fermenting First Mash - Finished and Pics added

[Seacowboy]

Figured I needed to give the sauce making a whirl after only pickling peppers, relishes, and making mustards with all these great peppers from the garden and from many folks on here.  I'm wide open to suggestions and critiques and I know I should have started a bit smaller for my first few batches but think I followed all the proper steps and have the right ingredients to make it work, only time will tell now.  As you can see from the picture my list of ingredients and measurements is all included to fill a 2 gal food grade bucket to within 1.5-2".  The one thing I am concerned with is that some of the top layers of stuff has floated and isn't submerged underwater, if I need to get a mesh with a little added weight on top I can do that today before things get going.  
 
Have some more peppers coming and will try using kim chi juice for those but in a little small batches.
 
Excuse the clutter, bottles for the baby have taken over much of our limited counter space.

 

 

[romy6]

 Looks very tasty J man. I will be checking in from time to time. 

 

[RocketMan]

Alright Jason, looking good, now get that bubblier on there and put it away for a month or 6 yeah, like any of us could last that long

 

[Seacowboy]

Bubbler is on it, used bottled water, have read a few people use alcohol but didn't have any in the cabinet but if I need to swap it out I can make a run to store.  Its put away in my work room in a cabinet so the cat doesn't do anything stupid to it while I'm gone, and its the warmest room in the house as well at around 75*.  What's gonna be really hard is this is going to be totally blind so I will have to put mouse traps on top of it to keep me from peeking in, bucket and lid are solid white....

 

[hoibot]

looks like a lot of mash! nice work, sounds tasty. i think you will be fine with the bottled water in the airlock. i've done that on a few beer brews and never had any issues. you could dissolve some salt in the water if you want to dissuade some microbes.

 

[RocketMan]

Lacto like it best around the 85 to 95 dF range. Yours will still ferment but will be slower and take longer.

 

[Seacowboy]

I could move my germ mat and raise the temp up to the 85ish range I suppose.  My outdoor shed gets pretty hot but maybe not over 95, would be worried to allow it sit in there but maybe an option, wife likes to keep the house pretty cool so it will tough to find those 85-95 temps in the house.

 

[RocketMan]

Garage?

 

[Seacowboy]

Nope. The shed is attached to house and on the south side, don't think it will get over 95 in there with the windows open so long as you say that's not too hot I'll throw it in there.

 

[Tigeris]

Wow, that's a huge mash!   I'll definitely be watching this topic!

 

[Seacowboy]

The wait is over. 71 days fermenting and I couldn't wait any longer to see what I've got. Had just a little of the white (ok) mold on the surface, very little. The bottles are in the dishwasher and sauce is 5 minutes into its first boil. Smell is good but will have to wait and see what it tastes like after running it through the blender and cooking it down a few times. Fingers are crossed, will take some pics as I go and post back how it turns out. Gonna have a ton of sauce if I did right.

 

[illWill]

Holy crap thats a lot of mash dude!  Looks good

 

[RocketMan]

The white stuff on top is probably a Kahm yeast and not a problem. If you got a pic I can tell you for certain.

So, how'd it turn out?

 

[Seacowboy]

Had some problems with imgur but got it working now. The flavor has a good bit of smoke to it but not to much, will decrease the amount of onion, heat builds slow and isn't too much. Well again problems with imgur again. Will try again from laptop tonight. But I ended up 35 bottles and will start another big batch this week once I can get some peppers smoked.