It would be garbage for me. Some argue you can just skim it all off and consume the rest. I disagree with that given the nature of mold growth. But ultimately the choice is yours.

Any idea what went wrong this time? Not enough salt or too warm conditions? Too much light exposure?

Dave

I read some say if it gets color to throw it out and others say its ok to consume after removing the top layer. I am not sure what to do. I do not want anyone to get sick but I also do not want to waist 12lbs of homegrown peppers basically ruining my entire season. What do you mean by the nature of mold growth? what if I remove the top layer and then boil the snot out of it lol?

I am not sure what went wrong this time. I used a different brand of salt and a different blender, but everything else is exactly the same. I used the same recipe and it is sitting in the same spot on my counter, in the same closed fermenter, as all the other batches. My more power full blender allowed me to blend up frozen peppers with out adding additional brine this time. I only used brine to cover. The only thing I can think of is air is getting in somehow.

I can understand wanting to save it. Been there - done that. ;-) The problem with mold growth is that it isn't just growing the surface, it grows tendrils that run down into the food as well. No way to know how deep.

But if you want to try to salvage it then yeah, it would be worth it to try a thorough skimming and then boil the rest. That would kill the probiotics (if they are your goal) but the flavor would still be there.

Could have been the salt. Different types can measure differently.

Dave

I decided to pop both of them open and take a look. They didn't smell bad at all. In fact they smelled absolutely delicious like a good ferment should. I was able to skim the mold off. It was weird like a clear jelly layer had solidified together under with the white spots.. It almost came off in one piece. What was left underneath the layer, was a pristine mash. Is smelled and looked fantastic. I added a brine topper with extra salt to reduce head space and put the airlock back on. I am still not sure if is safe to eat and I haven't decided what I am going to do with it yet but we will see.

Instead of mortins I used a flake salt from a local do it yourself store. Maybe I should weight it next time instead of using table spoons. I used the 3 table spoons to 5 lbs of vegetable sauerkraut method. Do you know what that would be in grams per 5 lbs?

No way to know for flake - all different sizes of flakes available. Morton's gives you a conversion chart for the most common salt types and grinds. But with the gourmet/niche salts you are on your own (which is why their use is not recommended).

http://www.mortonsalt.com/article/salt-conversion-chart/

Dave

Here is a pic of the label. It weights 16 g per 1 tablespoon any idea how much Morton canning salt weights per tablespoon?

I finally got my hands on some Mortons canning salt. It weights 18g per tablespoon on my scale compared to the 16g per tablespoon of the salt I used. Do you think that would do it?