I've been using 3 tablespoons salt per quart of water for chunked vegetables. Table salt and kosher salt both have anti-clumping agents. I used pickling and canning salt or sea salt. If the Himalayan doesn't include additives, you could use that.

I have not made hot sauce, but I've seen a long thread on here about it. Perhaps that will give you some tips for the hot sauce. Wouldn't you puree the peppers rather than chop them to make sauce?

Sorry to follow up on my own post but I just found the thread that has some discussion of hot sauce. Scroll down to Friday, October 27 at 16:45 where you see the photo of fermenting sauce in small bottles. It continues from there.

Hopefully someone will come along to help you more directly.

Here is a link that might be useful: fermented hot sauce experiments

I've done lacto-fermented carrots. Not sure if that will help with peppers but I use enough carrots to fill a quart jar loosely. Either baby carrots or mature ones cut into sticks. I use 1/4 cup pickling salt rubbed into them. Let sit 3-4 hours to let them weep, then top off with water. Since I top off with water, I don't know exactly how much water I use.
It takes weeks to a couple months for them to really ferment well, because carrots are so dense. I would imagine peppers would take a lot less time.

Pixie - any chance you have Joy of Pickling book? It covers it all well in Chap. 2.

Amount of salt (brine strength) depends on how sour you want the end product, how fast you want it to ferment, and how long it will keep. The stronger the brine the faster the fermentation, the greater the sourness and the longer the storage.

With peppers, yes you will have to use some water as they just don't weep that much. Minimum recommended brine strength is 1/3 c salt to 1 gallon of water (approx. 1 1/2 T per quart).

Dave

Dave - I don't have that book. I just tried to order it from the library. The 2009 edition has a long waiting list. Lots of 1998 editions available. Is the 1998 edition ok?

If I need the 2009 edition, Amazon has it on prime, so I could have it in 48 hours. But that will cost me $13.

Matthias - I was going to chop the peppers to ferment them. Then I was going to strain the fermented saucero get the seeds and skins out.

What info do you need? I have the newer book. Edit -sorry I have the older JoP and newer JoJ. But I think basic fermentation info would be the same even if some recipes have changed.

There's a tomato pepper sauce recipe that I've used with Hinkelhatz before if you want to try with hotter peppers.

This post was edited by ajsmama on Tue, Oct 7, 14 at 7:48

The book is well worth having when you can get it. Don't know the older edition as I gave mine away when I got the newer one but I honestly doubt there is much difference in the fermentation info as it is pretty basic.

The recipe for brined hot pepper sauce is

2 lbs. hot peppers, stemmed and halved, with seeds (you can chop before or after fermenting)
2 quart water (1/2 goes on the peppers, the other 1/2 goes into the weight bag)
5 T pickling salt (any others will be cloudy) dissolved in the 2 qts. water

You can cut it in 1/2 for your amount of peppers.

Ferment for at least 3 weeks before tasting and skim off any scum that may form. Once you get the taste you want then strain (optional), heat to boiling, put in fresh bottle and refrigerate. Keeps for approx 3 months.

If you want to add vinegar once it is done fermenting and is strained all it needs is 1-2 tsp. or to taste.

Dave

Thanks Dave.

I ordered the book from Amazon. I decided that was the fastest way to get the book. I'll go but pickling salt today. Now just to decide if I ferment the Habaneros and Bhuts together or separate.

Got the book.

Can't find pickling salt anywhere. Tried 2 grocery stores. Target. Walmart. So I ordered picking salt from Amazon today. Too bad Prime doesn't work over the weekend. I won't have the salt u til Tuesday. But the peppers should hold until then.

Wish me luck. I started the fermentation today. One jar has bhuts. The other has the habs. I ended up buying a sweet red pepper and a sweet orange pepper to fill the quart jars. I doubt the sweet bells will do much to mitigate the heat. I plan to dilute the sauce once it's completely fermented.

Unfortunately I lost almost half my habs while waiting to get the book then the pickling salt from Amazon.

It should be warm - in the 70s all week. So hopefully I will see some bubbling soon.

Jars that full will boil over so be prepared. I try to keep my jars filled so there is at least 2-3" of empty space at the top. Even then, topped with a small bag of brine, I get some liquid overflow.

Good luck.

Dave

Thanks Dave. Good to know. I think I'll pull some of the bell peppers out - they are all on the top. And then top off with more brine - I saved the extra.

I just made a half gallon cukes pickle by "lacto Fermenting". I got the direction from Foods Network, Alton Brown. It is the simplest thing:

---- about 3 TBS sea salt dissolved in distilled water. I did not use tap water because of chlorination.
--- add spices as you like, before packing
--- pack your jar as normally would in making pickles with water/vinegar.
--- pour the brine ....

It is going to take quite a while, until you see white scum on top and until bubbling stops... Then refrigerate

The process and principle is the same as making kraut. But here you use water to make brine.

You can similarly ferment hot pepper, to make hot sauce, if you don't like vinegar or lemon/lime acidic taste. In Hot Peppers forum Kevin suggested adding some yogurt whey to speed up lacto fermenting. Today I am going to make some.

pixie_lou, those look beautiful. Good luck with it.

I, too, had trouble finding pure salt. In the first batch of ferment this year (green beans), I just went ahead and used table salt. They are fine. All eaten now.

After that I found salt I'd prefer to use at three places. The most surprising was a dollar store, Deals. They had kosher salt with no anti-caking agents. Next surprising was Big Lots, which had all kinds of additive free salts, including sea salt. The third, and one I should have thought to check early, was an import food store. It did seem odd not to find them at my regular grocery stores or Walmart. Seems I'd always seen additive free salts there previously.

Let us know how the sauce turns out.

You might want to look at the Perfect Pickler website. I found this gadget at my local farm and feed store for $14.95. It can be used on any wide mouth canning jar. (I ended up buying a 1/2 gallon jar at a craft store for larger recipes). I think it might be easier to use than weights to keep pickles submerged. I haven't tried hot peppers yet but the salsa starter is wonderful.

UPDATE on my Oct 14th post:

My fermented dill pickle was done in 9 days. I then refrigerated it. I just sampled. It is real dill pickle, with no vinegar. But I think that I could've used less salt.

Similarly, my fermented hot pepper sauce, also was done in about 10 days. I have made hot sauce many times with vinegar but I like this one better.

So fundamentally the principle is the same for kraut , dill pickle, hot pepper, sweet pepper;

Glad to hear ferments went well. It's an interesting project but glad I can do small batches with the Perfect Pickler gadget. Saw another similar gadget on a blog. Yes, the principles seem to be the same but the results taste different depending on the vegetable. Haven't done hot sauce and might skip this year.

Haven't done hot sauce and might skip this year.
%%%%%%%%

With the hot pepper sauce, It does not matter if the final product is mushy, b/c you will have to blend it anyway. So I think you rather let it brew a little longer to get mushy. Not sure though.

I need some reassurance or advice. I've not done peppers before but have done kraut. I chopped a bunch of hot peppers about 3 wks ago and due to some drama in my home (many house guests), I kinda forgot about it. Now there is a fairly thick mold head on it. I followed tested instructions, as far as salt, etc, goes. Should I pitch it or scrape it?

If it were me, I'd first pull off all the bad stuff as cleanly and completely as possible. then I'd pull out a pepper and feel it to see if it was slimy. If it were firm... and did not stink then I'd probably dip a finger into the remaining brine and taste it. Don't push it if it stinks, is slimy below the mold layer. But three weeks of fermenting isn't really a terribly long time. Depends on how hot it has been, though.

Did you cover it in some fashion or was it sitting open to the air?

Some scum will usually develop and need to be skimmed off once a week or so as the fermentation happens but when properly sealed from the air as with a brine filled ziplock bag or such it is minimal.

In this case, as canfan suggested, dump all the top junk and do a feel/taste test of the peppers below it. Soft, slippery, slimy, stinky - toss it all.

Dave

but don't stick your fingers in. Use a fork. I was reminded reading a blog that our fingers introduce new bacteria.

My peppers have now been fermenting for 2-1/2 weeks now. How will I know when they are done? Especially the jar of bhuts - it's not like I'm going to pull one out and taste it.

it's not like I'm going to pull one out and taste it.

Once sufficient time has passed to make the ferment safe (NCHFP recommends 7 days minimum) then tasting is the test for telling when any ferment is done. But I wouldn't pull out a bhut and gobble it down either.

When you decided to make them how did you plan to use them? As a sauce, diced in cooking, etc? Maybe you could make up a small batch of what you planned and taste that - with a big glass of milk handy. :)

Dave

Gosh Dave- I'm supposed to have a plan for how I use the food I preserve? I thought we just preserved the bounty then figured out how to use it after the fact!

But on a more serious note - I was going to purée the peppers and strain them to make a super hot pure hot sauce. Then I was going to mix the hot sauce with other things - vinegar, fruit juice, tomatoes, onions, etc. to make different "hot sauces" as well as other condiment type things. We buy a pineapple habanero sauce that is really yummy - so things like that. I was going to "can" the pure hot sauce, probably in 4 ounce jars. Then just refrigerate the blends as we make them.

I hadn't thought of the possibility of keeping some "whole" - to chop into things. Maybe I'll do that too.

I don't really see bubbles in my fermenting jars. Though I'm not sure what the bubbles are supposed to look like - i definitely don't see soda type bubbles. But I see air collecting in the little depression of my weighted jar on top. And whenever I wiggle the weighted jar lots of air bubble escape. The peppers have compressed to half their original volume. And they smell amazing.

Given the ways you plan to use them then, just based on my experience with doing hot peppers (no bhuts) I'd say they are done or close to it. I have never let them go more than 3 weeks personally because I still want the original pepper flavor to outweigh the fermented flavor.

But that is just a personal choice not any sort of requirement.

What if you took out 3 or 4 chunks, pureed them with say enough vinegar and/or tomato juice to liquify it well, strain it, then mix a bit of the strained juice with a small amount of cream cheese and try it on a cracker? That could give you a good indicator of the flavor without taking off the top of your head.

Dave