Your ferment is still "young". I've already had to wait for 3-4 days to see evidence of an active ferment. Other times it seems the batch would start-up right from the get-go.

That teaspoon of whey and the sugar pretty much guarantee your mash will take off soon.

I never deliberately allow oxygen into my ferment. My goal is to start an anaerobic ferment from the outset. My cap with the airlock, go on as soon as my mash is started.

I've had to deal with Kahm yeast problems in the past and, always attributed the yeast problem with improper sterilization or, with O2 getting into my container.

Ah, okay great. Thanks. I'm so used to home brew starting so quick that I think I expected to see something sooner. I think I'll follow your advice and keep oxygen to a minimum next time. do you use any kind of culture to help things along or just rely on whats on the peppers?

As it happens, I gave it a stir this afternoon and quite a lot of bubbles poured up to the surface, so something is happening. Might have just jumped the gun. I'm also starting to see a layer of liquid forming at bottom of jar.

Do I need to worry about every spec of pepper that sticks to the jar? Should I be pushing those down? Or does the air lock take care of the risk of mold? Should I keep stirring or just leave it alone for a month?

Sorry, new to this. I've uploaded a pic of current state. You can see a few bubbles against the glass. But it's very subdued compared to anything like home brew.

Those bubbles are the perfect indication that your ferment has begun! The reasons your mash is floating to the top and you have a liquid layer on the bottom is that the CO2 bubbles being produced by the ferment, is acting like floatation. Once the fermentation slows down, your mash will sink back down.

The stuff sticking to the sides drives me crazy also! I got pretty good at swirling the mash around to at least swap-out the particles that get stuck out of the ferment. I can swirl the jugs and hardly lose a drop of water from my airlocks! I keep my fermenting jugs right next to my computer desk, so I can do this as often as I need/want to.

I NEVER open my jugs during the entire process. O2 is an arch-enemy to a pepper mash ferment. One of these days I am gonna come up with an effective weight to hold down my mash during the ferment.

This is probably a stupid question, but what is the purpose of the ferment? To make it last longer? Flavor? Other?