fermenting My First Ferment - questions

Hipps78 said:

So in the morning I am going to start my first ferment. Going to use a basic recipe consisting of the following:

Habaneros
Garlic
Pineapple
Raisins
2.5% salt

Any suggestions to the ratio of pineapples to habs? And since I am not using a brine I need to blend everything first, correct?

All of this is going in a quart mason jar with a pickle pipe type lid.

Any other suggestions?

Click to expand...

 
I'd up the salt to 3.5%.  yes you need to blend because yer not using brine.  lots of sugar will feed the lacto in a recipe like that for sure.  32oz jar w pickle pipe lid, so I'd typically go 1/2 total weight in peppers and then merit based weights for everything else in the batch.  So figuring on 28oz of total mash to fit this jar w sufficient head space I'd say 14oz habs, 2oz garlic, 6oz pineapple, 4oz raisins.  I'd blend everything but the raisins and then add the salt and raisins and let em soak for a couple hours before blending again and then I'd jar it up for about 6-8 weeks.   
 
Make sure the raisin's aren't commercially available as those tend to be treated and won't help the ferment.  
 
Edit: Looking back I'd split it more like 10oz habs, 4oz ripe jalas, 2oz bahamian goats, 2oz garlic, 4oz pineapple, 2oz raisins, 2oz yellow mustard.  
 
Edit 2: mustard after the ferment is finished. 
 

Thanks for the response. Good stuff there.