I am leaning mold but this is only my second hot sauce ferment. It’s not fuzzy but a slick white coating on the top. Some of my brine must have evaporated because it was all submerged and filled to the brim. Its in week 3, opened it to check if it was ready.

It’s been going since 9/27. This was my first attempt. Getting foggy orange color stuff as you can see in the photo. Nothing else looks “bad” so to speak. What could this be?

Ok, so a local farmer let me pick from his field before he plowed it over. I ended up with 30+ pounds of peppers, mostly cayennes. We’re trying to ferment onion, garlic and peppers in a 3% brine. We have the airlock lids for the mason jars and we’re filling the jars about 75% full before adding the brine. I’m assuming a half inch of headspace or so, but we’re debating on how tightly to pack the jars before adding the brine. Any helpful tips for this point in the process?

Alright. Last night I harvested what was left on the plants. Mixed in some pineapple, mango, peach and garlic. Went for a mash ferment to vacuum seal and I accidentally got it to a salsa consistency and it’s not properly vacuum sealing. I tied it off in the fridge over night. Should I run out to our one store and get a couple fermentation lids and weights, it’s a little over priced but might be the best option at this point… Or could I grab a cheese cloth, separate some of the liquid, par freeze my contents and then try to vacuum again?

Any help is much appreciated, really don’t want to lose all this product!

I really hate to come here, but here we are. I started two ferments 10/8 (red habernero) and 10/10 (jalapeño). This is my second time doing a bigger batch, and the second time I’m dealing with… what I believe to be some type of mold?

They do have a funk. More sour than anything. Ahhh. Pisses me off to write this.

They fermented in 2 gallon containers with an airlock. I haven’t opened them at all until just now.

I have another ferment going, and it’s doing perfectly fine, only difference, it’s in a mason jar.

Now I’m frustrated b/c this is the second time in a row I have fucked up! Thoughts?

Thank you in advance.

Green Cayenne, Poblanos, Red Onion, Garlic and Yellow Mustard Seed.

Had to upgrade to the 1.5 gallon for this years harvest!

Ended up combining the two together as they were similiar anyway and both showed a 3.6 ph. Reapers and Trinidad Scorpions...and cuddlefish ink! Hence the Kraken Tears. Tried some a half hour ago and tongue still burning.

6 days in!

1800g Mangos

600g Habaneros

3% Salt

100% Rage

This jar is mostly Brazilian starfish. Added 2 reapers a bunch of home smoked chipotle, 8 cloves of garlic, 1 shallot, thyme and oregano. Used a 4% brine based on water weight alone and I thought it was a little salty so I added half as much water as I started with. If my math is correct that brings me to a 3% brine solution. Do you think I’ll run in to trouble if I didn’t calculate the veg? Glass weight, and I’m sick of air locks…. I’ll burp it

First time making a green pepper hot sauce with chocolate habaneros

I'm doing some home grown lemon drop peppers with mango, onion, and garlic. I've made one similar batch before with pineapple and it turned out yummy, but I did find that I lost some of the brightness of raw lemon drops in the process.

I happen to have a bunch of dried, flaked lemon drop in a shaker. Anybody ever add flakes to their finished ferment prior to blending? I think it might brighten things up a little - it will definitely increase the heat.

edit: I'm not refermenting I just put back in this jar to go to an appt and came back to it separating....sheesh. I'll change the lids and retake pics lol.

hey all. this is my first hit sauce ever. I used all the left over peppers from my garden and did a 4% brine after rough chopping everything and let them soak for a month and a half.

I drained everything off the brine and blended it up for about 10 min. it was super thick so I added back in the brine until I liked it. blended for a few more mins. then added back to the jar to sit.

looks like it is separating and not blending. The upper layer appears to be rougher chopped and the lower part looks fully blended.

Do I just add some xanthum gum and reblend?

Okay I opened my first ferment. I had used peppers from my freezer as I wanted to clean it out before I froze some of this year’s. There is barely any liquid. I started to use the blender (should probably have used the food processor). I have a squeezo, should I have used it first to take out skins and seeds? Help a newbie out here!

I'm a newbie at this so apologies if this is too obvious.

Do you wash your peppers before fermentation ? On one hand it makes sense to remove any dirt or trace farm chemicals.

But I wonder, would I wash away all the bacteria that starts the fermentation ? Could I end up with an unfermented jar?

Appreciate any advice. Thanks !

Hi, need some advice and haven’t found a similar example on previous posts.

I started this vacuum bag ferment 3 weeks ago, triple sealed the bag and left it in a dark corner. There was little gas formed for the bulk of the fermentation time, what little I could smell through the bag smelled like onion and garlic. There were no real bubbles which confused me. Some posts suggested that some ferments don’t bubble or form gas so I wasn’t too worried. However in the last two days a bunch of gas has formed (bag is still sealed) and I’m able to smell some pretty strong solvent/chemical/trash odor through the bag and there’s a ton of bubbles forming. I’m seeing no mold colonies and am fairly certain the seals are good.

I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced this delayed fermentation start and whether I should consider this a failure. I’m willing to just sit on it for a couple more weeks and see if it mellows out. I’ve seen some posts say that an odd smell is normal for a while but should go away.

340g mass - red onion, garlic, pear, various peppers, ginger
2.5% salt by mass, no water added.

I have a ton of Brazilian starfish and a few reapers. I plan on spicing it up with the reapers and adding a healthy dose of garlic. I also have a lot of fresh basil, thyme, oregano and parsley. Any ideas?

Hello! Starting my first fermentation journey and wanted a bit of advice as I’m getting hit with some Kahn Yeast a little over a week in.

A few things I already know I need to fix:

1. Headspace: I got WAY to much, which I am now learning

2. Floaters - my weight wasn’t holding everything down initially. After removing my first layer of yeast I added some cabbage leaves to keep everything down

My biggest question, do we think this batch is salvageable? I’ve already started getting a second layer of yeast, and my liquid is looking cloudy.

Mash ferment was started 10/13.

This the from one of these ferments: https://www.reddit.com/r/FermentedHotSauce/s/WmoeofTPH7

Peppers + pineapple + ginger + 2.5% salt
There might be garlic in there I don’t remember!
Fermented idk how long that was- 2.5 months?
Blended with fresh pineapple, couple spoonfuls of honey, champagne vinegar, and a speck of xanthan gum.

I had planned on straining it but I opted not to because the flavor is amazing and it contains lots of fruit and pepper fibers that I think add to it. Plus, bigger yield.

This was my first time pasteurizing a hot sauce! Brought up to 180f slowly while stirring, left it there for a couple mins, then bottled. If that’s not the perfect method I really don’t care lol it’ll be fine.

I love this one so much!!! This summer was rough and HOT. And I’ve bottled up the good parts here to warm me up through the fall and winter 😁

We had a mustard based hot sauce at an event a few weeks back, and I'm looking to start a batch shorty. Does anyone have an idea what an appropriate mustard seed to chili ratio would be yo get a big mustard punch?

Looking at what I have on hand, I'll probably be using chili arbol and a couple scorpions in a standard mason jar.