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Fermentation Atlas

Sauces and condiments from Avery Island, Louisiana, USA

Tabasco pepper mash

Ripe red tabasco peppers are crushed with a little salt and aged for up to three years in used white-oak whiskey barrels capped with salt, while lactic bacteria and yeasts slowly sour the mash. The aged mash is then blended with distilled vinegar for up to 28 days, strained and bottled. Made in 6 steps over 3.1 years. The longest step, age in the barrel warehouse, takes up to 3 years (McIlhenny Company). Lactic acid bacteria and Yeasts do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepup to 3 yearsReported[mcilhenny-barrels][watts2018]Age in the barrel warehouse
Fully documentedSauces and condiments3.1 yearsMore sauces and condimentsMore from United States

Recipe

No fixed amounts recordedMcIlhenny publishes no amounts; the sauce has only these three ingredients.
Ripe red tabasco peppers · Hand-picked; seed comes from plants chosen in the field each year[mcilhenny-sauce]
Salt from Avery Island (a little)[mcilhenny-sauce][mcilhenny-guide]
Distilled vinegar · Blended in after ageing[mcilhenny-sauce][mcilhenny-barrels]
Starter: spontaneous

Total time across the recorded steps: 3.1 years

Start
Drag the bar or press Play

What changes: Starting material: ripe red tabasco peppers picked by hand

Step 1 of 6
Pick the ripe red peppers
Time
Not documented
Temperature
Not documented
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactic acid bacteria
Yeasts

Output: ripe tabasco peppers.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
red, checked against a small wooden dowel of the right shade

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

What makes this one different

Most fermented chilli sauces ferment for days or weeks. The Tabasco mash ages up to three years in wood under a salt cap, and much of the finished sauce's sourness then comes from the vinegar. It uses only peppers, salt and vinegar, with no sugar or garlic.

Related ferments

Safety

The mash is never heated. Lactic fermentation lowers its pH as acid builds, the salt cap guards the surface while letting gas out, and the finished sauce is blended with distilled vinegar.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

Edmund McIlhenny founded the company on Avery Island in 1868, sent out 658 bottles in 1869 and took a patent in 1870. Stoneware jars held the mash at first; by 1900 the company used only white-oak barrels.

  1. [mcilhenny-barrels] McIlhenny Company, About our barrels (TABASCO brand blog)web
  2. [mcilhenny-sauce] McIlhenny Company, TABASCO brand Original Red Sauce (product and process page)web
  3. [mcilhenny-guide] McIlhenny Company, TABASCO brand foodservice product guideweb
  4. [mcilhenny-history] McIlhenny Company, Our historyweb
  5. [watts2018] Watts E.G., Janes M.E., Prinyawiwatkul W., Shen Y., Xu Z., Johnson D. 2018, Microbiological changes and their impact on quality characteristics of red hot chilli pepper mash during natural fermentation, International Journal of Food Science and Technology 53(8):1816–1823, doi:10.1111/ijfs.13792paper
  6. [koh2005] Koh F.M. 2005, Physicochemical properties of pepper mash fermented in wood and plastic, MS thesis, School of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Louisiana State Universitypaper