes. I did like yellow Cayenne better than the other ones for taste when I grew them a few years back. I've grown several different ones.Regular assorted Cayennes,Long Slim,Long red,Yellow,Carolina,Thomas Jefferson,African,Purple,Super,Orange,Golden,Turkish,Picante,Portugal,Processing and sweet.

I think BLENDS are WAY better than any single pepper used in a sauce powder/rub type thing. I usually use a a lot of Cascabel,Chilaca,New Mex,Ca. chile,De Arbol,and A LOT OF PASILLA peppers dry in my rubs and sauces. I use them as a base and add other peppers for taste and or heat. Everything compliments each other to get the taste I want. Yes,I like heat BUT it must be something I use to make whatever I'm cooking taste GREAT. Only Heat or sweet isn't going to work. Make whatever taste the best it can. I seldom eat anything without adding Chile's. Each dish needs whatever,Sweet,Warm,a combination of whatever I like in taste and heat. I have no favorite,by itself,but blends do the best job. To me most people who can EVEN post a specific pepper in a post like this have limited the field by only considering 1 pepper as a favorite. Mix those suckers up and fine tune them to make the best thing for whatever you are cooking,broiling,smoking salsa or whatever. I don't get this "this is the best _______________(fill in the blank) pepper. No one pepper does the job by itself,in my opinion. A ton of them taste GREAT by themselves,whenever. Most is caused by the crap some vendors and food sites post as fact. A lot just repeat stuff they have no clue about. Too much crap is posted on the net that people tend to take as fact. This post was edited by smokemaster_2007 on Fri, Jan 9, 15 at 1:41

Sounds great, although I would have omitted the tomato purée, as you are aware! You can always add tomato purée to a recipe, if you want it, and lately I've been using tomato powder that I buy at a restaurant supply store. It keeps better than the tomato paste I've bought on line. If your sauce is wicked hot, it will probably last you a long time, but the vinegar and salt really do preserve it without having to can it - at least from my experience - and since it is so hot, I don't notice the vinegar or salt at all! My favorite use for it is to mix it with mayonnaise, for use on sandwiches. I'm growing Chocolate Habanero chilies this year, and last week-end we grilled some of them (over mesquite wood) with some other peppers and garlic so that I can make sauce this week, even though I have quite a bit of sauce left over from last year. If you can grill your chilies of wood/charcoal, you will get a nice smoky flavor, which I particularly like. If you have too much sauce, you can bottle it and give it to friends, especially at Christmas. Some of my friends (and Kevin's) prefer this over other gifts. I bought a bunch of little bottles on Amazon for this purpose and also make my own labels. Thanks for sharing your experience!