Drying peppers for a spice shaker?
I grew lots of peppers to dry them out making a spicy condiment, how long should i let them dry without a dehydrator???
I plan on selling jars of ground pepper spice for 10 bucks each. I also grew Trinadad scorpion peppers, rated at like 1.4 million Scovilles. Mucho caliente!!!!!
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"Justice is indivisible, an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". MLK
Our pepper spice..
last year had an orange-ish color...but was wayyyyyy toooooo effin hot!!!
"Justice is indivisible, an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". MLK
You know, if you get stuff that is " toooooo effin hot!!! "
then you could always make deer / rabbit repellant out of it and spray it on your plants. I think you could use eggs as an emulsifier and as something that will stick to the plants for a long period of time. There's probably a recipe out there somewhere for it.
With a little spray bottle, you could say good bye to hungry marauding plant eaters.
"Do not neglect your music, it will be a companion which will sweeten many hours of life to you." Thomas Jefferson
Wonderful tip!
Never would have thought about this but it makes sense! Wonder if it would also work on pets?
Maybe not such a good idea? Don't pet the Pets? lol
"Jack of all Trades...Master of None" But forever learning more!
I love me some spicy
but my limit is around 20,000 SHU's, so basically, Jalapenos for me. We used to do a Hot Wing challenge at a place I worked back in Florida. We made them sign a waiver.....Very few could get past Jolokia Ghost pepper sauce.
A man who chops his own wood is warmed by it twice
All I ever did was spread my cayennes out on a 3x5 foot piece
of plastic in a layer 1 or 2 deep with plenty of gaps between them for airflow, and leave them out on the living room floor out of the way for a few (maybe 2 or slightly more) months during the winter. As long as you're in a climate where you get dry air naturally or from running your furnace they'll dry just fine. Cayennes have extremely thin flesh though. Thicker meat peppers you will likely need a dehydrator for if you don't heat your house with something like a wood burner. They may dry but they may develop black or white molds on the inside too. Habaneros and Scorpions are fairly thin, but to me they always seemed to be more susceptible than cayennes to mold or rot just sitting out in the open.
Make sure they are thoroughly dry before processing and jarring them or they can mold.
And as VR below said - When they crush to flakes between fingers they're done.
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My peppers..
do have some mold just like you said, I'm worried it will contaminate this spice, When they get mold are the useless then????
"Justice is indivisible, an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". MLK
I always cracked every single pepper once and glanced in each
of them before throwing them into one of two bowls - my good ones and the throw aways.
A little bit of the mold probably won't hurt you once its dry. I'm sure a few squeaked through out of a thousand peppers every year in my day, but it might leave a bad taste in the flakes if there is enough of it. I suggest culling out the moldy ones. Meaning, the ones that you crack that are pretty much fully colored white, black, gray or green, inside. It wasn't like I inspected every angle of every pepper and looked deep down into the ends of every cayenne. Just a quick glance to make sure they weren't obviously totally shot.
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Thanks for the tip!
Wanna buy a small shaker for 10 bucks...I think me & my dad might have enough for 200 shakers...
"Justice is indivisible, an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". MLK
One more note: With a very seedy pepper like Habs and Scorps
you absolutely do want to look at the seed clusters once they are dry when you crack them. In peppers with a lot of seeds tight together like those, the seed cluster itself, and sometimes the entire seed cluster end of the pepper often will mold when air drying.
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To my new Pepper guru...
I will use that tip about the seeds...and post a pic later...U are okay in my book!!!!
"Justice is indivisible, an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". MLK
When they crush by hand
they are dry enough
All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.
Immanuel Kant
I have been making a seasoning mix
for quite a few years. I make a Thai chili seasoning and a ghost pepper seasoning. Be very careful with mixtures. I use the Scorpion peppers for a hot sauce mix. We cook regularly with the thai seasoning and I use the Ghost Pepper seasoning to strictly make Ghost Pepper Andouillie. The hot sauce is made to use one drop in a bowl of gumbo. Any more and it gets kind of unbearable.
Thai Chilis are 150,000 scoville units, Ghost Peppers are 1.5 million and the scorpions come in at 2 million.
I don't know. I guess it
I don't know. I guess it depends where your located and how warm it is there. I would use the oven on really low heat to help edge them along. I think you'll be able to tell by the feel. Just don't rub your eyes afterward!!!! Yikes!
"Do not neglect your music, it will be a companion which will sweeten many hours of life to you." Thomas Jefferson
I use a warming light
to speed up the drying, and if it gets into your nose, watch out...endless sneezing!
"Justice is indivisible, an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere". MLK