Yep you can use the same instructions with no problems. Of course finished texture may vary depending on the vegetable or mix of vegetables and the time required for them to fully ferment may vary. Using the sauerkraut instructions, I have a crock of mixed vegetables - small onions, broccoli, cauliflower, a little cabbage, and even some peas tossed in working now. One suggestion if you plan to do lots of fermenting - buy the Joy of Pickling book. Lots of good fermented recipes. Dave

JMO but I would cut the larger ones into halves or spears and even trim them some to make them about the same size/weight as the majority are. You could leave them large and whole but it will affect the fermenting process and possibly the amount of salt needed as the extra large ones will contain much more water and will dilute the brine. NCHP says: " Measure or weigh amounts carefully, because the proportion of fresh food to other ingredients will affect flavor and, in many instances, safety." Dave

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.

The process is very sensitive. The enzymes can die just from the vapors of cleaners containing chlorine sitting on the same counter. The enzymes can pick up wild yeast spores from fruit stored next to it. Keep it covered and by itself, use only filtered water (no chlorine!), feed it sugar daily,.... raw sugar, honey or brown sugar is better; stir at least daily; and be patient. Keep a daily log so you can figure out what worked and what didn't.