Hot peppers

[rwsaunders]

So my middle kid; oldest son...the biochemistry major; likes to grow vegetables and he experimented this Summer growing some hot peppers...I mean really freaking hot peppers. From top to bottom...Carmel ghost pepper, 7 Pot Madballz pepper, 7 Pot Pink pepper and the freshly germinated, Carolina Reaper (1,569,300 on the Scoville scale) pepper.

[mnoble485]

RW,
My dry wall crew is mostly Hispanic and have a small plot behind their trailer where they grow peppers. I learned early on that if they say no caliente not to listen to them.

Mike

[JoB]

I can't even imagine -- I've been making hot sauce out of Habaneros (which are between 300,000 and 500,000 SVU) and they are unbelievably hot.

[pdxharth]

Nice work! I grew some Carolina Reapers a few years ago after my dad bought me a package of seeds. I had never heard of these peppers, but some quick research told me they were something I shouldn’t mess around with. I cannot imagine mine reached their heat potential here in the Pacific NW, but they are still quite hot. I have half a jar left of the ones I dried. Now I use them in my favorite store-bought salsa. I buy a new jar of salsa, then submerge a dried pepper in it and let it sit til I need to use that jar. I dice up the now-rehydrated pepper and stir it in the salsa. Mostly, it works well but sometimes I find myself sweating up a storm after eating it because I didn’t stir it enough. They taste similar to a habenero, which is a flavor I love.

[bking]

A different kind of pepper story. A lifetime ago I spent two years in the Yucatan serving a mission for my church. In the backyard of the house we stayed in there were several kinds of peppers growing and I'd picked a few and set them on the old wooden desk I used. One morning reading at that desk I accidentally smashed one of the small yellow peppers. I picked it up and the small smashed bits and threw it away. A few minutes later, eyes tired from reading, I rubbed my eyes...don't ever do that.

[Shinomaster]

I tried a ghost pepper hot sauce once and it made my heart flutter. no fun!

[rwsaunders]

My son just showed up at the door with these two lovelies...7 pod pink Chinese chiles which are very hot, but fruity according to him...850,000 Scoville Heat Units...a jalapeño is about 8,500.

[giordana93]

not entirely germane, but not that far off topic either, we made couscous last weekend and opened up a new tube of Harissa. if you are into spicy chilies (not off the chart) and have not ever tried harissa, you should. there are a number of recipes/brands, but they basically are a paste with chilies and other vegetables (carrots, turnips?) and north african spices, so there is a touch of sweetness and spice. it is good stuff. great as a sandwich condiment and essential to a good couscous

[thollandpe]

Right now I'm brewing up a batch of habañero shrub for use in homemade fireball-type whiskey cocktails. Hoping to come up with something like Bittermens:



Anybody got tips on making shrub? Right now it's peppers and cinnamon sticks in cider vinegar. Have not decided which sugar to use for the next step.

[rwsaunders]

Middle kid is home on Christmas break from OU and he brought more of his home grown peppers with him...looks like the Buffalo Chicken dip will be spicy on New Year's Day. 7 Pot Madbalz (orange puppies) and Chocolate Ghost...about 1,000,000 and 800,000 on the Scoville scale.

[joosttx]

Middle kid is home on Christmas break from OU and he brought more of his home grown peppers with him...looks like the Buffalo Chicken dip will be spicy on New Year's Day. 7 Pot Madbalz (orange puppies) and Chocolate Ghost...about 1,000,000 and 800,000 on the Scoville scale.

Tell him the whipping Georgia lays on OU will leave a worse taste in his mouth than those peppers

[rwsaunders]

I’m not a Mayfield fan either Houston, and I should have defined OU as Ohio University. OU...oh yeah! If you’re short on peppers this holiday season, send me your address. They make great stocking stuffers.

[rwsaunders]

My middle kid is up to no good this Summer as his new place has a backyard with full sun. He went the 3 gallon poly grow bag route for his hot peppers this season and an Elysium Oxide Scotch Bonnet is the centerfold this month...somewhere around 1,000,000 on the Scoville Scale.

[vertical_doug]

I really like hot peppers. But the Carolina Reaper, Scotch Bonnet are out there beyond edible.
There is one more called the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T , which grows in a cool shape like a reaper, and also around 1mm units.

I once chopped a tiny tiny amount of Scorpion in my fried rice. After one spoonful, it was so hot, I had to pick out all the seeds and pieces with chop sticks before I could even attempt to finish it.

[Octave]

I really like hot peppers. But the Carolina Reaper, Scotch Bonnet are out there beyond edible.
There is one more called the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T , which grows in a cool shape like a reaper, and also around 1mm units.

I once chopped a tiny tiny amount of Scorpion in my fried rice. After one spoonful, it was so hot, I had to pick out all the seeds and pieces with chop sticks before I could even attempt to finish it.

Honestly, the best use for those (aside from straight-up masochism) is: thread a pepper with a string, give it a slice down the side and put it in a big batch of chili hanging out by the string. When you're done cooking the chili, take the whole pepper out by the string and discard.

[rwsaunders]

Honestly, the best use for those (aside from straight-up masochism) is: thread a pepper with a string, give it a slice down the side and put it in a big batch of chili hanging out by the string. When you're done cooking the chili, take the whole pepper out by the string and discard.

Exactly the advice I had given because those peppers are too nasty to eat IMHO. He and his friends are looking into making salsa and another round of buffalo chicken dip as they experimented with the dip last year for their own recipe of "atomic wings". I tried a small piece of one of the peppers, an extremely small piece, and I spit it out as soon as it touched my inner lip. I think that growing the peppers is just a release from school and it's interesting in that when he's on a hot pepper forum (yep, the VSalon of the hot pepper world), and when the growers hear that he's a college student, they forward seeds without charging as long as he photos the progress from germination to harvest. It's all good.

[Tom]

Geez, did I tell this story yet? Karen and I went to Dominica. Every trip we go on, we have one sentence that is said somewhere on the trip that for years we repeat and laugh and laugh. We went to a beach to snorkel and frolic about, got hungry, went to the shack behind the beach and ordered a nice plate of grilled chicken with plantains and rice apiece. We start eating, Karen goes "Oh my God, this is so hot! This is really too hot!" I'm puzzled, I had started with a piece of plantain so I try the chicken saying "Eat the rice, the starch will kill the heat." She does, goes "It's getting worse!" I'm completely confused, my chicken is delicious. So I eat a forkful of rice.

"It's... the... rice."

There were these tiny specks in the rice, one note of hot. Pure, one note, screaming hot. If it weren't for the most delicious ginger beer ever, I think I'd still be tasting that hot.

[rwsaunders]

I spent the weekend visiting our middle kid and he shared a part of his first crop of nasty boyz as he calls them. No way am I eating these...they’ll be strung and hung in the kitchen along with the next crop. If anyone is interested, I’d be happy to mail a few.

[murphy]

Bringing this back up to the top since I just harvested my own. The summer was a bit hard on everything here with super hot temps from May on and little to no rain. Picked about a third of what is on the plant (hoping to take advantage of a few days of 80+ again to ripen the remaining before fall weather completely takes over). Plan on trying my hand at a habanero hot sauce this weekend and then drying out everything else. The orange are all habaneros, the browns are chocolate scorpion peppers (they look super angry up close), and the one yellow you can see is a scotch bonnet (that plant hasn't really done hardly anything).

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[Too Tall]

RW I missed your reply. Those are evil peppers. I'm only growing things that I can ACTUALLY eat!

Murphy, you should make BBQ sauce :)