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Authors: Robb Walsh
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because Texas was associated with chili and other hot and spicy foods in the popular imagination.
The current factory was built in 1942 on the site of the Garner homestead. Father Sam Garner and sons, Thad, Ralph, and Harold, incorporated as TW Garner Foods in 1946. The company now makes Texas Pete’s Hotter Hot Sauce and Texas Pete’s Garlic Hot Sauce. The complete product line also includes Texas Pete Honey Mustard Sauce, Texas Pete Hot Dog Chili Sauce, Texas Pete Buffalo Style Wing Sauce, and Texas Pete Seafood Cocktail Sauce.
The romantic image of growing and picking peppers and aging them in oak barrels has long been promoted by manufacturers, but today nearly all fermented pepper sauces are made from peppers grown in South and Central America. The mash is shipped to the United States in plastic barrels for finishing. Some producers, likeTabasco, still use wooden barrels, but scientific studies have concluded that plastic barrels are actually superior for several reasons, including sanitation. In the countryside surrounding Lafayette, Louisiana, there are some thirty-five manufacturers of pepper sauce producing around a hundred different brands. Tabasco, Trappey’s, Cajun Chef, and Bruce Foods, the makers of Louisiana Hot Sauce are all located there.
Fermented pepper mash has been the standard base for Louisiana-style bottled pepper sauces for nearly 150 years. But fermented pepper sauces aren’t unique to Louisiana. Complex pepper sauces like the gochujang of Korea, Matouk’s of Trinidad, Pickapeppa from Jamaica, and the hot sweet sauces from Sri Racha, Thailand, are fermented, too. Once you learn how to make a fermented pepper mash, you’ll find you can make all kinds of tasty hot pepper sauces at home.
FERMENTED PEPPER SAUCES
Fermenting pepper mash and making homemade Tabasco-style pepper sauce at home seemed like a crazy idea when I started this book. After all, pepper sauce is pretty cheap. Nevertheless, I spent several months experimenting. There were the volcano bottles that spewed red lava all over the kitchen, to the consternation of my family. And there were habanero mashes that could have been used for tear gas.
But eventually, with the help of the community of fermentation fans, I came up with an easy home procedure. And now that my family has gotten accustomed to my homemade pepper sauces, they don’t want to use the vinegary commercial stuff anymore. And I have discovered uses for fermented chile paste (including kimchee-style sauerkraut and hot pickles) that I never imagined before I started.
Making pepper sauce at home gives you several advantages over the commercial producers. First of all, there’s the vinegar. Since you are going to keep your pepper sauce in the refrigerator rather than sell it to supermarkets, you can use a lot less vinegar than commercial bottlers. This results in a smoother flavor. And while commercial pepper sauce makers use cheap distilled white vinegar, you are free to use any kind you like.
McIlhenny used French wine vinegar for the earliestTabasco sauce. Rich, sweet vinegars made from sherry and sugar cane were used to make pepper sauces in the early days of the Caribbean sugar plantations (see Pepper Sherry and Pepper Vinegar ). Rice wine vinegar is a favorite of chefs and Asian hot sauce makers. Seasoned rice wine vinegar, contains sugar, garlic, and other seasonings, produces an amazing Asian flavor.
Experiments with Fermented Pepper Mash
McIlhenny made the first Tabasco sauce by mashing peppers with a potato masher, salting them, and scraping off the mold as they fermented. He mixed the fermented peppers with French wine vinegar and pushed the solids through a series of sieves. Today the big manufacturers still make the mash first and then ferment it later. But as McIlhenny discovered, fermenting a mash is a messy (and moldy) business.
I tried putting my pepper mash in a fermentation crock with a weight on top of it, in a glass bowl with a zippered bag
The current factory was built in 1942 on the site of the Garner homestead. Father Sam Garner and sons, Thad, Ralph, and Harold, incorporated as TW Garner Foods in 1946. The company now makes Texas Pete’s Hotter Hot Sauce and Texas Pete’s Garlic Hot Sauce. The complete product line also includes Texas Pete Honey Mustard Sauce, Texas Pete Hot Dog Chili Sauce, Texas Pete Buffalo Style Wing Sauce, and Texas Pete Seafood Cocktail Sauce.
The romantic image of growing and picking peppers and aging them in oak barrels has long been promoted by manufacturers, but today nearly all fermented pepper sauces are made from peppers grown in South and Central America. The mash is shipped to the United States in plastic barrels for finishing. Some producers, likeTabasco, still use wooden barrels, but scientific studies have concluded that plastic barrels are actually superior for several reasons, including sanitation. In the countryside surrounding Lafayette, Louisiana, there are some thirty-five manufacturers of pepper sauce producing around a hundred different brands. Tabasco, Trappey’s, Cajun Chef, and Bruce Foods, the makers of Louisiana Hot Sauce are all located there.
Fermented pepper mash has been the standard base for Louisiana-style bottled pepper sauces for nearly 150 years. But fermented pepper sauces aren’t unique to Louisiana. Complex pepper sauces like the gochujang of Korea, Matouk’s of Trinidad, Pickapeppa from Jamaica, and the hot sweet sauces from Sri Racha, Thailand, are fermented, too. Once you learn how to make a fermented pepper mash, you’ll find you can make all kinds of tasty hot pepper sauces at home.
FERMENTED PEPPER SAUCES
Fermenting pepper mash and making homemade Tabasco-style pepper sauce at home seemed like a crazy idea when I started this book. After all, pepper sauce is pretty cheap. Nevertheless, I spent several months experimenting. There were the volcano bottles that spewed red lava all over the kitchen, to the consternation of my family. And there were habanero mashes that could have been used for tear gas.
But eventually, with the help of the community of fermentation fans, I came up with an easy home procedure. And now that my family has gotten accustomed to my homemade pepper sauces, they don’t want to use the vinegary commercial stuff anymore. And I have discovered uses for fermented chile paste (including kimchee-style sauerkraut and hot pickles) that I never imagined before I started.
Making pepper sauce at home gives you several advantages over the commercial producers. First of all, there’s the vinegar. Since you are going to keep your pepper sauce in the refrigerator rather than sell it to supermarkets, you can use a lot less vinegar than commercial bottlers. This results in a smoother flavor. And while commercial pepper sauce makers use cheap distilled white vinegar, you are free to use any kind you like.
McIlhenny used French wine vinegar for the earliestTabasco sauce. Rich, sweet vinegars made from sherry and sugar cane were used to make pepper sauces in the early days of the Caribbean sugar plantations (see Pepper Sherry and Pepper Vinegar ). Rice wine vinegar is a favorite of chefs and Asian hot sauce makers. Seasoned rice wine vinegar, contains sugar, garlic, and other seasonings, produces an amazing Asian flavor.
Experiments with Fermented Pepper Mash
McIlhenny made the first Tabasco sauce by mashing peppers with a potato masher, salting them, and scraping off the mold as they fermented. He mixed the fermented peppers with French wine vinegar and pushed the solids through a series of sieves. Today the big manufacturers still make the mash first and then ferment it later. But as McIlhenny discovered, fermenting a mash is a messy (and moldy) business.
I tried putting my pepper mash in a fermentation crock with a weight on top of it, in a glass bowl with a zippered bag
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