For what it's worth, I've had really good luck with the American Loaf recipes from Cook's Illustrated, French-Style Country Bread recipe from King Arthurs Flour, and Alton Brown's Basic Bread recipe. I've used all those recipes with either no salt altogether or reducing the salt content by at least 50%. The American Loaf recipes have a bit of sweetener, so the salt flavor is not missed. The Country Bread & Alton Brown's bread use a sponge or pre-ferment that adds a tang that compensates for the missing salt flavor.

Why not try an Irish soda bread recipe and substitute whole wheat flour for whatever kind of flour it calls for? Sourdough bread is OK for me to eat - as long as no yeast has been added after the starter, which does contain yeast. (A lot of bakeries and recipes add yeast after the starter.) I'm still looking for a yeast-free, dairy-free "regular" bread recipe myself.

This has been an interesting thread to follow, and I would have to say cooking is both an art and a science. In fact, I would say food at its best is a blend of art and science, after being a foods judge at fairs for many years. Leave the salt out of a bread recipe and see what you end up with? Bad science. Add the salt twice, an easy mistake, and see what you end up with? Bad science. Add the salt early and the gluten is harder to develop. Add the salt late in the gluten-development and it's easier to develop and won't require as much kneading. All science! The same goes for adding too much water, flour, sugar (or other sweetener); or flavoring ingredients which can affect the gluten-development in bread when you add too much - like cinnamon and nutmeg when added directly to the dough (this is why we sprinkle cinnamon/sugar on the dough surface for cinnamon rolls, rather than adding large amounts of cinnamon TO the dough. Add too much dairy and you'll end up with loaf with characteristics like - low-volume, poor symmetry, poor cellular structure and texture..... That's pure science. When people have a failed recipe, it's generally not from bad intentions or bad artistic interpretation, it's from bad science. Most modern baked goods are based on a ratio of ingredients. Stick to the common ratio whether you use a scale to weigh each ingredient, cups, pint canning jar, tea/coffee cup or mug... for your measuring tool-of-choice.... So take a moment to marvel at the science. "A standard plain cake has, by measure, 1/3 as much fat as sugar, 2/3 as much milk as sugar; and about 3 times as much flour as liquid." This ratio works whether you are making one small cake, one large cake, or enough batter for 100 cakes. Alter the ratio, such as trying to make a low-fat or low-sugar cake, or changing the type of flour used, and you will need to alter the known science with different ingredients and/or mixing methods. This science is most important when you develop recipes because you need to keep in mind ingredients that are tenderizers (fat and sugar) and those that are structure builders (flour and eggs), along with the other ingredients. Back to measuring flour for bread. This is one area that is completely without a standard for a scale or a dry measure, as all measurements for flour in a bread recipe are just a "good (or bad) guess". Add to that the way each person fills a cup with flour which will get you completely different amounts of flour if you were to weigh the amount on a scale, and the measuring cups themselves have NO standard in manufacturing. This is one area of baking where experience (art) along with science will help improve your bread. Due to the differences in the amount of gluten and moisture in flour, and those differences vary from brand-to-brand, season to season (moisture high during the rainy season and low during a dry winter) as well as from bag-to-bag of the same brand, you need to develop the "feel" (art) for bread dough. Your hands will "know" more about the dough than an exact measure. This is why you need to hold back 1/2-3/4 cup of flour during kneading. You may not need to add all the flour once it has the correct "feel" - and you may use all of the flour and require even more than the recipe called for..... It is also better to err on the side of a loose/wet dough than a hard/stiff dry dough. But I would also encourage EVERYONE to get a scale. There are lots more uses, along with measuring ingredients (especially if you find a recipe that is all weight measurements). It's the best tool in your kitchen when you MUST weigh something. It's far more accurate to measure 4-ounces of shredded cheese on a scale than it is to try to measure an equivalent in a cup - do you pack it tight/loose???? You can scale (weigh) the amount of batter in two cake pans to make sure you have an equal amount of batter in each of them so you have cake layers that are the same size. I even scale dough for burger and hot dog buns so I can adjust the size wanted/needed and make them consistently that same size, as well as the amount of bread per serving (a serving of bread is considered 1-oz.). When buns/rolls/loaves are the same size, they will bake more evenly. A reason to weigh the amount of salt is because of the size of the grains of different salt products. The finer the grind, the more salt grains there will be in a teaspoon (or whatever measure) because they will pack very closely together, while there will be less total salt when you put coarse-grinds of salt in the teaspoon because there are more voids of air between the larger chunks of salt. But the difference will probably not make a really huge difference in this bread recipe, but it IS a science factor you may want to keep in mind. And plenty of bread has successfully been made with plain old iodized table salt - even though I personally stopped using it many decades ago. So many things are choices, and neither totally right or totally wrong. -Grainlady

Hmm. I guess I never really answered the question you asked in your opening post: "Can someone explain how this is safe and if I am missing understanding a step in the process?" There are different ways to ferment stuff. However, with lacto-fermentation (which is what will get lactic acid and LABs, vitamins and nutrients in your sauce, hopefully without much else), usually people try to avoid oxygen getting to their ferments, as much as possible. People normally recommend using an airlock, but some people burp the jars, using lids without airlocks. LABs can thrive in anaerobic conditions with a fair bit of salt (sodium chloride), while many other organisms prefer or need oxygen and less to no salt. Not all lacto-fermentation uses salt (yogurt is an example here), but the process can be a lot different without it. The more salt you add, the slower the ferment will likely be, but the safer it will likely be (don't add more than a couple tablespoonfuls of fine salt, and even that can be too much, depending; 1.5 tablespoonfuls ferments much faster). Be sure to use pure salt (just sodium chloride; no anti-caking agents or iodine), or it may interfere with the ferment. Pickling/canning salt is pretty inexpensive in stores (but much more expensive online). People don't usually add vinegar to a lacto-ferment, but you can if you want to. LABs can still live in it. Things that are lacto-fermented include, but are not limited to sauerkraut, kimchi, some knds of pickles, etc. LABs are naturally on freshly picked produce, and if you're doing raw ferments, as most people probably do, the fresher the produce the better (don't use old, raw produce). You can add a starter to make it faster. You'll probably need a starter if you cook it first. Disclaimer: Keep in mind, after I explain the next two items, that I don't drink alcohol, but I am trying to make vinegar, and it helps to know about alcoholic ferments if you want to make vinegar from scratch. It's also helpful to know so you can know how to avoid alcoholic ferments. Another way to ferment will create significant amounts of alcohol, and is similar, but it requires no salt, and whatever you're fermenting should be sugary. Microbes will turn the sugars into alcohol. Yeasts like sugar, and they're good at making alcohol from it. At least some yeasts can make lactic acid, too, I believe. Yeasts don't require an anaerobic environment, but an anaerobic environment is probably going to be more successful for this kind of ferment, to avoid spoilage organisms and other issues. After making alcohol, you can do pretty much what you're doing with your hot sauce (except without salt) to turn the alcohol into vinegar. Alcohol needs oxygen for acetic acid bacteria to change it into vinegar. People might cover it with something that breathes to keep flies out, but I think fruit flies are normal and shouldn't hurt the vinegar. Acetic acid bacteria can be in the air naturally, but people like to add mother of vinegar (essentially acetic acid bacteria) to make the vinegar-making process faster. I've read that you can make vinegar without turning it into alcohol separately, but it's more likely to work if you turn it into alcohol first. When making vinegar, it's normal to see vinegar eels (which are harmless nematodes that I've read eat acetic acid bacteria, apples and probably other stuff). You don't need to take them out after it's done, but I understand if you want to. Making vinegar can take a while, potentially. After the vinegar has finished fermenting, you might want to strain or cook it. You may also want to freeze it to separate the water and vinegar from each other. Another way to ferment is often done with beans, grains, and such. People will soak them, and periodically rinse them, without giving them a strictly anaerobic or salty environment (this is why they have to rinse them*). They typically only ferment legumes/grains in this fashion, and only for up to a few days. Then they cook them. Some people might not realize that this is fermentation. They may just be softening their beans. *I've lacto-fermented beans in a salty, anaerobic environment without rinsing them, for a couple weeks or so, and it does work. I'm sure they taste much different this way: they taste like smoked fish to me, and quite strange, but they were safe to eat (and I noticed some cool health benefits). Most people probably wouldn't prefer the taste or smell. People ferment grains for livestock, for healthier animals, but I'm not 100% sure of the process. Even just letting bread rise is a form of fermentation (as long as yeast or bacteria are rising it). Some people do open air ferments similar to lacto-fermentation. I'm calling covering with a paper towel or cloth an open-air ferment; I don't know that this is standard terminology. Whatever the case, it's not anaerobic. This typically only lasts a few days at the most (unless you're making vinegar). It would assuredly have a wide variety of microbes in it. Whether it's safe or not is a matter of debate, so far, but some people say it's great and some people err on the side of caution. I probably wouldn't do it without knowing and trying safer methods first to get a better idea of what fermented food tastes like, and of how the science behind them looks. I imagine a greater salt content would help. Open-air ferments will ferment more quickly. Some people ferment flour in water (with or without sugar) in a somewhat aerobic fashion to create a sourdough starter, to rise bread. What you're doing sounds like a hybrid between the open-air method I mentioned and the quicker way to make vinegar without turning it into alcohol first (except there may not be enough sugar in the peppers for much vinegar to be produced). I'm not really sure what kind of microbes are brewing, but I did something like that once with blended up, salted cantaloupe with extra sugar added to see if it would make salty vinegar. It did become acidic enough to bubble somewhat if I added baking soda, but it got lots of kahm yeast, eventually. I didn't feel good about it after a while (it didn't seem to be getting acidic enough); so, I threw it out. I never tasted it. It never got vinegar eels. It did produce a lot of some kind of gas as it fermented that smelled dangerous (kind of like chlorine and something else), though (although sniffing the contents did seem to clear my sinuses and my head, and did seem to me to have a positive microbial influence, if you believe that; maybe that was the kahm yeast). I made sure to stir it often, to prevent mold. Stirring does help to prevent mold. I did something similar first, without stirring and without adding extra sugar, and it smelled like vinegar after a few days, but it molded. I've probably missed several methods of fermentation in my list above, but I hope that helps. I'm glad what you're making tastes good. That's usually a good sign. Fermentation should make the food more acidic (sour), however, but IMO not all lactic acid ferments get very sour. The worry some may have is that it might attract too many yeasts, which might not be beneficial to the health if you consume too many, but some people might not care. I don't claim to know what's best for people there, but caution might be advisable, especially if you're on anti-biotics or something (which may give yeasts a clear advantage over LABs). You could probably cook it afterward to make it safer if you're concerned. My concern is that adding salt wasn't in the original recipe (and you're still using the same recipe besides that). Salt should in theory only make things safer, however, but it could maybe disrupt a lesser-known fermentation process that the recipe maker intended. You're probably somewhat safer fermenting hot peppers than you are many things. If health/safety is your primary concern, I'd go with the salty, anaerobic LAB (lactic acid bacteria) ferments, since those are very common and well-established. But if you're feeling adventurous, there are lots of other things to try. I meant to mention earlier that in lactic acid ferments, the LABs produce carbon dioxide as they ferment. Carbon dioxide is heavier than oxygen; so, as it builds up, it pushes oxygen out of the jar (hence the need for an airlock or burping your jar). When there's only carbon dioxide by the top layer of your ferment, it shouldn't mold. Fermentation is usually done at a cool room temperature. Yogurt, however, requires much warmer temperatures for a faster fermentation, but I believe the process is more controlled, to prevent dangerous microbes from proliferating. Warmer temperatures fit to ferment yogurt may cause dangerous microbes to flourish (as well as the good ones); so, you have to be careful and really know your stuff there. I've never heard of anyone fermenting anything but yogurt and maybe the starter for salt rising bread at those temperatures. Salt rising bread starter actually does at least sometimes contain dangerous microbes, but I believe cooking the bread kills them (and there are no known deaths from salt rising bread, from what I read about it).