Sure! (I just never seem to plan ahead that far... )

I'm a plan ahead kind of guy. thanks for all your help. Will le you all know how it turned out.

I thought I would talk about pepper genetics a bit. If you take the seeds from a single pepper that has been open pollinated and plant them all out, you will get all kinds of different pods from the different plants. If it was cross pollinated by accident, then it would be a new hybrid. If you take the plant that produces the type of pods you are looking for you separate that plant and then take the seeds from the peppers that you know are pure. Your next set of plants would be F2s. After you take seeds from the best plant again, you do the same thing over again. Most people say that it takes at least 6 generations to stabilize a hybrid.
There are some peppers, like Fataliis, that have been grown for many years, if not centuries. I was very surprised to find out that Fataliis vary a great deal, depending on who you get them from. Some are as hot as a habanero and some are twice as hot. Some have a nice citrus taste and some are a little bitter. Some have pale yellow pods and some have bright yellow pods.
Knowing all this, you see people selling, and buying, packets of 10 seeds all the time. Half of those seeds will either not come up at all, or will produce poor growing plants that just die. After this is all over, you may get 2 or 3 plants from those seeds that produce pods. Then, what kind of pod do you get? Most people assume that what they get is typical of the pepper type in general, but they can be very wrong. The more plants you grow the more variability you will see in your plants. If you do grow a good amount the first year, it gives you a chance to pick the very best plant that produces your favorite pods and use that to make more plants. Another thing that I never thought about before, but if they're is a particular pepper that really interests you, think about getting material from more than one source so you get a chance at different plants. Fataliis are one of my favorites, and they might not have been if I judged all Fataliis by the one I got from the first two people I got seeds from. Just some thoughts to expand on. Tom

Thanks. That was very interesting. By open pollinated do you mean a plant that has been pollinated by bees?? How and when do you pollinate any plant?? I ask this because one of the things I thought about doing when the Japanese beetles came down was to cover my plants with a transparent plastic but then I read that the bees would not be able to pollinate the plants.

I used the blackening spice mixed with a small amount of the smoked Bhut on one chicken thigh this morning and I thought I had put the right amount but I think I will have to add a bit more because I just got a little bit of heat a minute or two after the first bite. I guess I can take it a little hotter. I have to thank Sandy fort hat recipe because it gave the chicken a whole new taste that I really enjoyed.

>> since I didn't see any red on it I stuck into my mouth. I felt the heat immediately

Bravo Franklin! As Tom hinted, the only way to think of these powders is logarithmic: 30X Cayenne, 6X Scotch Bonnet. Small but FIERCE!

Fortunately I have measuring spoons that go down to 1/64th tsp ( a "drop"). However, for any one dish, I think that is still too much.

I'm gradually adding a little Bhut powder to my "Hot Mix" to make it hotter, or, rather, to dilute the Bhut down to a point where I can measure it or shake it onto dishes..

Funny thing: just one week ago, that Hot Mix seemed so hot to me that I only used it occasionally. Suddenly, it seems mild or at least "unadventurous". And my old "Mild Mix" now seems like "nice pepper flavor, but NOT HOT".

>> If you take the seeds from a single pepper that has been open pollinated and plant them all out, you will get all kinds of different pods from the different plants.

That probably also answers a question I had about tomatoes: are all the seeds in one fruit (tomato or pepper) from the same grain of pollen, or is each fertile seed the result of a different pollen grain.

I looked at my notes, and I see the claim that one needs 1/4 mile isolation distance for peppers! Does that sound right to you? I recall that you bag-and-daub.

I found suggestions that peppers can be wind-pollinated, self-pollinated ("buzz) OR insect pollinated.

"Pepper flowers are self-fertile, and most flowers can set fruit without cross-pollination. Even so, peppers still produce both pollen and nectar. The style is generally longer than the surrounding stamens, and the stigma is usually receptive prior to the release of pollen. "
http://www.pollinator.ca/canpo...

From what you say, commercial pepper seeds sound far from standardized and some strains from some vendors may not be stable. The method you describe for selecting what-you-want in a pepper variety makes total sense to me. Prevent cross-pollination with other pepper as far as possible. Then select, select, select.

I notice that at least one Scorpion variety is named after it's creator Butch T. That's one way to know what you have: name the source!

I'm now a big fan of "pepper vodka" for tasting hot peppers.

Or should I say, "capsicum infusions"?

It's very pretty, with minute red and red-orange flakes and motes floating about like a snow-globe. And it's a fine way to disperse a tiny amount uniformly so you can predict the dose.

I THOUGHT I was being cautious when I put 1/8th tsp of Bhut Jolokia powder into a half-full pint bottle of vodka and parked that in the freezer. "If it gets too strong as it ages", I thought, "I can fill it the rest of the way with plain vodka to "cool it off'."

HAH!

Instead of soaking for a month, it was an overnight sensation. A last-minute flash of caution led me to sample just one ounce at first, diluted four-fold with cold water. Scorching! And very tasty without any garlic, ginger or black pepper added. But the heat was very fast to subside. But now I dilute 1/2 to 1 ounce 6-fold or 8-fold for a milder excitement.

My next test would be around 1/32 tsp in a full pint of vodka. See whether "I can take it".

is it just me, or do other people find the insides of their ears itching after a shot of the hot?

I just added half a tsp of the smoked Bhut to my blackening powder rub.

will see either tomorrow or Wednesday how it turns out on my grilled chicken. does anyone put a light coating of oil on what ever they are going to blacken before putting on the rub.

I'd be inclined to dilute that stuff with some good Bloody Mary mix (if there's any left, that is )

I think you're killing off taste buds at a rapid rate, Rick! The only real problem I see with that is that pretty soon you'll be serving something that you now consider "mild" to friends... who will then be writhing on the floor in pain.

herbie43 said: ...does anyone put a light coating of oil on what ever they are going to blacken before putting on the rub.

Frank, I think the original recipe I had for "blackened chicken" called for doing exactly that -- although I haven't really found it to be necessary.

That seasoning also works great on shrimp -- peel and devein the raw shrimp, put some of the seasoning and the shrimp in a plastic bag and shake it to coat them, then saute in a little oil for a few minutes. (or, or course, you could cook them on the grill) Great served with red beans and rice!

Franklin, I bet that oil would "spread the heat around", especially if there is a marinating step.

My closest approach to that kind of cooking is to sprinkle pepper and garlic powder on a chicken patty before microwaving it! I found that I can add more Bhut to my "HotMix" powder.

Sandy, I see that little emoticon you used writhing on the floor in SOME kind of pain!

And you might be right about killing my taste buds. I had the same experience with cigars. After a few years of that disgusting habit, I asked a tobacconist if several major cigar vendors were making their "strong" stogies wimpier.

"NO, son" he said. "You're developing your palate."

I think that means "Killing taste buds." But it is fun ... the way they say jumping off the roof of a 100-story building is fun. For the first 99 stories, at least.

I'm going to pray some pam on the chicken and then I will put some of the rub in a flat dish and put the chicken on top and press it in on both sides. Tomorrw I am going to send a picture of what my supermarket called ghost peppers. I bought a large amount of them and I made a somewhat powder out of 5 of them and to me they are extremely hot. Of course I also had the seeds and the white membrane included in my powder.

I hope we don't get put on anyone's "Invade Next" list for hoarding Peppers of Mass Destruction.

Peppers of mass destruction. Lol. Run away!!!!!!

"Day of the Triffids" with ripe chili peppers.

How to pollinate a certain type of plant varies on how that plant works. For peppers, the flowers open up for about three days and the last two days the flower is flat open. It seems like the flowers open each morning and by the time it gets around 11am to noon the flowers after dry enough that they easily drop pollen. So from observation, around 11am to 1pm seems perfect for pollination. What I do is take a small water color paint brush and brush it against every flower. I wet the brush on the end and wipe off the extra water. When though most peppers self pollinate themselves, I still find that I get more peppers produced when I pollinate. Ghost peppers, or Bhut Jololkias, are actually I cross of two species and I found out the first year that if I had 100 flowers on the plant, I was only getting 10 peppers to set. The first time I hand pollinated the flowers, I was getting 95 to set.
Bees can pollinate for a 1/4 mile, if you have lots of bees. The bees don't seem to want to go into the greenhouse, which is where most of the plants are. I'm pretty good in my situation by keeping them 500 feet from the greenhouse.
Oh yea, the Trinidad Butch T Scorpion pepper. Totally different than you think. It was a first generation, unstable hybrid. Butch sent seeds all over the world of his hybrid that was done accidental and he doesn't even know where the pollen came from. It was a total unstable hybrid, but the guys in Australia had 50 samples tested, and one of them made the new world record. They named it after Butch Taylor, and they named it the way they did because when he sends you seeds, he just writes " Butch T" on the baggie. People got all kinds of different looking Pods from those seeds, and a huge variability of heat levels. That why the Moruga beat them out so quick. Morugas were very consistent and it was only a period of time before it became the new hottest pepper.

I'm ready for the grill tomorrow. I dumped all the blackening rub onto a flat plate and then added a thigh one at a time and coated both sides. have them in the fridge until tomorrow morning.

Tom - Fascinating about pollinating the pepper and I will try it next season.

>> Oh yea, the Trinidad Butch T Scorpion pepper. Totally different than you think. It was a first generation, unstable hybrid.

>> and he doesn't even know where the pollen came from.

Oh! So really, now, there IS no "Trinidad Butch T Scorpion pepper" unless he took and maintained cuttings of the F1 plant itself. I never knew!

>> Ghost peppers, or Bhut Jololkias, are actually I cross of two species and I found out the first year that if I had 100 flowers on the plant, I was only getting 10 peppers to set. The first time I hand pollinated the flowers, I was getting 95 to set.

That's very interesting! I can understand an inter-species hybrid being partly or mostly sterile, but I think you're saying that hand-pollination cures that! I wonder whether it is something like the geometry of the hybrid blooms mostly prevents self-pollination, or (conceivably?) most blooms are self-sterile but CAN be pollinated by another bloom on the same plant. Or do you skip from plant-to-plant when you hand-pollinate, so that you might be overcoming the "self-sterility of each plant with itself"?

I have no idea, but I'm fascinated.

>> Bees can pollinate for a 1/4 mile, if you have lots of bees. The bees don't seem to want to go into the greenhouse, which is where most of the plants are.

I read somewhere that most bees don't like the still air inside greenhouses. I wonder why?

I'm still having fun with my thermonuclear vodka. But it sure cuts down on my alcohol intake when I have to dilute it 3-4 times with water! In another way, that's very good. I could dilute it with vodka, but I don't really like the flavor of the vodka. Cutting it with water lets the Bhut Jolokia come through clearly.

I bought some black peppercorns to add to the mix. That recipie with garlic and ginger sounded cool, but I'd rather try crystallized ginger and all I have is ginger powder. We'll see!

P.S. Have you found any good way to carry the powder around, like a small, sealed shaker? I've started thinking about a small jar with two screw-caps - one to prevent bio-hazard spills in my pocket, and one with a tiny hole so I can shake a small number of grains at a time.

Let's see, Butch Ts, No, seeds of the unstable hybrid were sold by the Hippie Seed people (name of their business) all over the world right after that got the record. The resulting pod shapes varied a lot, but they are all Butch T peppers. Those people who got some sort of genetic material, probably kept the plants that looked the best for the next year. Butch himself has improved on his own namesake and got the form more stabilized. Yes, the true form might have been one plant, but they had many plants to start with and the samples of pepper material that they sent out for testing came from different plants as well. When they do a scoville test, it can be some blended up material and pod shape is not relevant.
I don't know the facts on the bhut flowers, but they just don't seem to want to set as much on their own, buy when pollen from different flowers gets on them, they set real well. When I have particular plants isolated for seed production, all the plants are getting a mixture of pollen from whatever flowers I did before them. In the greenhouse where I have most all of my plants, I'm just going down each row and painting every open flower, no matter what type it is. Seeds from my pepper production area could be all kinds of mixed up hybrids. Also, I would not assume this is gospel, but I think one grain of pollen will set one pepper. There may be 1000 grains on a flower, but only one does the actual fertilizing.
At Bed Bath and Beyond, they had a three piece set of little plastic bottles that look just like miniature old fashioned ketchup bottles. They are about 2 inches tall and have a snap on top. They were a set of three and they are different colors.


I take one of these when I go to certain restaurants. Blue is 7 pod Primo powder, the red is smoked bhut powder when I go to a BBQ place, and the light green is yellow brain strain powder, which yellows are good for chicken and fish dishes, where red ( primo in this case, but regular but powders are good too) powders usually taste better with pork and beef dishes. Just in case, I will still put a single bottle into a snack sized baggie while transporting.