Hot Sauce Redux: The Mash

Last year's experiment with making my own hot sauce had mixed success.  The various recipes I put together were not so great, but the jar with all the leftovers came out pretty good.  For this round I decided to build on that, and try something a little more advanced.  I'm going with a blend of cayenne and habanero peppers, and I decided to try making a mash and aging it.  If it works for Tabasco sauce, it's probably worth a try, I figure. 

I found a site that gives a rough description of the Tabasco making process, at least more detail than the McIlheny website will give you.  The key takeaways for me were that they mix 15% by volume of salt in with the peppers, and then use salt to seal it in the barrels. 

I basically chopped up the peppers, mostly cayenne with some habanero thrown in for heat, until I had about 1 cup of chopped peppers.  I then mixed in about 2.5 Tablespoons salt.  I packed it into a jar, and then layered on sea salt until it formed a solid layer that would hopefully keep anything from growing in there, but let it breathe a bit.  I put the lid on loosely, and it's been sitting in my cabinet for a few weeks now.  It smells pretty good, a nice, rich and spicy.

Here are some pics from the making of (the last one is after about a week of fermenting):