gumbo2176
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What does one do with 200+ Ghost Peppers?

My Ghost Peppers and Habs have been going crazy these past few weeks. I currently have over 200 Ghost Peppers, about 100 Habs and I quit counting cayennes.

I've made pepper jelly, pepper sauces, salsas, pickled peppers, used them in recipes like Ghost Pepper cornbread, chili, stir fry, etc., given hundreds of them away and still have an over abundance.

I need some new ideas to go with the ones I've already mentioned. The pepper sauce I made is great tasting, though extremely hot. A little goes a long way with the Hab and Ghost Pepper hot sauces.

I haven't dried any of them yet, so I guess that is an option I can look into, but I'm open to any ideas you kind folks may have.

tomc
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I guess you could probably poison a large metropolitan water supply...

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applestar
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I don't see hot pepper sauce in the list -- I'm thinking of the kind made with vinegar which, in theory, should mellow the heat somewhat :oops: never mind, that was the 2nd item on your list :oops:


Drying is definitely an option that will let you make more stuff

I think you might think about branching out to
- hot pepper flavored winter wildbird seed mixes and suet/dough cakes (deters squirrels)
- heat compresses and pain relief (I don't know exactly how to make them though) -- you do have to watch out with body products so they don't cause blisters

- dry whole and make kitchen herb wreath with garlic and various dried herbs for decoration and gifts

gumbo2176
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applestar wrote:I don't see hot pepper sauce in the list -- I'm thinking of the kind made with vinegar which, in theory, should mellow the heat somewhat :oops: never mind, that was the 2nd item on your list :oops:


Drying is definitely an option that will let you make more stuff

I think you might think about branching out to
- hot pepper flavored winter wildbird seed mixes and suet/dough cakes (deters squirrels)
- heat compresses and pain relief (I don't know exactly how to make them though) -- you do have to watch out with body products so they don't cause blisters

- dry whole and make kitchen herb wreath with garlic and various dried herbs for decoration and gifts

Do you think the birds could tolerate the heat of these peppers or are their digestive systems geared to eat just about anything?

I have thought about pureeing some and cutting it with water to later strain and make a pepper spray for controlling garden pests, but I'm worried the heat of the peppers could possibly harm the plants. These peppers are extremely hot.

My brother-in-law tasted the fresh pepper sauce by dipping a teaspoon in the jar and pulling it out with just a bit of residue on it and he couldn't believe how hot it is. I gave him a pint of it and told him to use just a couple teaspoons of it in fresh tomatoes, onions, garlic, cilantro and lime juice to make a quick home made salsa for snacking.

Here's the recipe I used for making the pepper sauce:
I made 2 batches, one with Ghost Peppers and the other with Habs. This recipe is for one batch.

Cut in half and seed and remove the pith of 50 hot peppers.
Dice 2 medium onions
Mince 4 cloves garlic
600 milliliters cider vinegar
4 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon mustard powder

In a blender, combine all ingredients and puree till finely ground. Place in a saucepan and bring to a boil and let boil for 5 minutes stirring often. In the meantime have a pot of water boiling to use as a canning bath.

Pour the pepper sauce in clean canning jars, seal the lids and place in the water bath for 10 minutes. Remove and let cool and they will form a vacuum and seal.

Depending on the size of the peppers used, that will determine the amount made and how many jars are needed. The batches I made found me using 2 pint and 1 half pint jars per batch.
Be careful with this stuff as it is very hot depending on which type peppers are used.

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applestar
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Do you want to try making "Tabasco" style sauce? It sounds like the "mash" is lacto fermented first.
https://www.tabasco.com/tabasco-products ... sco-sauce/

gumbo2176
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applestar wrote:Do you want to try making "Tabasco" style sauce? It sounds like the "mash" is lacto fermented first.
https://www.tabasco.com/tabasco-products ... sco-sauce/

My wife and I have been to Avery Island a couple times for a nice day ride on the motorcycle. Not only is there the plant, but much of the grounds are also a huge botanical garden complete with the requisite country store/gift shop. It is a fascinating operation and the tour inside the plant will take some folks breath away with the aroma of all the fermented peppers being processed. I've also seen a couple shows dedicated to their operation on local TV and their process is quite drawn out.

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rainbowgardener
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tomc wrote:I guess you could probably poison a large metropolitan water supply...
Yeah, I was thinking pepper spray for self defense!

I have seen recipes for citrus chili sauce and kumquat chili paste that sounded interesting.

I haven't seen it anywhere, but if it were me, I would experiment with mixing with cooling stuff -- sour cream, cream cheese, yoghurt, maybe even mayo. Make non-bland versions while making the heat a bit more tolerable.

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jal_ut
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Its a dilemma we all run into I am sure. Much more than we can use or give away. At some point excess turns out to be worm food and then fertilizer for next year. It is not wasted if it goes back on the garden.

dave103069
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Dry them. Buy a dehydrator. You can get a good nesco for $50. Cut them in half and dry them for about 12-14 hours.. Then crush up and put in a pepper mill to use when even. Store the extra in a mason jar until the pepper mill needs a refill.. Great on everything..

gumbo2176
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dave103069 wrote:Dry them. Buy a dehydrator. You can get a good nesco for $50. Cut them in half and dry them for about 12-14 hours.. Then crush up and put in a pepper mill to use when even. Store the extra in a mason jar until the pepper mill needs a refill.. Great on everything..

I own a dehydrator and use it almost exclusively to make beef jerky for the family or to dry herbs for later use. I'll give it a shot sometime today to see how they turn out. I've got so many peppers and so few folks willing to take them once they get a taste of how hot they actually are.

I may try to dry some for crushed pepper flakes. I've tried to string some and air dry them over the years, but with our humidity, I usually wind up with a string full of moldy peppers in 3-4 days. Guess I'm just concerned that drying them will only serve to concentrate their already intense heat. But what have I got to lose.

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rainbowgardener
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Those would be some potent red pepper flakes!

It's harder to use up 200 ghost peppers than it would be say 200 jalepenos, since a little bit of ghost pepper goes such a long way...

dave103069
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You can also de-seed them before drying to cut back on some of the heat. I do that with some of them as well. If you have habs as well, dry them and mix the blend. That is what I do. I have red & yellow ghost, red & yellow scorpion, 7 pots & a couple variations of habs and blend them all together to make a really nice blend which a little goes a long way but provides great flavor to everything. Also, if you have a temp control on your dehydrator, keep it between 135 & 145..

gumbo2176
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I just finished halving 125 ghost peppers and putting them on the dehydrator. I do plan to dry some habs too since their flavor is so distinct when compared to most other peppers.

I'll likely make more pepper sauce like I did over the weekend and put it up to give out to folks that can handle the heat. The thing is, I have tons of peppers still ripening on the bushes as I type this. I probably have upwards of another 400 or so between the Habs and Ghost Peppers and they are loving our present growing conditions.

Not complaining mind you, just kind of overwhelmed with them at the moment.

These Ghost peppers are so potent that this past weekend when I made the pepper sauce I seeded 150 peppers and had a surgical glove on my left hand the entire time. I took the glove off when finished seeding and cutting out the pith by doing so like surgeons do by turning it inside out. I washed my hands and as the water warmed I could feel the heat building up in my left hand and for the next 3-4 hours my hand was uncomfortably warm. Next time I fool with them to that level it's going to be with 2 gloves on the hand doing all the handling.

gumbo2176
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My daughter just came in and asked me if I could do the peppers somewhere else. She went into the kitchen and her eyes started watering. I put the dehydrator out on the back porch plugged into an extension cord because the smell has permeated the house and is pretty nasty in the kitchen.

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applestar
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Oh wow, I was just coming back to ask you about where you were doing this for this very reason. :shock:

Good to know and let's all make a note. :|

mattie g
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applestar wrote:Oh wow, I was just coming back to ask you about where you were doing this for this very reason. :shock:

Good to know and let's all make a note. :|
Yeah...folks should *never* dehydrate hot peppers indoors.

PAIN!

dave103069
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oops, sorry, should have mentioned to do it in an area with circulation not in the main part of the house. I do it in the garage..

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I cut open one ghost pepper, and it did not have a single seed in it, but my hands burned for two hours after that.

You must like really hot stuff, I would not attempt to eat a ghost pepper or Trinidad scorpion. Strictly for fun for me, and for pest control.

gumbo2176
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imafan26 wrote:I cut open one ghost pepper, and it did not have a single seed in it, but my hands burned for two hours after that.

You must like really hot stuff, I would not attempt to eat a ghost pepper or Trinidad scorpion. Strictly for fun for me, and for pest control.

When my Ghost Pepper plant was young and just starting to produce, many of the peppers were void of seeds. The plant is now about a year old and every pepper is full of seeds.

It's funny, some of the peppers grow to about 2 inches long and shaped a bit like a football being fatter in the middle and tapering on the ends and some are growing more roundish and about the size of a Japanese Plum. No matter, because both shapes are hot as can be and there is no difference in taste.

And as far as handling the heat of the peppers, it seems for me, the more I eat them, the more tolerant I'm getting to the fire. Maybe it's because I now know what to expect and it's not such a shock to the system.

When I handle the peppers, the hand that is holding them is the one that has the glove/gloves on it. Like I mentioned in a previous post, the last time I cored a bunch of them my hand started burning and that was with one rubber surgical glove on it. Next time, I'll wear two just to be safe. for the life of me I never thought the capsasin would penetrate the rubber gloves, no matter how thin the material. Now I know better.

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ElizabethB
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Gumbo - have you thought of selling them to local produce markets, at farmer's markets and even to local restaurants that specialize in garden to table dining? John Besh is really big on garden/farm to table, Emeril get's into that as well.

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rainbowgardener
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My partner and I were discussing your ghost pepper red pepper flakes. We thought you might need to use tweezers to put just ONE flake in a pot of something. Then we thought it still might be hard on whoever got the one flake in their spoonful, so we decided you should tie a string to your one flake so you could pull it back out again before serving, like you do with bay leaves. :)

You can tell I don't grow them! :)

3 Pound Tomato
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I just canned some pepper butter today from the Jay's ghost scorpion. Pepper butter is like a mash that thickens up for a sandwich spread. It is real hot!

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Gary350
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1977 I canned some peppers in mason jars. 4 weeks later I noticed the jars had NO lids. The acid in the peppers ate up the metal lids. The metal lids were laying on the surface of the peppers in the jar it looked like gray mud. That is when I learned the hot peppers make great paint remover.

Grind then into liquid in the kitchen blender. Be sure to do this outside and stand up wind of it.

They make great paint remover. I removed all the paint and oil from my old lawn mower. Then I sprayed the parts clean with water. After the water was dry I spray painted the parts. After the lawn mower was put back together it looked like a brand new lawn mower again.

The liquid peppers might work for weed and grass killer too.

gumbo2176
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ElizabethB wrote:Gumbo - have you thought of selling them to local produce markets, at farmer's markets and even to local restaurants that specialize in garden to table dining? John Besh is really big on garden/farm to table, Emeril get's into that as well.

Elizabeth, I give them away to a few restaurants I frequent. There are several great Mexican/Hispanic restaurants that have opened up since Katrina and the influx of Hispanics in the area. I have given close to 300 Habs to these type places and they are most grateful. I'm not looking to get into sales of the excess and don't want to get into having to have product when it is not looking like it is viable. I just generally share my excess when it is available, and do so gladly.


As more folks hear about what I'm growing, the more requests I get for extras, if available. I like to spread the heat. :P

jeffsturgeon53
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Be very careful doing this!!!

Use a dehydrator and dry your peppers. Once they are dried out grind them and mix with others types of pepper to use in recipes.

Jeff

imafan26
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Well, those peppers are way too hot for me. Some great ideas for saving them. Pepper sauce and drying peppers will make them even hotter. You can always make pepper spray. That is what the ghost pepper is primarily used for in India, to make police grade pepper spray.

You can dry some seeds too and offer them on the seed exchange forum. I am sure there are people who would want some. Ghost peppers are easier to get now, but the seeds were hard to find a year ago and their germination rate is poor unless you have a lot of seed.

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ElizabethB
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Gumbo - try selling your excess. Farmer's Market, local restaurants. NOLA has made a name for itself for garden to table dining. Contact John Besh. He is really big on garden to table menus. Try John Folse and Emeril. They have both gotten into garden to table dining. Why not make a few $$ off your garden? Don't forget high end Asian restaurants. Try some of the French Market grocery stores like Central Grocery. There are bound to be lots of outlets for your product.

You have more outlets in NOLA than most cities have. Take advantage and sell.

You have so much right now and the season is barely getting started. What will you do in June?

You need to change your name to Mr. Hot Stuff.

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ElizabethB
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OOOPS sorry for the repeated suggestion!

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gixxerific
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roast them, grind them, make powder. So good.



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