I believe I see a "biological hazard" symbol over Tom's house on this "emergency and disaster information services" map http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/i...

Tom - what do you think of this.

I am taking these hot peppers that have been processed in a food processor



and putting them on a cookie sheet and placed in an oven to dry out and try to make a powder out of them

Sandy - how about I empty both jars into a pot and bring it to a boil for a few minutes and then put them bank into he jars after I have cleaned and sterilized them. Do you think that will make them safe??

Frank, I'm not entirely sure about this... but it's my understanding that low-acid foods (like the beets that I canned the other day, green beans, peppers, etc.) require processing in a pressure canner to be safely stored "on the shelf."

I hate to sound so negative about this, because your sauce recipe sounds wonderful! Do you have a county extension service in your area? They should be knowledgeable about canning and that sort of thing.

That should dry just fine. Lowest heat for many hours. Doing it at higher temperatures for less time seems to get a burned taste. One warning, if you live in a house that you have to grind peppers in the garage, your going to clear the house out cooking that stuff in the kitchen.

Sandy - I will do some checking to see what can be done\\tom - I learned the hard way. from now on I will use the side burner on the grill to cook up the sauce and use my coffee grinder outdoors to grind the dried peppers. This is just an experiment on my part. when I get back from vacation I will be contacting you for some of your powders

can anyone tell me how to give acorns out. whenever I try I tells me I am trying to give more acorns than I have.

Try again.

If you clicked on an acorn in a post or tip, that SHOULD have worked. And those are public - it shows that you appreciated that post.

Or, you can click on their name to bring up a screen where you can send Tree-mail or give acorns or a few other things. "Name" acorns are private.

Daily update: "Confessions of a Newbie Hot Chili Pepperista"

My jar of "Hot Mix" absorbed a total of 1/8th tsp of Bhut Jolokia powder while only getting a little hotter. (it might have had around 5 ounces of "mundane" chili powder to start.)

So I dropped in another 1/8th tsp, this time of the Scorpion Mix. Oh yes, noticeably hotter!

I think I'll drop back to adding 1/16th tsp at a time to the jar, so I don't overshoot my tolerance.

I've also formed a theory: sprinkling hot pepper on the mayonnaise in a sandwich "masks" the heat or at least dilutes it. Sprinkling a bit on the bread itself (the outside of the sandwich) seems to present it to the tongue in an undiluted form.

t's not like garlic butter where the butter seems to extract garlic flavor and bring it out brightly.

Rick - You have waaaay to much time on your hands.

I think I understand now about acorns. will try again

herbie43 said:Rick - You have waaaay to much time on your hands.

No! No! Vee must EXPERIMENT undt prrrrove vith GEOMETRIC LOGIC zee .... whatever we were talking about ... oh yes, the hotness of pepper powder that has been sprinkled on mayonnaise ... zee ... zee ... True Hotness of zee Condiments of Pain !!!

Tom - After I dried them in the oven I placed them in my coffee grinder and ground them up as good as I could. This morning I placed them in a dish and put them outside in the sun to dry even more. by the afternoon I was able to actually grind them up in my hand and then I put them into a zip lock bag and smashed them with a meat tenderizer. I know it's not like running them through a grinder to make them into dust but it was good enough for me.

See Rick, you're learning. Particle size an absorption rate has a lot to do with what you end up tasting. Before my wife bought me my little coffee grinder for my birthday, I was using flakes. I'd dry the peppers in the dehydrator until they are crispy and lay the peppers, which are already cut in half, on a plate. I'd run a spoon back and forth on top of them until they were ground down as well as that will do it. They were smaller than the flakes but larger than the powder I'm making with the fine grind. You got SOME taste, but you were really swallowing most of the heat, which is a waste. Once I made powder, it hits you at once. Just think about how it tasted when you try a few grains on your finger. When you mix it in mayonnaise, you are swallowing more than you are tasting. Put it on top of your bread, the powder is hitting a part of your mouth. If you use the powder when you cook something like chilli and it simmers with the powder in it, the chilli will be a whole lot hotter tasting than if you just sprinkle it in the chilli after the fact. Just let that chilli sit for an extra day or two, and it will be hotter than when you cook and eat it right afterwards. We think the fine grind has a small particle size. You have found, and probably knew already, that alcohol is a good organic solvent. Just think how much hotter the powder got when you put it in your vodka. Now those particles are dissolved down to a small fraction of the size as the powder. Hea, you could probably mix a bunch of powder in a small amount of drinking alcohol of your choice to use as a drip into making food!
Fresh peppers have the liquid capsaicin oil in them and that oil spreads easily. You use that in chilli, and there will be an obvious increase in the burning. The powder is easy to use, but it varies on how much you taste it depending on the form you use.
Alright, mad scientist Rick, when I cut open a fresh super hot pepper and lay down each half, you can see a little puddle of liquid. I've seen Douglahs that looked like I had washed it off after I cut it in two with the water collecting in the halves. What if someone were to cut up a bunch of hot peppers and collect all the liquid in some sort of mini eye dropper? Hot hot do you think that stuff would be? I don't know if it would taste like the pepper itself, or have hardly any taste at all. Just think about having a vial of that laying around to use with food? I've eaten slices of fresh super hot peppers, so I shouldn't worry about the heat, but I just haven't had the nerve to stick my tongue down in the puddle to see. It just sounds like a stupid thing to do, like sticking it in a light socket or something.

" I just haven't had the nerve to stick my tongue down in the puddle to see."

Oh boy, power of suggestion -- I know Rick will now have to do this!!

>> Fresh peppers have the liquid capsaicin oil in them ...
>> Alright, mad scientist Rick, when I cut open a fresh super hot pepper and lay down each half, you can see a little puddle of liquid.
>> Hot hot do you think that stuff would be?

Hot hot HOT! In fact, it might be pure capsaicin oil - isn't that 15 million SHU? More than 7 times hotter than Trinidad Scorpions?

>> like sticking it in a light socket or something.

No freaking way, Jose!!! Not me.

>> you could probably mix a bunch of powder in a small amount of drinking alcohol of your choice to use as a drip into making food!

I have thought that would be a good way to add tiny but measurable and uniform amounts of heat. But now that feels like being sissy! Isn't it more exciting to create a mine field, and THEN tip toe through it?

I agree completely with your particle-size and extraction comments.

I hadn't thought about the mayo and chicken actually physically keeping the pepper grains away from my tongue. But you must be right: if the goodies have not had time to dissolve and diffuse into the liquid phase, how else can they reach a taste bud except by direct contact? I must think this through ...

Maybe the "pepper sauce" that I think of as a vinegar extract is what I should base this on ...

But I do lean toward an alcohol tincture rather than a vinegar extract. On the other other hand, I do love hot and sour soup. This would just be HHOOTT and sour without the soup part.

Hopefully I'll be back online Monday to report. I just hope I don;'t show up in the Emergency Room and tell that I discovered a way that there CAN be significant tissue damage from chili powder ...

The only problem with using vinegar is that the longer the pepper material sits in it, the less hot the mix is getting because the acid is neutralizing the capsaicin. The heat stays full strength in the alcohol.

" I have thought that would be a good way to add tiny but measurable and uniform amounts of heat. But now that feels like being sissy! Isn't it more exciting to create a mine field, and THEN tip toe through it?"

In economics class they would have said that you are maximizing your utility of your investment. How can that make you a sissy? And who would call you a sissy anyway? Tell them to try the liquid and then see who is a sissy!

Alright, it came to me while I was making my popcorn tonight to prepare for the Florida football game. I think I'm going to give this one a go, but not right away.
While wearing some surgical gloves, cut open some super hots and let the capsaicin puddles collect in the bottom of each half. Use a total of about 1 or 2 ounces of the most neutral drinking alcohol I can find ( gin maybe?) And pour it through the pepper and wipe out any excess liquid with my finger. The alcohol should wash out the oil fairly well. Keep running the same alcohol through as many peppers as I feel like. It would have to get hotter each time it washes through each pepper. Use small amounts of the alcohol in food as needed.
The liquid probably doesn't have a strong taste, so you could use it in your favorite sauce that you already like the taste of, just make it hotter. Almost like cheap extract.

Tom, I think vodka would be a better choice than gin if you don't want the flavor from the liquor in the food... vanilla extract, for example, can be made by just filling a bottle with some vanilla beans in it with vodka and letting it sit for a while. You can also buy "grain alcohol," which would maybe be the most "neutral" of all (although I'm not entirely positive about that). At any rate, that does sound like it could be a good way to dilute the heat to whatever level you wanted it!

Rick - As I was walking through our Wegmans supermarket which by the way, Is the only supermarket here that is allowed to sell hard liquor. I remember you post about the hot powder and vodka so I took these pictures. there are two enormous isles filled with nothing but vodka bottles

Quite amazing the number of choices we have anymore, isn't it?? Do we really need 16 (or whatever it is) kinds of Tide laundry detergent (On the other hand, choices in the liquor dept. can't be a bad thing )