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Just peppers and salt. Lactobacillus fermentation will take hold on it's own. You could use the run off from plain yogurt (make sure it contains live cultures) if you want a starter, but it's not necessary, just speeds up initial uptake slightly. I don't have a hard and fast rule for salt...

You should read the rest of the thread. You really don't need to go through all this rigamarole with yeast and potatoes and flour and slurries and 'hooch', etc... to ferment hot peppers. OP is doing it the hard way. Just mash 'em up, let them sit open air for a day or so, then stick a weight...

Right, that's the general idea is to keep the mash below the brine, usually by use of weights. Eventually I'm going to quit fucking around with hackish solutions and buy a few of those Harsch crocks which were made for this exact purpose. http://www.canningpantry.com/sauerkraut-crocks.html

If you make a hot sauce out of it, just don't forget that you've already salted the mash! Adding salt after the fact during sauce making screwed me up a while back when my sauce recipe came out entirely too salty to use. ACK!

That's a very good point, I hadn't thought of that.

You know, I really don't know why people use such wide-mouthed vessels for fermentation. Myself included. It seems like it would be much better to have a smaller surface area with potential contact to the air, no? Something like a milk jug or a beer growler? That way you could keep the mash...

It's not necessarily an air barrier. The salt ends up dissolving in the moisture and trickling down into the mash. This isn't a set-and-forget method of creating a mash, I have to baby it a little at first. Once the brine starts to be absorbed into the mash, I have to stir it up every so...

I think we're talking about two different things here. You're saying pH changes during beer brewing. Nobody is arguing this. I'm saying the pH changes are not caused by the ethanol reaction. As I said earlier, ethanol is pH neutral, and pH can change due to other peripheral processes in...

Holy moly!

No, this is 100% incorrect. A basic understanding of organic chemistry would be helpful before making such claims. Ethanol for use in alcoholic beverages, and the vast majority of ethanol for use as fuel, is produced by fermentation. When certain species of yeast metabolize sugar they produce...

If the sauce is thicker this would be awesome! Mine are a bit more fluid and need an insert. FWIW, specialty bottle will sell you bulk-supply swingtop bottles like Grolsch - http://www.specialtybottle.com/swingtopbottlesmi.aspx

This guy makes a fantastic one! https://plus.google.com/u/0/108796750922168160383/posts Give Willie a shout and see if he'll share how he makes his.

Google Plus and/or Tumblr pictorial blog. Hahaha, I really need to get more accurate though, so probably will script up a quick python app + Google App Engine back-end to let me scale my recipes around.

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...

Too late man, these guys are WAY ahead of you. :rofl: To answer the question of why I don't recommend yeast (ethanol fermentation) for hot sauce making... I'd prefer not to add explosive diarrhea to my list of hangover symptoms the morning after consuming alcoholic hot sauce. :eek: :rofl...

What sort of consistency do you have to begin your sauces with that you can boil and simmer them for almost 2 hours total :eek: without reducing it to a chili paste? Also, doesn't much of the capsaicin escape with the water vapor from the boil? I seem to recall having this problem a while back...

You are Doing It Wrong™

Vita-mix blender is on my short list of things I want. However, it's still only limited to batches of a few liters at at time.

Thanks! I also just found a co-packer nearby that will do hot fill sauces, salsa, dips, etc.. and also cold fill. What sort of questions should I be asking?

Cool, thanks for the head's up! I'm in the southeast, but we have several similar food expos around Atlanta/Charleston too.