This is an assortment of peppers, red onion, garlic, and celery in a saltwater brine. What is forming on the surface of the brine?
What's floating over fermenting peppers?
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This is an assortment of peppers, red onion, garlic, and celery in a saltwater brine. What is forming on the surface of the brine?
Kickass
Well-Known Member
Looks like the early stages of Kahm to me. Harmless, but not super tasty. Here’s the first article that came up on my google search.
https://fermentools.com/what-is-kahm-yeast-is-it-safe/
https://fermentools.com/what-is-kahm-yeast-is-it-safe/
Just scoop it away...
That's no problem, just ignore it.
My peppers ended up smelling so bad that I gagged when I opened them after this started forming. I have ended up dumping every batch of peppers I've tried to ferment because they got so nasty smelling
OK, that is a real problem. I never had a single bad ferment and I made a lot.
Simple proces to follow:
Use 20g untreated rock salt per litre of unchlorinated water. Dissolve it. Throw the peppers in, put it in a Fido type glass (flip top, no silicone ring, the ones with a rubber ring). Place at room temperature, wait 4 weeks, done. Be careful, might spill a bit of the liquid during fermentation due to pressurising. Do not open it before. Might be actually already done after 3 weeks...
That's it, no rocket science. Do not use a starter or something weird, I give you the guarantee that it will work if you follow the process above.
No worries about head space or anything?
I put mine in a standard screw top mason jar and followed pretty much that same process except I added a tiny bit of vinegar to the water to drop the pH
See, you tried to get fancy with the vinegar
No fancy stuff. Think of it as jaom.
Screw top is not good because it cannot really depessurise on its own. I sometimes use them, but when I do, I put first a layer of cling film on top of the vegetables and liquid after filling the glass, without much air below, basically touching the liquid. letting it overlap quite a bit over the rim of the glass, screw the lid on with the cling film between cap and glad, cling film will make it a bit untight so that pressure can get out.
Don't go below 2% of salt in the solution, or it might spoil.
Also no air lock glass.... Mentioned just in case.
Headspace... Don't leave half of the glass empty. A bit of air won't matter.
See, you tried to get fancy with the vinegar
No fancy stuff. Think of it as jaom.
Screw top is not good because it cannot really depessurise on its own. I sometimes use them, but when I do, I put first a layer of cling film on top of the vegetables and liquid after filling the glass, without much air below, basically touching the liquid. letting it overlap quite a bit over the rim of the glass, screw the lid on with the cling film between cap and glad, cling film will make it a bit untight so that pressure can get out.
Don't go below 2% of salt in the solution, or it might spoil.
Also no air lock glass.... Mentioned just in case.
Headspace... Don't leave half of the glass empty. A bit of air won't matter.
I looked back through my pictures and I also used glass sourkraut weights on top of the peppers to keep them submerged. I've had good luck using them to make sourkraut. That might have also been a contributor. I sanitized them first, but you never know
It works without... So why the hustle. I leave them out. Worst thing that happened was that the top layer was a bit oxidised.
OP
OP
It's all good, MadKing
You got a great response to your issues, so I don't have much to add. I'd just add to remember to keep your brine 5% salt, and keep the peppers submerged. 5% brine is enough to retard unwanted microbes but still allow lactobacillus to work.
bernardsmith
Well-Known Member
Kahm yeast need O2 and if you keep the peppers (or any other vegetable) submerged so that nothing except brine is exposed to the air then kahm yeast cannot thrive.
