Hot Sauce Ferment

Last year I let my ferment go for a few months. This year I am using a new setup and the airlocks are of a flawed design and some air has entered the system. It has been fermenting 2 weeks.

I have some tiny flecks of white that are increasing. I would like to process and bottle the sauce now, but could look at other options if it needs to sit longer.

Is anyone knowledgeable on this?

I'll throw up a photo if anyone is interested.

If you have white flecks then you need to remove them and put the ferment into a cool place asap - however read through the rest of my post before panicking.

Where did you ferment? Just in the kitchen? At what temperatures? How long?

I usually ferment nothing longer than 3 to 6 days in the kitchen at about 20 to 25 degrees C - then it goes into the fridge.

I never 'process' or 'bottle' any ferments.
They just go into a 4 degree C fridge and keep there for a year or longer.

Any more info would help.
Especially WHAT you were fermenting, for how long, at what temp and what additions (herbs, spices etc) were involved.

4397g or birdseye, red jalapeno, cayenne and wildfire chilis ground into a mash with a 3% by weight salt brine. I fermented on an electric blanket on the kitchen counter to get a temp around 25 degrees. Been sitting for 2 weeks today, the fermentation has peeked and ended.

I think I will process the sauce (cooking with the addition or garlic, carrot, maybe vinegar and xanthan gum) this week and bottle and can.

The first photo shows them as they sit now, and the second shows a bit of the white around the edge. I should have scraped the sides down probably.

https://trademe.tmcdn.co.nz/photoserver/full/407613479.jpg https://trademe.tmcdn.co.nz/photoserver/full/407613601.jpg

Cheers.

I fermented chillies once but never put anything else with them at all. I have a new computer so cannot find how I did mine. I have a life time lot of the hottest chilli sauce I ever tasted, on hand. I don't think I added anything. I will crank up my old computer later and see if I can find the site I used.

I have just tested the PH and have 3.5 and 3.6, so that is good at least

Thanks pickles.

http://porknwhiskey.com/2012/10/09/fermented-hot-sauce-phase-1/#more-2744
The only thing that drew me to this site is the 2 phase method.
I never added a carrot and doubt I would have added garlic.
Your airlock should have been ok. We often put blue tack around the grommets to be sure, it is easier to see a leak, if you use plastic, a squeeze will show one up.

Hi, sorry to take so long to reply - I never ferment anything longer than 3 to 6 days in my kitchen. Which is about 25 to 28 degrees in summer and about 20 to 22 degrees in winter (due a nice wood stove). Your hot blanket might not have achieved that overall temp of course if the rest of the house was cooler.

What made you ferment it so long? Some recipe?
And why would you now want to kill all the good bacteria with bottling?

I would simply scoop the little white flecks off and put into small jars and fridge it.

If you do this experiment again next summer I would recommend to add quite a bit of very finely sliced or even shredded cabbage to the mix.

I have fermented almost anything (LOL) and I find if something is prone to infection then if I add some cabbage (which will ferment at the drop of a hat) will produce enough good bacteria to quickly to cover the potential spoilage of other foods.

Best trial was celeriac a few years ago. I had too much in the garden and it started bolting in spring - so grated it and fermented it. I will always now add some cabbage to that. Even starting it with some sauerkraut juice from the last cabbage lot it was struggling.

By the way I never use an airlock either but either Mason Jars or bigger ones (up to 5 liters) with a plastic lid on that can vent itself. 100 years ago in Europe no-one fermented that accurately and it still seemed to work.

Hope it all works out well for you.

Thanks for the feedback, I processed the sauce today and it's lovely. Can't wait for some buffalo chicken tonight!

https://trademe.tmcdn.co.nz/photoserver/full/407918018.jpg

Never quite got the American idea how a chicken can be turned into a buffalo.
Have you got a recipe?

Yep, 3 parts hot sauce, 2 parts melted butter. Heat together in pan.

Pour over chicken (wings, tenders, nuggets, chunks, whatever)

Was A++ tonight, very good result.

Amazing I will try that - but what makes it being called "buffalo"?

It was invented in Buffalo, New York.

Thanks a lot for clearing that one up.
I always wondered how the chicken and the buffalo got connected. I always pictured that huge animal.