Experimenting from Leftover Product

Over the weekend, Brandon and I did an experiment. We both had different knowledge about using a mother.

My understanding is you use a mother, so the bacteria eats alcohol to turn into Acetic Acid. We grabbed blueberries, strawberries, and lemons.
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All separately, we put through the processor logically. I'm open-minded, and maybe I didn't explore enough because I understand how things work, but I'm not personally the best at explaining the science I can only show you.

After a couple of days in a chamber of 86F with humidity, Day 1 smells great. The strawberries start to get white mold and smell amazing. The blueberries smell great and smell like alcohol.

After the 2nd Day, strawberry solids and blueberry solids were floated to the top, acting as a beer. From experience, my intuition telling me that there is a mold (Yeast) eating the sugars and creating co2 and alcohol. I don't know why, but this morning, I couldn't explain that to Brandon. I said it's like beer, but I couldn't explain the why until I started brain dumping here with you reading this.

Never the less it smelt great after the 3rd day. But the lemon was getting black mold. The problem is this there isn't enough natural sugar, or we didn't put enough water for the wild yeast to grow and eat the sugars.

The point of the experiment is that Bradon and I have been making preserved lemons using sugar and salt from experiments I've made 7 to 8 years ago. Before I knew what Lactic Acid Fermentation, I was just doing it naturally. Bradon wanted to use less sugar and salt. This is coming from our leftovers of making Lemon Oil.

‍3rd Day
I noticed have seeing mold develop left me curious to ask the question...

Would it make a difference to blanch it? Killing any bacteria that might be there or adding 2 to 8% salt make the difference? That being said, will it just die from the Acetic Acid or Alcohol, which isn't that crazy since I know distilleries down the road from me that just have open hatch fermenting, but they distill afterward. To be continued...