Pickled Peppers

A few days ago, I packed a pint of peppers to pickle. I was following a recipe from Cultures for Health and modified it a bit. For one, I didn't use Jalapeños. They are too hot for me. I was looking for something like the sliced deli peppers that I buy at the grocery store.

Let's start with the peppers. The grocery store had a selection of peppers all labeled as "chili peppers." I bought these that were similar in color and size (after slicing) to the prepared peppers that I am used to buying. If you know what these are, leave me a comment.

The recipe is quite simple, just calling for sliced peppers, brine, and kombucha or raw apple cider. Well, I don't have any kombucha, or raw apple cider. On the other hand I do have whey strained from my kefir. The recipes in fermented foods at every meal often call for a tablespoon of whey with the brine to kick start the fermentation. Their recipes often call for just a few days of fermentation. I decided to go with that.

My version of this recipe is:

4 large peppers, tops cut off, seeds removed, and cut horizontally into rounds
Brine made from 1 cup of water and 1-1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of whey

This time, I decided to try removing the chlorine from my water. I boiled it in the microwave and set it out to cool.

These ingredients fit nicely into a pint mason jar with the fermentation weight, allowing a little head room for gasses to accumulate and vent off.

Taste Test

After about a week, I took out the fermentation gadgets and put the peppers in the fridge. There was a coating of thin white film at the top of the jar. This might have been a residue from the whey. I did not carefully filter the whey, I just poured it off from a jar of double-fermented kefir. It might also have been a type of yeast called kahm. It was above the fermentation weight. I just skimmed it off.

The peppers were hotter than I expected. Some friends suggested that I might be using banana peppers or cubanelle peppers. They came out rather limp. I might try these, again, or I might just stick with the store-bought version. I've had one sandwich with them added. It was pretty good.