Hi all. I got tons of peppers and I need to do something with them before they go bad. I've already frozen a bunch, sold some, dehydrated and made jars of powder, and made simple cook and blend hot sauces for me and my friends. I thought about trying to ferment some of the rest. Looks fairly simple but I thought I would get a few ideas here. I see one webpage shows using sea salt and water and mixing peppers with onions, carrots, garlic etc. Another recipe is similar but adds some vinegar to the mix. I have regular table salt but no sea salt in the house. Anyone got a simple recipe or advice for me? I've got tons of mason jars sitting around, fresh garlic, onions, and tons of orange habs, hungarian hot wax, and a few Primos and ghost with tons of all these still green on the vine. Thanks!
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fermenting first time ferment
- Thread starter cmwr
- Start date
First thing you do, look at the second pinned discussion at the top of the page and read:
Fermenting Peppers 101
All of 'em. Your questions will be answered, and you will gain many more insights about fermenting.
But, to answer one of your questions, table salt is fine as long as it is non-iodized. Plain salt is plain salt. Doesn't matter if it is sea, kosher, fine, pickling, coarse, or extracted from unicorn tears. Personally, I generally use canning salt cause it is cheap and dissolves so nicely. Fermenting is easy, don't overthink or over engineer. Have fun.
Oh, almost forgot, the vinegar is used post-ferment.
Fermenting Peppers 101
All of 'em. Your questions will be answered, and you will gain many more insights about fermenting.
But, to answer one of your questions, table salt is fine as long as it is non-iodized. Plain salt is plain salt. Doesn't matter if it is sea, kosher, fine, pickling, coarse, or extracted from unicorn tears. Personally, I generally use canning salt cause it is cheap and dissolves so nicely. Fermenting is easy, don't overthink or over engineer. Have fun.
Oh, almost forgot, the vinegar is used post-ferment.
After I posted I did go back and read that pinned post. Thank you for the advice. I will ask though, and I didn't see it in that post so if I missed it I apologize for asking here, is it better to use salt water brine or to use food processor to chop peppers and then just cover with salt and let the peppers own juices do the trick? I've seen both ways.fishhead said:
Brine or mash, whatever works for you. Just be sure to get your proportion of salt correct.
Start small for your first batch, that way if you screw it up, you are not out much.
FYI, I'm leaning more toward vacuum bag fermentation for peppers the more I do it.
Also, chillipeppermadness.com has some great hot sauce recipes to get you going.
Start small for your first batch, that way if you screw it up, you are not out much.
FYI, I'm leaning more toward vacuum bag fermentation for peppers the more I do it.
Also, chillipeppermadness.com has some great hot sauce recipes to get you going.
Try Korean sun dried sea salt. Its around $10/kg. They use it a lot in Korea for kimchi. Higher in minerals than regular Kosher/canning salt. Slightly cheaper than Himmy pink salt.
https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Premium-Salt-Kimchi-Brining/dp/B00KNGFG2I
Easy Fermenters off Amazon work great
https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Fermenter-Wide-Mouth-Lid/dp/B01DJVVORE
You can use a tiny bit of vinegar during the ferment to lower the starting pH a tad. Some bottled waters are low also but tap water is often quite high.
https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Premium-Salt-Kimchi-Brining/dp/B00KNGFG2I
Easy Fermenters off Amazon work great
https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Fermenter-Wide-Mouth-Lid/dp/B01DJVVORE
You can use a tiny bit of vinegar during the ferment to lower the starting pH a tad. Some bottled waters are low also but tap water is often quite high.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Question, I'm making mash by just processing peppers and mixing in salt. According to the chilipeppermadness website, you should use 1 tsp of salt per lb of mash. It says 1 lb is roughly 1 cup of pepper mash. I have a food scale and 1.25 lbs of processed peppers actually was 2.5 cups. I wasn't sure what to do so I added 2.5 tsp fine ground sea salt to the mixture. Not sure whether I should have used my weight measurement or the cup measurement though since my results didn't jive with the websites results. https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/cooking-with-chili-peppers/how-to-make-fermented-pepper-mash/
I dont really do the mash thing because i dont want supers in plastic food processors. Chopping it all up fine by hand would gag me. After im happy with the initial brined ferment i blitz it in one of my extra Nutribullet containers. It only gets used for peppers. Then toss the blended ferment into a smaller jar to finish cold in the fridge.
Its also a good idea to jack up the salt % if using a mash. They mold easier. So either use more salt or get something like the Easy Fermenter lids. With coarse chopped and brined you just use however much of the fermented brine you want when you go to make the sauce. You are kinda stuck with more salt you used in a mash.
Its also a good idea to jack up the salt % if using a mash. They mold easier. So either use more salt or get something like the Easy Fermenter lids. With coarse chopped and brined you just use however much of the fermented brine you want when you go to make the sauce. You are kinda stuck with more salt you used in a mash.
Too much salt slows the fermentation but pretty much nothin will grow on the top. Just look at the top of a Tabasco barrel. On the other hand if you just remove the oxygen from the equation very little other than lacto will thrive. You wont have mold or yeast. The fermenter kit is just $26 on Amazon and the first 2 ferments were flawless. I would wager the amount of salt needed for a mash could be much less using them.
