Pepper Mash for Hot Sauce Recipes

These are made from fresh peppers that have been dry or salt fermented and then aged in barrels. These are pure pepper, not a concentrate or blend and serve as a hot sauce base to which you will add other ingredients to create your finished sauce.

A fresh Habanero pepper is the hottest on record at about 100 times hotter than a fresh Cayenne pepper. Keep this in mind when choosing which pepper mash to use in your hot sauce. Whichever you use, start by substituting about 1 teaspoon of mash for every whole hot pepper called for in a recipe. This may seem light but you must consider that the mash fermentation and aging process tends to increase the perceived heat by reducing the natural sugars in the fruit flesh.

When converting recipes between fresh peppers and pepper mash remember that the pepper mash contains about 12% salt by weight. If you convert a fresh hot pepper recipe, you may need to reduce the salt to compensate for the added salt in the mash.