Stir plate and some black stuff

[Siv]

So after fermenting some peppers, I wanted to make a Tabasco style sauce so I mixed the mash with a little more than 1.5 the volume in vinegar and put it on my home made stir plate.
 
I've noticed some black stuff is collecting in the middle which you can see in the photo below. Do you have any ideas what his may be? I'm thinking that with that much vinegar, nothing should be growing but not sure. I can't really say for sure but it seems oily.
 

 

 

[Walchit]

What does the stir plate do? Did you cook the sauce? Looks gross, I don't think I would eat it

 

[Siv]

What does the stir plate do? Did you cook the sauce?

The stir plate has spinning magnets underneath and then a Teflon coated magnetic bar is in the flask. It continuously stirs the mixture.
 
It's not cooked (yet), it's just fermented pepper mash and vinegar.
 
Actually, there was a little Kahm yeast on the top of the ferment which I skimmed before mixing with vinegar - I wonder if it's the remnants which has turned black in the vinegar.

 

[Petrac]

What does the stir plate do? Did you cook the sauce? Looks gross, I don't think I would eat it

The point of stir plate is emusfication of the liquid. Philosophy behind this is that liquid dies not separate from solid particles and your sauce does not separate, or it does not separate for a longer period of time. Also, you gain a bit on colour contrast..

 

[Siv]

OK, so last night I had another look and changed the stir bar for another one. The "black stuff" is actually a very deep red oil type substance. It seems my stirring wasn't fast enough to mix everything so what looks like the capsaicin oil separated and collected at the top. Now that I'm stirring a bit faster, everything is better mixed and no oil is collecting any more. I may add a tiny bit of carageenan to aid in the emulsification.
 
Not sure about the look - it's a fermented mash of red, orange and yellow peppers - but it smells wonderful!

 

[Tybo]

How did you build your stir plate?  I was gonna buy one of the cheaper ones on Amazon but then heard they didnt work so well with thicker sauces.  I've also looked at a few builds on youtube but haven't decided on one of those either.  
 
On a separate note, I've been using xantham gum to emulsify my sauces and it works great.  I bet 1/8 teaspoon would work great for the amount of sauce in that flask.  
 
Anyway, glad to hear that the dark stuff wasn't anything "bad".  Hope it turns out good.

 

[Siv]

The stir plate is super simple to make. All you need is are:
- 120mm PC case fan (either pulled out of an old machine or bought for $10)
- Strong magnets; some people get them out of old hard drives but I just bought some from Amazon
- A variable power supply (I bought this one: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZSGKTX5)
- Some kind of 12V+ DC power source like a laptop power supply
- A non-metallic box to put it in (e.g.a cigar box)
- Stir bars - also available from Amazon
 
You just hot glue the magnets to the fan (making sure that one is N and the other is S) and mount in the box. Then connect up your variable power supply to the fan and your laptop power supply to the variable and you're done.
 

 
If you know how to wire up a potentiometer yourself you can basically get all the parts you need from an old PC for free. I just bought mine because it's still only $50 total investment.

 

[Walchit]

Well now I'm interested!

 

[Siv]

Just made another one last night!
 

 
This one is much more powerful for some reason - perhaps because I'm using an old laptop power supply instead of a wall wart. And it's a good thing too - this cayenne mix is a bit thicker than the other one but after stirring overnight, it has loosened up a bit.
 
My parts list:
Magnets https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MSTKTSF
Fan https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PHRLWTD
Stir bars https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CFK4S82
Flask https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001BLKL4W
Variable power supply https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZSGKTX5
I made the base with some scrap but you can use an old cigar box or any wooden box you have lying around.

 

[Petrac]

You dont need an adjustable power supply. There are two types of computer fans. First are normal, usualy 12V DC fans. Size does not matter. Once they're hopped on 12V DC, they will spin at full speed they're made to spin at, and they have 2 wires attached to them (usualy back and red). It is possible to spin them slower with lower DC, but they will not work the way they're suppost to - they will be '' jumping '' and they wont have any power pushing through more thicker sauce (this is called treshhold voltage). Have you tried to dimm LED with resistors? They will not light up. Second type are so called adjustabe or regulated fans. First difference is, they have 3 wires. DC powered devices can be correcty adjusted only by PMW (pulse width modulation). So, third wire is used to regulate RPM. You know that from PCs. If you're playing games or work on something heavy duty, the fan on CPU and GPU will start to spin faster.

 

[Siv]

You dont need an adjustable power supply. There are two types of computer fans. First are normal, usualy 12V DC fans. Size does not matter. Once they're hopped on 12V DC, they will spin at full speed they're made to spin at, and they have 2 wires attached to them (usualy back and red). It is possible to spin them slower with lower DC, but they will not work the way they're suppost to - they will be '' jumping '' and they wont have any power pushing through more thicker sauce (this is called treshhold voltage). Have you tried to dimm LED with resistors? They will not light up. Second type are so called adjustabe or regulated fans. First difference is, they have 3 wires. DC powered devices can be correcty adjusted only by PMW (pulse width modulation). So, third wire is used to regulate RPM. You know that from PCs. If you're playing games or work on something heavy duty, the fan on CPU and GPU will start to spin faster.

 
I have no idea about PC electronics so I just bought what I thought would work. One thing for sure though it that there needs to be some kind of speed control. At 12v the stir bar always jumps off - it's far too fast. My second setup has a simple fan (red & black cable only) and I'm running at about 8.5V with the cayenne. I tried the same with the other thinner sauce and it was way too fast and created a big tornado and the stir bar jumped off so had to reduce to about 6V.
 
The speed control allows both current or voltage control. Maybe I should try at 12V and vary the current instead of the voltage?

 

[podz]

You dont need an adjustable power supply. There are two types of computer fans. First are normal, usualy 12V DC fans. Size does not matter. Once they're hopped on 12V DC, they will spin at full speed they're made to spin at, and they have 2 wires attached to them (usualy back and red). It is possible to spin them slower with lower DC, but they will not work the way they're suppost to - they will be '' jumping '' and they wont have any power pushing through more thicker sauce (this is called treshhold voltage). Have you tried to dimm LED with resistors? They will not light up. Second type are so called adjustabe or regulated fans. First difference is, they have 3 wires. DC powered devices can be correcty adjusted only by PMW (pulse width modulation). So, third wire is used to regulate RPM. You know that from PCs. If you're playing games or work on something heavy duty, the fan on CPU and GPU will start to spin faster.

 
 
Stress-based modulation is what it is - you don't gain any control over the situation. Being able to precisely adjust the rate of stirring is critical in terms of how the contents will behave.

 

[podz]

So after fermenting some peppers, I wanted to make a Tabasco style sauce so I mixed the mash with a little more than 1.5 the volume in vinegar and put it on my home made stir plate.
 
I've noticed some black stuff is collecting in the middle which you can see in the photo below. Do you have any ideas what his may be? I'm thinking that with that much vinegar, nothing should be growing but not sure. I can't really say for sure but it seems oily.
 

 

 
It's just centrifugally exposed residue that you couldn't normally see when it's mixed in with everything else. Take a turkey baster and remove it if you want - it's not gonna hurt you.