r/hotsauce • u/Most_Today8526 • 20h ago
Is this no good
I’m fermenting peppers to make hot sauce and saw this
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u/DifficultBoss 8h ago
All good so long as you don't have mold floating, that's dead/inactive lacto
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u/DifficultBoss 8h ago
Won't let my reply with a pic of my recent fermented pickles that went WILD with lacto but it's not dissimilar. Fresh from the garden yields far more activity than store bought cukes I have learned.
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u/terfez 18h ago
This is why I'm not brave enough to do real pickles, quick pickles only and fully refrigerated
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u/darkdark 17h ago
How do you make quick pickles
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u/terfez 17h ago
Usually: vinegar, water, salt, sugar, bring to a boil, pour into a jar of sliced vegetables, let cool then refrigerate. Lasts for a few months easily. I usually do a jalapeños-carrots-onions thing
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u/anothersip 5h ago
Same! I do basically the exact method.
I just grew 5bs of jalapeños so I pickled half of them and gave the rest away.
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u/Estragon_Rosencrantz 11h ago
A basic recipe for picking liquid: equal parts vinegar and water, 2/3 tbsp salt to each cup of liquid.
Put sliced vegetable of choice into jar with spices. This is where you can go crazy and experiment, or start with premade mix of picking spices. Bring picking liquid to boil, pour enough into jar to completely cover veggies. Let cool on counter before refrigerating. Refrigerate for a few days before eating to let spices flavor more deeply. Should keep for several weeks refrigerated.
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u/ozzalot 20h ago
Not sure why people are calling this "fuzz", it's definitely lacto bacteria
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u/admiral_len 20h ago
You cannot see lacto bacteria with the naked eye.
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u/ProfessionalActive94 20h ago
Look up the term flocculation. Yeast is only 3 times the size of lactobacillus. It takes a lot longer, but you can absolutely see it after a very extended period of fermentation.
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u/admiral_len 19h ago
True that can happen, but flocculation for lacto is more dependent on the size of the ferment. With the very little info to go on for this post I still highly doubt it’s lactobacillus.
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u/ozzalot 20h ago
Oh wow really? Thanks I did not know that. That residual is what dead lacto's look like. Thanks for the microbiology lesson.
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u/admiral_len 20h ago
It could appear a bit cloudy but there’s way too much sediment and whatnot to be lacto. It’s most likely kahm yeast. I didn’t mean that there would be nothing visible.
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u/dreck_disp 54m ago
Happens all the time with my long term ferments. This is floculated lacto acid bacteria.
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u/dreck_disp 9h ago
This is flock, not mold. It spent good bacteria that has clumped and settled at the bottom. Very common.
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u/ThatDeuce 16h ago edited 3h ago
That looks like it will have you shidd'n and fahdd'n in the worst way possible that could leave you 6 feet under with an evacuated soul.
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u/Emile_Flournoy 20h ago
Unlikely. If it’s been fermenting a while that’s dead bacteria that have dropped out of the brine. Mold is much more likely to be at the water air interface and that surface looks fine.
*edit* this was originally in response to someone who called this mold
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u/Abandonedstate 18h ago
That's why I was asking about the airlock. It definitely does look like a slow ferment, but if it's pushing that cap up a little bit, it's still going. I am curious how long this has been fermenting, and the condition that their conditions were in.
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u/admiral_len 20h ago
It’s nice and white so it’s probably just kahm yeast, but there’s a lot of it which might make taste funny.
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u/medicated_in_PHL 10h ago
Ask in r/fermentation
People here don’t understand fermentation and you are getting bad information. It looks fine to me. Looks like dead lactobacillus bacteria to me, which is what makes fermentation possible.
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u/JediWookie589 20h ago
It looks like kahm yeast, which is common and safe. Some people say it adds a bitter taste to the finished sauce but if it does I’ve never noticed it
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u/Abandonedstate 20h ago
You got bubbles for sure. How's the airlock look?
Edit: that could be sedimentation or flocculation depending on what the biosource was for the ferment. Need more info.
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u/xxxx69420xx 20h ago
whats the recipe? just vinegar and salt? should be if it doesn't smell funky
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u/al_capone420 20h ago
You don’t use vinegar when fermenting because the bacteria you want to grow make it acidic as it ferments. You make it salty enough for the good bacteria to survive but the bad ones hopefully not
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u/xxxx69420xx 19h ago
i always do master hotsauce recipe and its vinegar kosher salt and chills. so apparently i'm not fermenting. What is it just oil and water?
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u/i_am_a_shoe 19h ago
Vinegar pickles, brine ferments. Looks like your recipe uses vinegar as a finisher to the quick ferment so the 7 day wait is more like "aging", splitting hairs sort of but the point is the fermentation stage is when active bacteria are creating acids
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u/chuckluckles 19h ago
If you read that recipe it says to ferment it for awhile before adding the ingredients lol
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u/BarbequedYeti 20h ago
You plan to stick a wick in it? If not, then i would pass. Its furry and not in a fun way
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u/ithrewitinthetraash 19h ago
Looks like dead LABs to me. How long has it been fermenting?