Recent content by Howiest

The air pruning "smart pots" can't be beat, in my personal opinion. I've shaken out root balls from plastic 5 gallon buckets and the air pruning fabric, and there is no comparison. The productivity of the fabric air pruning containers were the closest I've seen to a dialed in DWC bucket system.   HS

  Sorry for the large pics...  

  Thanks for the help, and I'm pretty sure you nailed it. I've been starting them over the Winter, and it's low to mid 60s in the house. I was putting the jars in a cardboard box with a heating pad in it for a while, but gave up on that when I realized the heating pad would shut off after 2...

  That was my thought also, but my understanding was the airlocks allow for the air/oxygen to be pushed out as it's replaced by the heavier carbon dioxide.

Hey all,   This is likely covered elsewhere, but I didn't find it addressed after a quick search.   So I have a few fermentations going, and I just put together a dozen more airlocks to start more. I've noticed the top inch or so of the mash starts turning a darker color, sometimes to the point...

  Thanks for your responses.   I let the fermentation go for ~35 days or so, and I used a OTC probiotic pill to get it going. I'd imagine there is more fuel for the fermentation fire left in there due to the short period, but I had 7 quarts and a 2.5 gallon fermenting, and taunting me, and I...

I realize this is almost certainly covered in one of the pinned posts above, but I got ahead of myself and have some of the habanero mango ferments processed and heating on the stove now to bottle.   Question is, does bringing it to a boil stop the fermentation from continuing? I'll be storing...

I think anything with a pH lower than 2 and higher  than 12.5 is considered hazardous. I thought it was <2.5 and >12.5, but that wouldn't be the first time I was wrong.   I've dosed the hell out of hot sauces with apple cider vinegar and lemon/lime juice, and I'm about to again! My initial...

I moved everything over to the seed trays with domes on heat mats. I think the seeds were in paper towels for 2 or 3 days, and a bunch of the tabasco and a handful of the orange habanero had already put out a tap root. I think most of the tabasco are up, and a handful of others. I need to move...

  I'm doing a mash with just the above items. Anything left over that didn't fit in the jars I process with the vinegar and lime juice. They're my first attempts, so I expect to tweak the fermented stuff when it's done.

I have a habanero mango ferment going now. I can't tell you if it's any good, it's one of my first, but here is what I have going...   ~500grams orange habanero ~1500 grams small sweetish yellow, orange and red peppers    2 mangos peeled    2 medium red onions    3 heads of garlic ~100 grams sea...

  I guess if the lactobacillus can continue growth in the aerobic environment, or even just tolerate it and stay static in regards to growth as you suggest, while the botulism dies, that at least gives the "good" stuff a chance to over run the "bad" stuff before the environment transitions as...

  Thats a good point, and while the pH issue can be addressed otherwise, I'm certain there are more pieces to the whole puzzle that at least I'm ignorant too.   I did mention this whole idea to our biochemist at work, and she launched into a an explanation of the metabolization processes that...

We'll science the shit out of this! lol    If I have to pull a vacuum on a test jar or two, we'll give it a go for science sake, and hope like hell the mason jars don't implode :)

Fermentations have been done for a long, long time. They work, and I'm not nearly vain enough to suggest I'm going to stumble across the process and make some big improvement. If speeding up the removal of oxygen that can lead to some nasties would just shift things to increase the proliferation...