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Almost time for tabasco sauce making.

Have a little over two pounds of tabasco peppers in the freezer, waiting for more to ripen. In the meantime going to try to simulate an old Jack Daniels barrel and have these oak cubes soaking. Gonna let them soak about a month or so, air dry them and hit them with a torch for the char taste. Once the grow season is over going to start the fermentation on the peppers and incorporate the oak cubes into the ferment. Let set indefinitely until desired taste is achieved.
 

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PtMD989 said:
How many plants does it take to get 2 lbs of peppers?


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I bought a Bonnie tabasco plant this year and have only gotten about 1 lb off of it.  I would get a few here and there so I froze them little by little.  There are still quite a few on the plant that haven't ripened yet.  Not even close but we should have time before the cold weather hits here.
 
Heck, I’ve only gotten about 3ozs of ripe peppers off my 2 plants, but I have plenty more unripe peppers taking their sweetazz time to ripen up. Luckily they are in pots so I can hopefully get them to ripen inside before the frost comes.


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I grow many peppers in pots. I once jokingly called them "free range" peppers on my website for a while until I got "chided" by a government entity. I still grow some of them in pots, move them around the plots as situations dictate, but no longer can I call them "free range" peppers. Geez. Some government entities have no sense of humour. 
 
That be damned, pot grown peppers are still by my estimation "free range,"
 
TattooedBullfrog,
 
Good luck on the sauce. Never know until you try. Keep good notes so you can replicate if good, adjust to fine tune or scrap if it sucks. The hardest part on "doing" anything, well, is the "doing" part. You've got that covered, keep rolling! 
 
:cheers:
 
WarrantMan said:
I grow many peppers in pots. I once jokingly called them "free range" peppers on my website for a while until I got "chided" by a government entity. I still grow some of them in pots, move them around the plots as situations dictate, but no longer can I call them "free range" peppers. Geez. Some government entities have no sense of humour. 
 
That be damned, pot grown peppers are still by my estimation "free range,"
 
TattooedBullfrog,
 
Good luck on the sauce. Never know until you try. Keep good notes so you can replicate if good, adjust to fine tune or scrap if it sucks. The hardest part on "doing" anything, well, is the "doing" part. You've got that covered, keep rolling! 
 
:cheers:
Change the spelling maybe fly under Big Bothers' radar

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Hab_Nut said:
I took the factory tour at the Tabasco place on Avery Island. You just get to see part of the packaging line. Otherwise, they hide their cards. 
 
They had a gift store and I bought a bag of oak barrel chunks for smoking. When soaked, they turn the water red.
 
Do you notice any of the Tabasco flavor in the smoke? Ive seen pellet wood with peppers in it that they say adds flavor to the food your smoking, but I find it hard to believe. Maybe some of the capsaicin would vaporize and get to the meat, Idk. I had thought about throwing some dried peppers in with some wood chunks
 
Hab_Nut said:
I took the factory tour at the Tabasco place on Avery Island. You just get to see part of the packaging line. Otherwise, they hide their cards. 
 
They had a gift store and I bought a bag of oak barrel chunks for smoking. When soaked, they turn the water red.
 
 

Always wanted to take a tour of the plant, but just seeing a small portion can't justify the trip. I'll just watch the "how it's made" on you tube. Like most processing plants have that smell of what they are making, did Tabasco have that pepper/vinegar smell floating in the air?
 
No aroma, all that was off in other buildings. I would dearly love to walk past the fermenting barrels.
 
BTW Avery Island is not really an island. It's a "salt dome" as found along the Gulf. There are big deposits of salt, and it's lighter than other sediments, so it tends to rise like a dome. Avery was a source for salt for the Confederate army. I think they still dig their own salt from that location. 
 
 
I just cut down a couple of small oaks the other day. About the diameter of a wide mouth. Could make nice fermentation weights (though they will float). Lathe, slice, boozy soak, torch. Now I gotta ........
 
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