fermenting Fermenting mash with little to no brine?

[juseasy]

I'm trying to ferment a Scotch Bonnet mash that I will use as a base for my sauces
 
The process  (I found this process online before I discovered this site   )
 
1) Combine the peppers with salt in a food processor - using 10% of the weight of peppers in salt
2) Lightly process
3) Put mash in an airlocked jar
 
"The salt will draw the water out of the peppers to create a brine"
 
Does this sound right?  I added a half cup of water anyways.  Should I add more water?

 

 

[PtMD989]

10% is kinda much. [emoji52].
Check out the hot sauce101 making sticky or the fermenting peppers 101 sticky in fiery foods forum. [emoji16]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[SmokenFire]

Welcome juseasy!  PtMD is right that there is a great amount of info in the hot sauce 101 and fermenting 101 threads. 
 
To your question about fermenting with no brine: the answer is yes.  I posted a tutorial a while back that I hope may be of some help. 
 
Cheers!
 

 

[juseasy]

Awesome..thanks for the replies!
 
I've been reading as much as I can in the forums. I'll get the next batch right 
 
Just didn't want to have to throw this batch away.

 

[Walchit]

Just dont add salt when u mix it into your sauce, cause 10% is probably salty. Which may not be a bad thing once you start adding other ingredients

 

[Shorerider]

Just dont add salt when u mix it into your sauce, cause 10% is probably salty. Which may not be a bad thing once you start adding other ingredients

 
Agreed. You can add other ingredients to offset the salt, including fresh peppers to boost the back heat up to your desired level.
 
Oh, and welcome. 

 

[juseasy]

Thanks everyone.
 
I use salt in some of my recipes, so I'll just skip this ingredient.
 
Plus I have lots of fresh fruit to add!!

 

[juseasy]

UPDATE - one week in
 
There hasn't really been any visible fermenting activity.  The mash still looks the same, no extra water/brine was drawn out from the peppers.
 
There was white mold (yeast I'm assuming) in two of my jars.  The third jar had a greyish jelly-like mold on the surface.  I skimmed the molds from all three jars and put the lids back on. 
 
I might add some water to the jars tomorrow.

 

[gunslingor]

UPDATE - one week in

There hasn't really been any visible fermenting activity. The mash still looks the same, no extra water/brine was drawn out from the peppers.

There was white mold (yeast I'm assuming) in two of my jars. The third jar had a greyish jelly-like mold on the surface. I skimmed the molds from all three jars and put the lids back on.

I might add some water to the jars tomorrow.

Not sure grinding the peppers first is right. Suspect it creates too thick of a sauce like tomato sauce, I've only seen waterless used with a vacuum bag to get most air out, can't do that with a jar without water I just learnt and ended up here. I used water, 4% salt.

Should I use the water in the hotsauce or toss it?

How long should I let it go?

What happened to your sauce? Mold sounds like the garbage can ate it?

 

[Anders]

I produce hot sauce for a living now, and we always make a mash like you do here. You can also experiment by adding other ingredients immediately and letting them ferment together.

5% salt should be plenty though

Yeast is something you probably will struggle with in the beginning. It's part of the game for everybody. But as you get more experience you learn how to avoid it completely. I would recommend watching a lot of Chilichumps fermenting videos, I learned a lot from them when I was first starting out.