I second the notion!
Great post! So great, you made me want to give back! Here are some pics of my 1st attempt at producing pepper mash. Enjoy!
I started with a mix of habaneros, green (unripe) habaneros and daddles; a mix of peppers I graciously received as a gift from a coworker. I destemmed them, washed them and they went straight into the food processor, seeds and all.
chop chop
into a 1 pint mason jar
add 1 tablespoon of coarse sea salt
put the top on and shake.
as you can see it settled quite a bit, and had bad luck keeping the salt on top, so i put maybe 1/3 tablespoon more and left it on top. after reading about how tabasco uses salt to form a seal from the oxygen at
http://www.fiery-foods.com/dave/hotsauce.html, i figured the extra salt was worth it.
sealed it and boiled it for 20 minutes
i read somewhere in this post some question about how tight to seal it. here is what i did...
tightened the top pretty good without breaking a sweat, about 10 minutes into the boiling process, once the lid will not depress because of the pressure, i lifted the jar out of the pot with a towel, and loosened the lid just enough for the pressure to escape. then put it back and finished the next 10 minutes of boiling. when that was done, i tightened it back about 1/4 inch of rotation to make a seal again. as the jar cooled, the lid popped back in. i plan on using this lid as a gauge for fermenation over the next few weeks. if it pops up, i plan on loosening the lid again to release the pressure.
i hope this turns out good. thanks for the help!
until i saw this post, i was making hot sauce just by adding fresh peppers and garlic and onions and vinegar and spices into the food processor and pureeing it.