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Hit 100 gallons of hot sauce this batch and it hit different | Fermentation Station - The Community Guide

Hit 100 gallons of hot sauce this batch and it hit different

I started fermenting peppers in my apartment kitchen two years ago with a single half gallon jar. This month I processed my 100th gallon of mash and it finally felt real, not just a hobby anymore. The numbers matter because I can actually stock local restaurants now instead of just giving away bottles to friends. It changed my whole approach to scaling up batches and managing headspace in bigger vessels. Anyone else track a milestone like that and have it shift how you think about your ferments?

2 comments

2 Comments

aaronrobinson3mo ago

Gotta gently push back on calling it "mash" if you're making hot sauce. Mash is what you get when you grind grains for brewing or distilling, not peppers for sauce. What you got is a pepper mash or a ferment paste, but just "mash" alone is gonna confuse people in fermentation circles. It's a small thing but it matters when you're trying to talk shop with other serious fermenters. The rest of your post is sick though, hitting 100 gallons is huge and definitely changes how you think about your process. Headspace management in big vessels is no joke, I learned that the hard way with a 30 gallon barrel last year.

wright.rowan3mo ago

True, but calling it pepper mash doesn't fully capture what happens to the texture when you scale up like that. With 100 gallons, the sheer weight of the peppers starts crushing themselves at the bottom, creating a layered ferment where the bottom third turns into a thick paste (almost like a jam) while the top stays chunkier. I've seen guys call it "pepper slurry" for commercial batches because it's closer to a wet concrete consistency than a traditional mash from grains. That bottom layer also ferments faster due to the pressure, so you get uneven lactic acid development if you don't mix it right. It's a whole different beast when you're working at that scale, and the name should probably reflect that physical change more than the process.