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Sauce going south

Pepperjack91

Pepperjack91

So I have two jars of sauce fermenting right now. From the same batch. Made about a month ago. They had been doing good. I noticed the other day that one had more liquid in it than the other and it seemed to be doing better. I decided to add lime juice to the one that was thick. Now a few days later I found some mold in the one that I added line juice to and it is also developing a bad smell. Wouldn't that have lowered the pH and made bacterial and fungal growth less likely? Did something I do suddenly make it go bad? They had both been smelling good and not showing any kid of bad growth. Any advice is greatly appreciated. I'm new to this so worst case scenario it's a learning experience.
 
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Hey Pepperjack, it sounds like that one never took off and started fermenting so when you opened it and let more O2 into the jar you gave the mold what it needed to take a firm hold on the jar. 
 
Couple of questions though to help dial it down a bit:
 
1. What was in the mash? Was it pure peppers or did you add anything else?
 
2. At what ratio did you make your brine? 2%, 6% salt by weight?
 
3.  Did you use a starter, Whey, Probiotic pill, Sourdough Hooch, etc...?
 
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Man, it sounds like you did everything right. It was just one of those things that sometimes happens. Odd though with an 8% brine that it would be able to live long enough to take hold. I'd just dump it, sanitize the cr@p out of the jar and start again.
 
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I think adding acid to a fermentation can either stop the fermentation or produce off-flavors. In the future you might want to just let nature run its course, sometimes it takes longer to begin fermentation
 
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