Decided to process tonight. Much to my dismay, mold. And on my other batch that was just over a year old. :-)

Enough trying to do large batches in buckets. Too much head space. Going to stick to half gallon or smaller batches.
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Sad to hear Bob. I haven't run any batches of anything lately, decided to pickle my last pepper pickup of the year this year rather than ferment (and haven't made it through my first of five jars yet). Been a little too busy lately to start anything new but I'm planning on joining my CSA again this year so I'll do a few batches as things come into season. I haven't made any actual hot sauce in a while, I never really got the proportions right and the viscosity was always frustratingly thick, for my next sauce my focus will be getting that right, ideally something slightly thicker than a tobasco but can still come through the shaker hole on the top of a bottle
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Oh, so I never came back to post a followup to the pepper-eggplant-carrot etc mash that Bob posted the link for.

Stuff came out really good. Added apple cider vinegar at the point where I wanted to stop the ferment and put it in the refrigerator.

Still have 2- 3 pints or so left.

Took a bunch of it and ran it through a low speed juicer a few times to make a bottle sauce.

Took the pulp from the low speed juicer and put it in a stainless bowl and put a fan on top of it blowing down so I could dehydrate the solids. Took a few days, then I ground them in the coffee grinder I keep just for spices. This stuff was awesome. Unfortunately, as you could imagine the yield is very low.
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pics?
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I"m down to my last 1/8 of a 2 qt jar (I think that's how big it is). Going to need to make some again soon. I have most of the ingredients on hand already.
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I do this with the pulp from straining ground up peppers from past hot sauce runs, makes for a fantastic chili powder but the yields were always very low. I usually lay them out on parchment paper in a baking sheet and set the oven to "Keep Warm" or whatever the lowest setting is, takes a few hours but works well, after that I grind the dried pulp down to a powder in a mortar and pestle. When I was moving last year I realized I had way too many jars of fermented chilis so I took a full jar and dried them out on a couple baking sheets, took a little longer but I ended with about 2oz of powder that I now sprinkle on everything, it's not very spicy but adds a nice funkiness to whatever I put them in
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Started a few batches of items today. A poblano/serrano/garlic hot sauce that’ll be used as a starter for a batch of fermented anchos. Some blood oranges and Meyer lemons too. Some of the blood oranges will also go into the ancho sauce.
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I'm curious here, could you explain a bit more? Anchos are dried poblanos. You have my attention since the dried peppers will have such a significantly more intense flavor.
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I'm going to use the method this guy suggests - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da9yn5jJKYc

The poblano ferment will be used as the lacto starter for the larger batch of ancho's. Fingers crossed it turns out.

I could only find serrano's at the store. Was hoping to find at least hab's. I'll grab a few of those for the second ferment to up the heat quotient.
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Started stage 2 yesterday. I did find some habs and some red bells to get a second ferment going in a vacuum bag. That was a day or so after the poblano/Serrano ferment. Both were processed yesterday into a big batch of rehydrated ancho’s, more fresh garlic and a few more fresh habs. I have 2 half gallon jars now, just waiting on the action to start. Both of the first ferments measured 3.3pH.
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Tell me more about using the vacuum bag

I've been out of the hot sauce game for some time but really want to pick it back up when peppers start cropping up this summer
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I made a mash out of the bells/habs and 3% salt. Put into a food saver bag and sealed as best I could. Was hard due to the liquid already leeching out. Then left on the counter to do its thing. Had to poke a small air hole to let the co2 escape as the bag started to inflate a lot.
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The co2 was my main curiosity, poking the hole makes sense :-)
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Yea, was blowing up like a pillow.
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Day 2 and starting to see some signs of activity. Marked the fill level on the outside of the jar. Both are above it now just a bit. Left plenty of head space should it really expand, but not a ton. Might add a couple cabbage leaves on top and cover with brine to keep any nasties away.
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Ok, maybe jumped the gun. Looks like the solids are separating from the water, pushing them up. Each jar has a layer of liquid on the bottom. Used some cabbage leaves and onion slices to push everything back down, under the liquid.
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Do you use any sort of weight to keep things submerged or just using the cabbage/onion? I bought some glass weights that work perfectly for fermenting in a mason jar but curious how well using other produce works
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I have those weights, but the fall down into the mash.
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Welp, another batch down the drain. Last time I do a mash style ferment. Can never keep it all submerged, so I inevitably get mold growing. It’s strictly brine ferments for me.
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Ok, been busy the last few days. Got a few projects in the works.

Started another batch of hot sauce. Again using dried anchos, plus de arbols for heat. Also, carrot, onion, red bell (for fresh lacto starters) and some quasi-black garlic I had. All submerged in a 3% brine. Started it only a couple days ago and it’s bubbling good already. Didn’t rehydrat the anchos or de arbols. Figured the brine would do that. I’m planning to mix with some blueberry beer vinegar when it’s time to process.

Today I took out my new vac sealer on a test run. Made two batches of sauerkraut, one with caraway seeds. The other is almost kimchi. Added garlic powder, Korean Chile flakes and some chives from the garden.
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