fermenting how do you deal with pests when fermenting chilies.

[meescha]

I was making my first hot sauce, well i was trying to ferment my peppers first, i had everything right i think, i made a brine with a 3.5% salt and 3.5% sugar, i wanted a sweeter hot sauce, i added black pepper corns and garlic. used all of the ecuador chilies i had, and put a cheese cloth over it. it was all going well, untill i opened the cuboard i had it in, and well there were tons of fruit flies all around it, i ended up having to toss the whole batch, thinking fruit flies would lay eggs and id have an entire batch of maggots. how do you all deal with this? i dont really have an air tight cuboard, but i supposed i could build one, but i am curious what everyone else does.

 

[The Hot Pepper]

Sealed container with air lock

 

[meescha]

Sealed container with air lock

i just googled it and thats interessting, didnt even think about this, ill have to use it for my next attempt, thanks

 

[SatanicFlatIron]

there were tons of fruit flies all around it

I also recommend using only water and salt for the brine. Sugar triggers alcoholic fermentation, which isn't what you want; you want lactic fermentation. You can add the sugar later when you make the actual sauce