How long until my sauce goes bad? process inside

[jturkish]

Hi, New to this site, so far loving it. Been making hot sauce from fermented peppers since October. I don't pasteurize it, just blend it up straight from the fermenter then place it in the fridge afterwards. Seems like my sauces last a while in the fridge but recently I started fermenting and using fruit, I wonder if I need to pasteurize sauces that have fruit.

I ferment peppers in chunks, I just cut them in half and use a 3.5% brine solution. I use the pickl it calculator where I plug in how much water I'm using and it spits out weight of salt to use. I use pickling salt and weigh it out with a scale. Ferment for about a week at room temp then I blend it up with 1-2 cups of the brine solution

 

[turbo]

Really depends.  Do you plan on storing it in the fridge?  Or just on the shelf?  If you plan on storing it in the fridge, I wouldn't worry about things like pasteurization or pH level.  Just use it within 6 months or so.
 
Otherwise, its gonna be really hard to tell if you don't have a pH meter.  For shelf stable sauces you want a pH of around 4.2'ish (that right folks?) and if you plan on keeping them for a while you'll probably want to go through the canning process just to make sure.
 
Also, you didn't let your ferment go very long.  Some ferments don't even start within the first week.  So you probably have active fermentation going on by the time you bottled it, and without cooking your sauce these fermentation bacteria are probably still alive.  This can lead to a secondary fermentation or continuation of the first fermentation inside a sealed bottle, which can cause it to pop if enough pressure builds up.
 
You really need to go through "Fermenting Peppers 101" thread.  Its pretty long, but the first 2-3 pages will give you the majority of fermenting knowledge this site has accumulated. 

 

[jturkish]

Thanks, yeah I just have it in the fridge. I thought I read somewhere that if the room it ferments in is warm then it'll only take about a week. I'll let it sit longer, thanks again