An alternative is to use a lid with a built-in water seal apparatus that acts as one-way valve to vent the carbon dioxide. Not having to think about manual venting or ingress of oxygen makes it a more foolproof process.
For thick-walled peppers, e.g jalapeño, a salt mash works as well as a brine and allows better control over the liquid content at the end. With a salt mash the thicker peppers release a lot of water that essentially becomes the brine, albeit at lower volume. For thin-walled peppers like cayenne and habanero, I usually use a brine or a combination of mash and brine. A weight can help keep the fermenting peppers submerged and compacted to make they remain anaerobic.
2% salt by weight would be the very lowest I would consider personally. Usually I use 4-5%.
A winemaker once gave me a sample of his own hot sauce which was great. The next year's batch he gave me, the body of it seems to separate a lot more to the point where it ends up with the sauce settled at the bottom and then brine/oil/whatever up top. In commercial sauces, I'm sure they have additives that keep it consistent, but I doubt he's doing anything like that. What's likely caused that difference over the previous batch?
An alternative is to use a lid with a built-in water seal apparatus that acts as one-way valve to vent the carbon dioxide. Not having to think about manual venting or ingress of oxygen makes it a more foolproof process.
For thick-walled peppers, e.g jalapeño, a salt mash works as well as a brine and allows better control over the liquid content at the end. With a salt mash the thicker peppers release a lot of water that essentially becomes the brine, albeit at lower volume. For thin-walled peppers like cayenne and habanero, I usually use a brine or a combination of mash and brine. A weight can help keep the fermenting peppers submerged and compacted to make they remain anaerobic.
2% salt by weight would be the very lowest I would consider personally. Usually I use 4-5%.