fermenting Off flavor and smell in fermented hot sauce

[decatur]

I made about 3 gallons of fermented jalapeno hot sauce from about 30 pounds of jalapenos and flavoring ingredients starting about 1.5 months ago. The finished product had an incredible flavor, but the heat wasn't right. I processed 1 pound of habaneros and put them in reserved brine from the primary sauce. The brine was ~3.4 pH, so I'm not sure if any fermentation happened or not, but a few days later I strained off just the habanero liquor/brine and added most of it to the sauce. It upped the heat a lot without noticeably changing the flavor. In retrospect, I should have probably just procured some refined capsaicin.

Fast forward about a week later... There's a very thin white film floating in the sauce and there is a light, almost alcoholic odor. That same alcoholic note completely changed the flavor as well. I double checked the pH at around 3.2 to 3.4.

Is it spoiled, even at that pH level? I'm really not impressed with the flavor now and not sure how to rescue it.

 

[DaQatz]

Does the white film look like this?

If so it's "Brettanomyces lambicus" which is a lactic yeast. It's perfectly safe. It's often used in lambic beer making, and tends to impart a "fruity" to "sour" taste.

 

[decatur]

Hey, thanks for the reply. I actually found your picture looking through past posts. It had only progressed to the point of making a light film, no "texture" like in the pic. Because it is inside a carboy there was no way to skim it off so I shook it into suspension. We'll see what happens.

After posting, I googled a bit and everything suggested it is yeast eating residual sugars. I guess it does better at that pH level than lactobacillus (edit: you said it was a lactic yeast, so that makes sense, duh.) Most of the searches suggested the harsh bite should fade with age.

 

[RocketMan]

Yep, been there, had that, just cook it up and make some sauce.