Recent content by KidShelleen

My understanding is that the sauce would keep fermenting, and yes, a potential mess. Some of my sauces have vinegar added after the fermentation step and the vinegar should stop the fermentation, but I still hot bottle them. I bring the sauce up to 180 F, pour it into Woozy jars, put a cap on...

Interesting. Are those cabbage leaves to hold everything down? Sidebar: A friend made some fresh Jalapeno relish and added (among other things) chopped onions and cilantro. It had a very nice taste. I wonder if adding cilantro to the ferment would work or just overpower the taste?

Chorizo, sounds like a nice process. My sauces turn out to be a little too liquid. Thanks for the info.

My suggestion is to use salt by weight, not volume. There is too much inconsistency in the volumes of different kinds of salt. At the minimum, use the weight of the peppers (2.5% - 3%), better yet, use the weight of the peppers and liquid, again 2.5% - 3%. You will be surprised how little 8...

  I don't know if those vacuum devices are necessary or not. I haven't tried them, so I have no opinion for them.   Nice looking peppers, BTW.   Here is what I use (similar): Air Lock (I bought separate pieces from a beer / wine making shop, but you get the idea:   I use these Ball plastic...

Yeah, I used to do the 2.5% - 3.5% weight of the peppers. Sometimes, I would get a little Kahm yeast. I tried it with the total weight, and so far, no yeast. Maybe I've just been lucky. I haven't noticed any difference in the final product. I would have thought the fermentation would take longer...

  Sterilize and sanitize the jars. You probably have too much oxygen in those jars. Airlocks are your friends, they help push out the oxygen and keep the CO2 in the jar. Mold doesn't like CO2. Also, maybe as others have said, your brine might be too weak. Use the total weight of the products you...

If you are hot packing, just turn your bottle upside down for ~30 minutes. You will be okay. I use the cardboard box that the Woozy bottles come in. The sectional spots work great for keeping the bottles upside down and in place.

Maybe the dropper is too tall for the cap to fit correctly and is pushing up on the lid? Just a thought.

I would go with any one of those cheap ones in your link. Just make sure that they come with some buffer powder so you can calibrate your meter before using it. I purchase extra powder instead of keeping an old solution around. That's just me.

 I follow Sandor Katz's method (Wild Fermentation). I use a stoneware crock, and for every 5 pounds of cabbage I toss in 3 tablespoons of kosher salt. Mix it up, pound it down and break the fibers with a blunt object (I use a pestle), and repeat the process.  I use a dinner plate on top of the...

  Update: This time, I ran the mash (Jalapenos) through a food mill (after the food processor step) before I put it in the flask. It is working just fine. The heavy mash was too much for the spin plate and spin bar. I don't have a huge vortex but everything is spinning and churning inside the...

  Thanks. If you are going to spin something that has the same viscosity (or a little more) as water, no problem. If you are trying to spin sauce, brine, seeds and skins, not really. Especially if you are trying 1600 ml or more. I got some spin bars that have the more aggressive rare earth...

Just another photo of red stuff in a Woozy bottle.   I ended up with a PH of 3.5, pretty much shelf stable but I still hot packed it in the Woozy bottles. I'm not concerned that I killed the probiotics, I can get them from other sources.   Sorry that I didn't take any photos, but those Thai...

This is just me. I rarely use carrots in fermentation except for Kimchi, but I also usually grate a pear or apple for the added sugar. For fermenting peppers, I sometimes use dried Nasturtium flowers (one or two) for an additional sugar source, and they don't seem to impart any additional...