Pure pitch lacto vs. whey vs. spontaneous for hot sauce and sourdough?

I did some googling (here / interwebs) and it seems like there are 3 recommendations for a hot sauce mash - spontaneous ferment, whey from the top of yogurt, and liquor from the top of a sourdough starter.

Given my previous (half assed) attempts at spontaneous sourdough have been epic fails and I've had good luck with pure pitch sour mash, i was wondering if your run of the mill white labs or wyeast lacto would be a good option for peppers and/or sourdough starter.

I'd love to get thoughts from the forum - I prefer to learn from others' experience rather than error and trial! Has anyone done the pure pitch route (would it actually ferment the peppers), or would you recommend the whey approach instead? I've got this nice pile of Criolla Sella peppers from the garden begging for a little fermentation (and a bunch of ghost chilis still on the vine that may get the same treatment).

Thanks!
Brewguyver

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Criolla Sella (orange), Yellow Cayenne, Shi****o (green), Aleppo (which keep getting infected by something), Jalachuan, and little red things i cant identify - i think they're also Jalachuan (unstable hybrid)

So I went with the yogurt whey plus whatever was still on the peppers - put it in a 2% bribe solution along with dry roasted sungold tomatoes and 2 cloves of garlic. We'll see how it turns out.

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Following, as a reminder as I have wanted to do this.

I'll keep you up to date. It's cloudy and smells funky (if possible more peppery), but no krausen to speak of yet. It seems on par with a google image search of fermenting peppers.

Interesting aside - when people talk about significant volume expansion and explosive brewing, you need to see if they're home brewers. We have a different definition of things like "explosive fermentation" and "scum on top."

Ok, I 'll play along, A half dozen habaneros, a couple japs, two tomatoes, garlic, cilantro and cumin in a 2% by weight brine.
Whey from my latest batch of yogurt, lets see what happensView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1439511580.248214.jpg

Nice - that looks deadly. I'm going to try and do the ghost peppers later today. I figure I can blend them *carefully* to other things up to par.

I just stirred and air locked this sucker. It was bubbling nicely this morning. I'll take another pic later when the cap floats up again. Took forever to find the grommets so I could make the lid. Grrrrrr.



I just built an airlockView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1439823656.551291.jpg

Added another 2 cups of Criolla Sella and a cup of brine - got some nice lacto sourness.

I decided to try spontaneous ferment with the ghost peppers - about 1 c diced peppers, 1 garlic clove, 2 cups 2% bribe and 1-2 tablespoons syrup from some over sugared peaches. It's a little thin, but I figure I can add as necessary.

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2 quart jar filled with Brazilian starfish peppers fermenting away. I used the lacto brine from my Criolla Sella peppers.. Probably have 2x this much left to pick.
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And one heck of a pellicule on my naturally fermenting ghost peppers View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1443288334.145487.jpg

Ooh... Ooh i'll play... I've got a jar on my counter that I reused the pepper mash from.

Can you use the left over mash for sourdough?

I'd imagine ... totally going to try it