il Sat, 06 Mar 2004 07:52:35 -0600, George Shirley ha scritto:

> Watched a John Ratzenberger "Made In America" episode the other day
> about making Tabasco. John was "Cliffie the mailman" in Cheers.'
>
> Once Tabasco has the crushed/chopped peppers in the wooden barrel, all
> the way to the top, they put the lid on and put the last hoop on it. the
> lid has holes drilled in it and the people then layer on about a 2 or 3
> inch layer of salt. With them the idea is to exclude air so the peppers
> will ferment naturally. At the end of about 3 years they break the salt
> crust, dump it and then process the barrel contents. they also talked
> about the discolored peppers at the top of the barrel where air got to
> them as "oxidized", ie oxygen in the air turned them dark. those peppers
> get dumped too. I do much the same thing but on a zillion times smaller
> scale. To avoid getting over salty sauce I would throw away the salt at
> the end of the fermentation period, that's what I'm doing nowadays and
> it makes a better sauce. At least I think it's better. Barb, Bob, what
> say ye?
>
> George

There goes my idea of turning my tabascos into sauce, I'm not doing
anything that takes 3 years!
--
Cheers,
Loki [ Brevity is the soul of wit. W.Shakespeare ]