"Rusty Mase" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 10 Apr 2005 19:32:07 GMT, "g" wrote:

............ One of David's specialties is fermenting grapes
and muscadines. The same equipment would work for a
batch of red hot sauce.

These were more of a small wooden container like a deep bowl with a
loose cover that you kept on the counter in the kitchen. Probably at
most a pint or two. I am thinking that this is just a salt
fermentation like you do with sauerkraut. We made sauerkraut in a
small 2.5 gallon crock where you only fermented a dozen heads of
cabbage at a time and then canned it for close to immediate use.

Rusty Mase
Austin, Texas

Rusty,

My grandmothers, and my mother, made many a batch of sour kraut from
cabbage raised in their family gardens. They used crock pots. The crock
pot was kept covered with a 'boiled' cup towel, to keep dust from getting
into it and a wooden lid (not air tight) was put on top of that.

I'm curious what kind of wooden box might be used. In the first half of
the 20th century lots of wooden boats were still in use. The water-swollen
wood would seal itself, and not leak. When out of the water, a boat would
develop cracks, where the boards shrunk away from each other. To avoid
that, people had to keep them submerged or keep water inside them. After
it was a few months old, a wooden boat would usually leak, regardless.
In those days it was common policy to take a bailing can along when going
out in one -- or in a large boat, such as a shrimp boat, a bilge pump was
required to keep the water pumped out.

Unless it's just a nostalgia thing, I would opt for a crock pot.

The customary thing for hobbyist wine making nowadays is lowboys (the
kind of five-gallon jug normally seen turned upside down in old-fashioned
water coolers. Glass is best. A rubber cork with a hole through it is
tightly inserted into the small hole at the top, after the fruit (or fruit
and
sugar) are put into the topped (usually boiled first) and some antiseptic
solution (such as a mixture of bleach and water) is used to sterilize
thoroughly,
beforehand). A gadget (also sterilized carefully) is inserted through the
rubber
cork and holds a small amount of fluid (some use a little vodka or gin) in a
P-trap
conformation, to act as a barrier against outside air getting in.

The open crock (covered to keep dust out) does not work with wine-making,
unless one wants a wine vinegar.

I remember that Fleishman's yeast (the cake kind was preferred) was used to
start the fermentation in crock pots. Some wine hobbyists use special
yeasts
that are alleged to make better-tasting wines or beers.

There are lots of other factors in fermenting. I've never heard it called
'brewing'
in connection with anything but alcohol making.

Where air is allowed to get to the fermentation (aerobic fermentation) the
result is usually vinegar. Where air is kept away from the process (some
breweries even use sealed stainless steel tanks and, once the fruit and
sugar
have been put in, pump nitrogen in to force air out).

If I were going to try to make a batch of red hot sauce (like Tabasco or
Evangeline brand or Red Devil brand or Louisiana brand) I would use a
crock pot. If I wanted to use wood, I would purchase a small used whiskey
or wine keg.

Some woods would put a bad flavor into the mix. Even oak, if I understand
correctly, has to be cured and charred inside, to seal it. The charcoal
acts, also
to remove from wine or whiskey, some impurities (and hence some possible
flavor influences you would not want).

I would recommend being very careful about the construction or purchase of
a wooden container. Obviously no one would want treated wood (containing
arsenic and/or other poisons put in to protect lumber from molds and
bacteria).
Cedars (of which cypress is a family member) have some antiseptic and
insect-repellent properties, which might retard yeast reproduction, and
might
require conditioning in ways to reduce the agents causing these, before they
would allow fermentation.

Generally I would just use a crock pot -- about a three gallon size -- and
bypass
the issues wooden containers might raise (other than a pre-used wine or
whiskey
cask), to avoid any flavor problems, interference problems (with
fermentation)
or possible toxin problems.

g