In most cases you shouldn’t have to use a live culture or a starter culture. Everything you need should be naturally on your peppers. If the peppers are store bought they may be irradiated and so you would want to use a starter culture. Help me out guys? I myself used kefir that I picked up from a home brew shop. You definitely want to use salt. This is what keeps the nasties at bay while the lactobacillus gets going. How much salt that is debatable. I chose to be safe and use the USDA recommendation for making sauerkraut. Off the top of my head I think it is 3 table spoons of canning salt per 5 lbs of vegetables but I would have to double check.