Can anyone explain to me how hot sauce companies can create a consistent product year round even though the pepper season is only a couple months out of the year? Do they make all Thier hot sauce at one time during the year and warehouse the rest? Summer and fall I have a surplus of peppers but winter and spring are tough to find product.
Having a consistent product year round?
- Thread starter Carolineshotsauce
- Start date
Pepper season can be year round in many locations. Also dried ingredients can be used over fresh. I do not make commercial sauce. 
I wash, destem(cap), and halve all my peppers fresh. I then flash freeze them, vacuum seal them in weights needed for standard batches(one variety of pepper may have several different weighted bags for different sauces) and finally put them right back in one of the 2 freezers specifically for peppers.
Halving them allows me to quickly remove any that may look fine outside but be fugly inside (i.e. black fuzzies and such) it also cuts the space needed. I have also been contemplating a quick, course dice in the processor before the flash freeze, but the ability to get flatter and better stackable before vacuum sealing is holding me back.
However you rock it just keep life spicy
Taste the Flavor, Feel the Heat
Halving them allows me to quickly remove any that may look fine outside but be fugly inside (i.e. black fuzzies and such) it also cuts the space needed. I have also been contemplating a quick, course dice in the processor before the flash freeze, but the ability to get flatter and better stackable before vacuum sealing is holding me back.
However you rock it just keep life spicy
Taste the Flavor, Feel the Heat
For year-round pepper consistency, many use a mash. You can find it all over now like Louisiana Pepper Exchange. I think PuckerButt also sells mash and many others.
Thank you everyone for info. I'm going to look into the mash but I'm not sure how cost effective it would be. I'm starting out doing about 10 gallon batches every month because I have about 4 restaurants that love my hot sauce samples I sent them and I want to get into many many more.
Mash does = consistency.
Commercial mash is a raw chopped pepper, it is sold like this: http://lapepperexchange.com/shopsite/unprocessed-pepper-mash-ss2.html
We offer raw, finely chopped peppers (mash) in bulk shipments in 1 gallon jugs, 5 gallon pails, 55 gallon drums, and even 6,000 gallon flexi tanks shipped in 20' cargo containers.
Same link... great minds think alike lol...PepperDaddy said:
Makes sense as the variances with peppers would even out if you blend a large volume. But I do think it is generally more than peppers alone. I have to figure salt and something acidic to help preserve the peppers. But yes, what Salsalady said about the word makes sense as there are consumer ready products called mash but the wholesale stuff is often marked not ready for human consumption, needs further processing.
salsalady
Business Member
LA Pepper exchange touts mash as fermented, and in various degrees of salt and vinegar.
commercial "mash" could be-
raw ground chiles in a flexi-tank with nothing added
raw ground chiles with 6-30 % salt
ground raw chiles with vinegar (in various amounts...)
Ground FERMENTED chiles with salt
ground FERMENTED chiles with viengar
ground fermented chiles with 30% salt and 30% vinegar
ground fermented chiles with neither salt or vinegar.......
not necessarily raw, not necessarily fermented, some ready to eat, some need further processing. The only common denominator between them all seems to be "ground up peppers".
Mash is a consistency of an item. Pumpkin mash, carrot mash, chile mash, apple mash....."chile mash" does not automatically mean fermented, does not automatically mean contains salt, does not automatically mean contains vinegar, but could contain any, all, or none of the above.
Any of the above mentioned chile products would work well as a year-round resource to make hot sauces.
commercial "mash" could be-
raw ground chiles in a flexi-tank with nothing added
raw ground chiles with 6-30 % salt
ground raw chiles with vinegar (in various amounts...)
Ground FERMENTED chiles with salt
ground FERMENTED chiles with viengar
ground fermented chiles with 30% salt and 30% vinegar
ground fermented chiles with neither salt or vinegar.......
not necessarily raw, not necessarily fermented, some ready to eat, some need further processing. The only common denominator between them all seems to be "ground up peppers".
Mash is a consistency of an item. Pumpkin mash, carrot mash, chile mash, apple mash....."chile mash" does not automatically mean fermented, does not automatically mean contains salt, does not automatically mean contains vinegar, but could contain any, all, or none of the above.
Any of the above mentioned chile products would work well as a year-round resource to make hot sauces.
Salsalady, looked into it a bit ago and got the same sense. The part that blew me away was that some mash is sold with the warnings about further heat processing needed. I assume those are the ones with low or no acidification and salt. I am sure it is fine after being cooked. Just seems ick.
salsalady said:
Pretty much, the term is borrowed from distilling, like corn mash for bourbon. The mash is still mash at various stages for hot sauce making from the bulk chopped peppers to preserved different ways (salt/vin) to cooked to aged.
Cooked is usually a ready-to-eat product not for commercial use and sold in small quantities.
In the case of someone using fresh peppers and looking for consistency for production, the product to seek would be raw pepper mash.
If you want a 3 year aged oak barrel mash, then you'd get that.
LApepperexchange sells mash in 20' shipping containers?! 
What the shit! Why are they not members here? I want to see their operation! I would also like an unguided tour of their facility with a bag of tortilla chips.
What the shit! Why are they not members here? I want to see their operation! I would also like an unguided tour of their facility with a bag of tortilla chips.