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fermenting Fermentation question

G

gvittman

As I still have about 5 lbs of scotch bonnets in the freezer, I was thinking about trying a fermented mash. Can anyone give me a few tips on how to start this?
Reading articles, I see that some add a minimum of 15% salt, and I see others that only add a few tbsp of salt. Which works better? 15% of salt sounds like a lot to me, and I am a bit afraid that the salt will over power the chilli taste.
Will chillis that come from the freezer still ferment, or do I have to add a starter? In the jalopeno link, I read about adding sauer kraut brine. Is it possible to take this brine from a can of sauer kraut, or does it have to be fresh?

Looking forward to some tips.
 
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Thanks Potawie, there is some info, but not enough details. Any experts?

I saw a few sites where they ground the chiles, add some sugar, add 15-20% of salt, and then let the stuff sit. The salt resistant bacteria are then supposed to start the fermentation. In the few recipes I saw, they add some vinegar after fermentation, and heat the mash above boiling. Then is put into jars and is supposed to store for years.

Botulism, I know little about it. If I take for example my wife's recipe. She grinds the fresh chiles in a food processor with some garlic, very little salt and puts it in jars. Then she pours a little olive oil on top, too separate it from the air. The oil of course drains to the bottom of the jar, but each time she makes a batch, it easily sits for close to a year, without problems.
For this case 2 questions come up. 1. Does the oil prevent fermentation? 2. Why does the stuff not get moldy? I can not imagine that each little grind is wrapped into an oily layer, avoiding contact with air.
The heat of this mixture goes up with time, and I have a few jars sitting (amando), for which there is little competition in spiciness.
 
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Generally don't use oil for preserving, its old school thinking and creates an atmosphere where botulism can thrive.
Fermentation relies on bacteria, usually lacto bacillus which can be added, or you can just use what is naturally present in the air, water, and peppers. The bacteria eat the sugars and convert them to an acid and carbon dioxide, so your finished product will taste more sour with no sweetness and you shouldn't need to add vinegars. Fermenting(or any other method of preserving) won't make things any hotter, or even tastier IMO, just a different flavor which needs little or no extra preservatives
 
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I agree with what POTAWIE is saying. When I did my last (current) mash I did a lot of searches on the web for mash and sauerkraut recipes and saw a large variance in the amount of salt used. I went middle of the road with the salt and expect that I'll reduce the salt in future batches. Just make sure you have enough brine to cover the mash. If this is something you think you'll do often it may be wise to invest in a pH meter so you know your product is safe. My first mash was borderline on the pH (was 4.2) and I made the decision not to eat it. I took extra measures this time and expect a much lower pH; I may test it this weekend.

About the canned sauerkraut brine, that will be no good. The cans are processed in order to kill the active lactobacillus to stop the fermentation. Otherwise there would be exploding cans on shelves everywhere.

If you want to experiment a bit I recommend starting a small batch of sauerkraut in a mason jar (lid NOT tightened down so gas can be released). Just search the web (also http://www.wildfermentation.com/ ) for recipes, most are the same. Cabbage is cheap and you can experience the process without wasting peppers. If it works you may use the brine as a starter. FYI I had to add a bit of brine to my kraut as well since store bought cabbage doesn't always have much moisture.

Other possible starters are keffir (the grain not the similarly pronounced leaf), sourdough hooch, or whey from yogurt containing active cultures.

Good luck!
 
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Thank you very much Rob. Some years ago, I once tried the sauerkraut, big 10 gallon stone container, lots of salt, weighed the cabbage down with a big rock. It started ok but after a month, it was all moldy, so I did not want to take a risk and trashed the whole batch.
Here in the area in France, you can buy fresh sauerkraut, uncooked, at all the supermarkets or farmer's markets. I may try to get a lb of that and mix it under the peppers. I don't expect it to affect the taste too much, and is worth a try.
Do you grind the peppers in a blender before starting the fermentation? And, do you weight the peppers down with something heavy?
Found one YouTube video from a farm in VT, but there they don't grind the peppers and ferment them whole. After fermenting they then go in the blender.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=czB-POq4xCc

Another good article is the following, but is a different approach:
http://bobhurt.com/articles/recipe-Jugitos_Pepper_Mash_and_Hot_Sauce.pdf

In adding salt to the peppers, you extract the liquid from the peppers. So, do you keep adding brine over the first days till the mask is fully covered, or is there a ground rule for the amount of brine to add? Do you after fermenting, drain the brine off, or do leave as is? Reason for asking is that I don't want the final hot sauce to become too watery.

And, do you bring the mash to a short boil, after fermenting, or do you leave as is?

I appreciate the help. I'll get there ...
 
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gvittman said:
Here in the area in France, you can buy fresh sauerkraut, uncooked, at all the supermarkets or farmer's markets. I may try to get a lb of that and mix it under the peppers. I don't expect it to affect the taste too much, and is worth a try.
Click to expand...

I say go for it, and I also don't think it will change the taste if you don't use too much of the cabbage. The low pH of the additional lactic acid will also help the culture out compete other microbes.

gvittman said:
Do you grind the peppers in a blender before starting the fermentation? And, do you weight the peppers down with something heavy?
Click to expand...

I chopped mine fine in a food processor / chopper. The smaller the pieces are the faster and easier it will be for the lactobacillus to penetrate it and digest the sugars. If your final product will be blended then it's good anyways. If you wanted larger pieces of pickled peppers at the end then no. My mash will become a sauce.

I have used zip lock bags (double bagged) of brine to weigh them down in the past, also for the sauerkraut, but it can be a pain. Since my peppers are chopped fine the ones on the top just float IN the brine and not really on top of it. I have had no mold or anything develop on this batch of mash at all. I swirl it a bit every day or so to mix up the top bits and settle out the bubbles.

gvittman said:
In adding salt to the peppers, you extract the liquid from the peppers. So, do you keep adding brine over the first days till the mask is fully covered, or is there a ground rule for the amount of brine to add? Do you after fermenting, drain the brine off, or do leave as is? Reason for asking is that I don't want the final hot sauce to become too watery.
Click to expand...

I let my peppers sit with the salt for a while in a mixing bowl and stir it often so the salt can distribute evenly and do its work. In my case the peppers are chopped small too. That will get quite a bit of the moisture out in a short time. I don't do this for longer than an hour and sometimes only 15 minutes if I'm impatient. I don't keep adding brine, I just make sure there's enough at the beginning. Enough brine to at least cover the mixture should be fine (shake out the bubbles).

With my current mash I think I added a little bit too much brine and the sauce may be a bit thin. You could tackle this a few ways:

1) Put it all into a pot and cook it down.
2) Separate the liquid and add it back to desired consistency.

I plan on separating the solid mash from the liquid by pouring it through a strainer (not pressing it). I have a new kitchenaid mixer with strainer attachment that I will run the solid through and may help it out with some of the liquid. I have never used it so hopefully it will work out. If I get a nice sauce out of it I'll dry the solids for pepper flakes. I'll probably still use most if not all of the liquid.

gvittman said:
And, do you bring the mash to a short boil, after fermenting, or do you leave as is?
Click to expand...

If you are going to bottle this is should be pasteurised to kill the lactobacillus and stop fermentation. This way it will keep without exploding the bottles, etc.

I will be bringing mine to a simmer for several minutes and longer if I feel the bits aren't soft enough. I haven't decided weather or not I'm going to do this before or after straining it with the mixer.
 
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gvittman said:
Rob, did some more reading and the following post says to, at the end, boil the jars with fermented mash, in order to lower the pH. This is the first time I read this, and I don't really see how boiling would lower the pH.

http://www.discusscooking.com/forums/f19/how-to-legsbigs-pepper-mash-pictorial-26087-3.html

Another question. Do you add sugar?
Click to expand...

Boiling it won't lower the pH. There needs to be enough brine (for volume of lactic acid) and sugars either in the vegetable you're fermenting or added to the mix. The sugar is the food for the lactobacillus to convert to lactic acid, lowering the pH. I hope (and think) that the lactobacillus like table sugar because I added some to this batch of peppers to give them more food and get a lower pH.
 
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gvittman said:
Found one YouTube video from a farm in VT, but there they don't grind the peppers and ferment them whole. After fermenting they then go in the blender.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=czB-POq4xCc

Another good article is the following, but is a different approach:
http://bobhurt.com/articles/recipe-Jugitos_Pepper_Mash_and_Hot_Sauce.pdf
Click to expand...

Thanks for the links!

In the video I noticed the guy did not cook / pasteurise the sauce. Yeah... good luck. However, he did specify his sauce as PRO BIOTIC. Well in that case he should NOT pasteurise the sauce but he may have to keep it in the fridge and look at alternative packaging if he ever want to sell it.

Also, he said he added a bit of vinegar to it to kick start it. I don't think lactobacillus thrive in vinegar so I wouldn't do that. I have read about adding pineapple jiuce to sourdough starters though, in order to reduce the starting pH and giving the lactobacillus a head start on the competition. I should dig that link up for you guys.
 
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Boiling only lowers pH in a sauce that is already acidic in nature and you allow water to boil off, which would make the acidic ingredients in the mixture more concentrated. Boiling it in a jar (ie pasteurize), would not change pH, because it doesn't allow the steam to escape.
 
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Rob, you are great !!! Now I can start making my check list, and set up the experiment.
One idea to keep the peppers soaked. It must be possible to make some kind of flat colander out of a piece of wood, size of the crock pot. You then simply weight that down.
What do you think?
 
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About the colander idea; I have a thread about that around here. Basically I had this idea to machine something that could be inserted into standard or wide mouth mason jars. I do my mashes in large, 1.5 and 2 litre (1/2 gallon) jars. Ideally it would be made of glass. However some wood like oak may be nice (may impart flavours though). Maybe there's a decent wood that wouldn't add flavour.

I say experiment to see what you come up with!
 
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Oak impact flavours, yes, will change something. Question is, good or bad. Tobasco is aged in oak barrels.
A hard plastic could be an option, made like an umbrella turned inside-out, and covered with cheese cloth.
 
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gvittman,
I have my first batch going right now. I layered ground jalapenos with napa cabbage leaves and the cabbage kickstarted the fermentation quite nicely. I'll remove the leaves when its done. I also used a very light salt brine, 1 Tbsp per 1/2 gallon water. Don't use table salt! Use kosher or sea salt with no iodine, etc.

In many posts I've read about kimchee and pepper mashes, they talk about the importance of keeping oxygen out. I have a glass plate weighted down with a heavy glass to keep the stuff under the brine. Then plastic wrap over the top with another plate over the plastic wrap. The gasses can escape, but oxygen can't get back in. I also have the whole thing under a plastic bucket to keep the light out.

If you can get ahold of some fresh sauer kraut or kimchee, maybe put it in a cheese cloth bag under or on top of the peppers to make it ease to separate from the peppers when it's all done.

I'm thinking about using a tin food mill to separate the skins from the pulp after boiling everything to kill all the bacteria action.

Also, there's a lot of confusion between pickling and fermenting. Pickling has vinegar and doesn't involve bacteria, fermenting doesn't have vinegar until the fermentation is complete. Then vinegar can be added per personal taste or recipe.

I'm gonna let my mash go for another 10 days, then process. There's pics in another post around here somewhere--I think it's the "no-salt mash" thread.

Keep up posted.....PICS PICS PICS!
 
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