fermenting Can you keep a "Running Mash"

Ive wondered about mash making as I am interested in the possibility of pepper beer or pepper wine.

I know from my mash making that the active fermentation process lasts only for a week or so until the yeast
Has been exhausted. I would imagine that you would need to feed and add additional yeast as well.

Not sure what you would end up with over time though....

The active time of the Lactobacillus bacteria we use in pepper mashes, not yeast unless you speciffically add it yourself, only works as long as there are sugars for it to consume. After that it's just aging the mash that is going on. Since the ph is low you could age it on the shelf for a couple of months with the right temperature or place it in the fridge and let it age for a year or more. I know Chili Monsta has some in his that are a year or more old. so far as a running mash is concerned you'd have to add more whey, sourdough hooch or what ever starter you like to use to the peppers and add that to the existing mash. Problem there is your taking a chance on nasties getting in that could ruin the good mash you already have. JMHO.

RM

Sort of. You can keep a mash running, but each time you add ingredients to it, the fermentation clock should "start over". For instance most people recommend 6-8 weeks for fermentation to complete under optimal conditions, so if you add another pound of peppers to the mix, they'll ferment, but it will take another 6-8 weeks for that to happen, and you'd introduced unfermented ingredients to your original mash which effectively dilutes it, so probably not a good idea to use it until it finishes.

That said, you can throw those ingredients into another vessel, and spoon some completed mash into it as a kickstarter. This way you have a pseudo-running mash that's just carry over from your original batch. I like to reserve mash to do this with future mashes.

Ditto to what Pablo said. I use all but a little bit of a batch of pepper mash, and will then add fresh peppers to the mix, with the proper amount of salt, etc. Mix in the bit of older mash at the bottom, and fermentation begins again. Same concept as when people use the same sourdough starter for bread, for example.

Rocketman, I noticed that you recommended putting the mash in the fridge for long term aging. My last batch of pepper mash was about a year old before I used it in my most recent batch of hot sauce. It had been stored that entire time at room temperature in my cupboard. I assume that the combination of low ph, salt, and the fact that the lactobacillus (I assume that lacto is what is doing the fermenting) has reached a point where it has taken over the mash makes it so that no spoiling or harmful bacteria could survive. I may be wrong, but my year old pepper mash tasted great after over a year storage at room temp.

I usually don't age for this long to begin with, but would like to know if there is a reason why this should not be done. Thanks!

Thanks for the info. To qualify my question a little more, I wanted to keep a small mash active for starting other mashes, but i have started three consecutive from each other without issues so i think I am good for now.
The collective compounded knowledge of this forum makes my head hurt
Thanks to all
George

Yes you can keep "feeding" your mash. If you have a healthy stock of mash that you could use for starting new mashes it would be awesome and give each new mash a head start on potential nasties.

The only thing I would worry about with continuous feeding of a mash would be that its pH could drop too low for the lactobacilus to continue to grow. I don't know if there is a tolerance level of lactic acid for these guys, it might be worth looking up.