"Pickling" is simply putting veggies/chiles in a jar and covering with a vinegar/salt/water(and spices like dill) brine. It's the Vinegar that does the preservation thing. With Lacto, it's the fermentation that does the preservation thing. There's also dehydrating for preservation, freezing for preservation, salting for preservation, smoking for preservation, freeze drying for preservation....(what else am I forgetting?
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A lot of people misuse words, like calling fermentation pickling. Like confusing boiling water bath with pressure canning. And (my personal pet peeve) like automatically
assuming that anything called a 'mash' is fermented! In brewing circles, mash is refers to the fermented stuff, but the word 'mash' really refers to a ground up consistency and does not automatically mean fermented.
The time involved kind of depends on everything. The thickness of the chiles, are they cut into quarters, whole(not recommended), blitzed to small bits? each batch will probably be a little different, but if you have the general understanding of the processes, it'll all be good.
When PICKLING with vinegar, most extension service recipes say that when making whole cucumber pickles, the cukes must be in the vinegar brine for at least 2 weeks. This allows the vinegar acidity to penetrate to the middle of the fresh cukes and to preserve the cuke, now making it a pickle. The same principles go with fermenting. If the chunks of fresh produce are large and thick, it will take longer to complete the fermentation process. Smaller pieces, faster fermentation process.
SL
It's an ongoing learning and educational process for everyone.
Back to your question....
If using whole peppers, they should be pierced so the salt brine (no vinegar) can get inside if you want whole fermented peppers. If at the end of the process, you're just going to blend it all up for a sauce, blender them all at the start. It will speed up the process and reduce the risk of bad things happening on the inside of peppers (whole peppers) while the outside is fermenting.