I’ve got some hot peppers I’d like to ferment into a hot sauce. I’ve found several sites that say essentially:
grind peppers,
add a bit of salt
let sit
I’m not comfortable just letting natural air microbes at my pepper slurry, and am considering trying to add the correct bacteria/yeast, just so I can control it.
I’m think of adding a bit of active culture yogurt.
Is there something else I should do?
Fermentation is an anaerobic activity, how can I be sure I’m not getting a nice healthy culture of botulism going?
would yogurt culture be a good idea?
How did my mom ferment pickles in a crock, dammit?
Yoghurt seems like a bad choice of starter culture for something like this. Best would probably be an alequat from an existing batch being fermented successfully by someone else (in the manner of a sourdough starter, that is)
I would try this. Get an unpasteurized bottle of natural vinegar. A bottle of Fleischmann’s organic unpasteurized white vinegar costs something like 3 dollars and has a small cloudy mother culture at the bottom. Shake the bottle up and introduce it to the pepper slurry. I would also introduce a culture from live yogurt or live buttermilk or even from sourdough bread. These two processes can live together during the same ferment. I would leave the slurry in a wide mouthed jar and cover with two layers of cheesecloth and a rubber band.
A sourdough culture contains bacteria cultures that produce lactic acid and yeasts which provide a means for the sugars to be fermented. A vinegar culture will produce acetic acid. All of these will protect your product from dangerous other microbes.
Exactly the way you state: just salt, water, and whatever herbs and spices you like. There’s really nothing to be afraid of; let nature take its course. It’ll come out fine. I ferment various vegetables (pickles, sauerkraut, beets, kimchi) occasionally, and I’ve never had to rely on a starter of any kind. Sourdough bread is another story; that I prefer to ferment with a known, healthy starter because you want a good balance of souring bacteria and dough-raising bacteria, and I find my own homemade sourdough starters tend to be good sourers, but not so good risers.