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fermenting Hot pepper fermentation seems to have stopped 10 days into fermentation

P

presse55

Hello fellow hot pepper enthusiasts!

I am trying my hand at a recipe for Pineapple Habanero fermented hot sauce - I have two jars going.

One of the two seems to have stopped fermenting. I'm linking to a video for you to see. I'd love to hear what you think might be going on with the jar on the left.

Take a look at my ferment here!

Thanks in advance!

Ron
Montreal
 
You don’t have any issues. A LAB brine ferment will not be visually very active past 10 days. I do suggest to let it age a month at minimum though. The way to determine if the ferment has been completed is to take a PH reading after blending. Add vinegar it the PH is too high. A safe PH makes it shelf stable.

If you don’t want to take a PH let it go a monthly plus and add a 1/4 cup of vinegar to your boil before bottling just to be safe.

The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) acceptable pH level for a hot sauce is 4.6 but a lower pH of about 3.4 will ensure any inaccuracies in readings due to equipment or temperature differences in the sauce will be covered.
 
Hopefully there is a hole in your airlock cap...

Different brines have different personalities, they can even stop (visually) fermenting and start up again. I have 3 mash ferments going, 2 of them took about 5 days go really get going and the other took almost 3 weeks, but now is bubbling away. The slower one has a slightly higher salt ratio, that is only thing I can think of why it took so long.

On a side note, I think I'm done with the air locks, they really don't seem to do much with a slow ferment like a hot sauce. Certainly not like a beer! Just leave the lid slightly loose or burp once in a while seems to work just fine.
 
Checking in to say that my pepper ferments are almost always very slow, with very little visible activity throughout their term - absolutely nothing like beer & wine that I've done in the past...

That said, airlocks have been key for me to keep kham yeast and nasties at bay during the ferment.
 
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