Fermentation Support Forum

I’ve made a couple of ferments of jalapeño and kiwi fruit recently and they’ve gone pretty well to making hot sauce but I’ve just had one fermenting for a week and a half now and there is like a white dust type thing happening on the jalapeños and kiwi fruit themselves. Photos attached. Is this kahm yeast? The brine is a fit cloudier than usual but there isn’t really stuff gathering on the top of it.

Would be keen to know if others have experienced this?
Should I open and grab some of the stuff off the veggies/fruit so it’s no longer in the brine?
Was planning on only leaving it in for another 3 or 4 days before I whipped it into some bottles.

Kahm is a floating phenomenon at the interchange between air and brine/produce. This is just spent microbes and their waste -- and so normal that what's weird about your story is you haven't seen it before. :)

If you look at live pickled cucumbers in the grocery store, you'll see the same stuff in every jar.

Thanks heaps Christopher! Apppreciate it. Yeah I’ve been only fermenting things for probably the last 3 or so months but have done a few different types and haven’t seen this before. Good to know!

When I drain out the brine I’m sure it’ll all come off the veggies then do I just let the brine settle (or moreso let this stuff settle to bottom of brine) before I add some of the brine back in to thin it out?

Appreciate ya!

I've never thought to worry about it. Also, it doesn't take much brine added to your chiles in the blender (less added, the longer you ferment because the produce gets mushy), so if you're just decanting off the top of the brine, you're not really going to get much of the dead cells.

They're harmless and not even particularly gross. If you dab some up on your finger and taste it, the texture is slimy, which squicks me out a little, but the flavor is inoffensive.