Recent content by Big Al

  Just prepping a big batch of mash for fermentation. I'm familiar with the process so I'm brainstorming a simple way to crank out a larger volume. I like the idea of a meat grinder or something and just crushing it all from a hopper feed. Like a manual version of this:  ...

Hey guys,   I'm gearing up for my second sauce making season and I'm going to try out some larger scale operations. I'm attracted to the idea of a continuous feed grinder/processor as opposed to [filling up a blender, mixing, pouring out, repeat] for preparing a large batch of mash. I'm...

They're all sliced pepper ferments that'll go for around 3 weeks and then I move them to the fridge for a little while after. 

That's a pretty cool idea. The fermentation blog on that site is pretty aggressive. Lotsa bolt text.

So this is my first season of sauce making and I've already done a substantial amount of experimentation. I think I'm 30 fermented batches deep with around 20 sauce recipes (both fermented and with fresh peppers). The fresh pepper recipes always come out hearty and delicious. My problem is with...

Yeah you'll be fine. You don't have to pH test it either. Just let the magic happen. I learned how to do it by making plenty of mistakes and throwing out some batches. Here's an article about the appearance of your fermented veggies. We live in the same area and I trust her info on this stuff. ...

I searched online for a few examples of minimal ingredient recipes (chilis, garlic, vinegar, salt, water) and used that as my starting point. I sort of averaged them all out to get an idea of garlic/vinegar/salt to chili ratios. I'm still experimenting a lot with all of my ideas. It takes a long...

This is something I've been in search of for a while as well. I've settled on using a cabbage leaf with some sort of glass weight on top. Recently, for my smaller jars, I've been using glass candle lids. For my bigger jars I use the little 4oz ball jam jars. 

Ah I would love a vitamix. I prefer roasted garlic. You can try experimenting with your ingredient proportions with some smaller batches. Maybe even with a mixture of roasted and raw garlic in the pot so you can get the benefits of both flavors. I tend to do lots of small batch experimenting...

Welcome from Philly!

Thanks for the links and the wisdom. I'm sure I'll be bugging you guys with all sorts of questions in the future.

Hey folks,   First post, long time lurker!. I've been doing a nauseating amount of reading online for info on lacto-fermenting peppers and hot sauce making. Its been difficult to gather all of the little bits and pieces of information that seem so scattered around the internet but I've kept my...