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2017 Grow Log - 200 plants, 30 varieties

Hello all.  Last year was the year I intended to "go big" and start my hot sauce company, but as chance would have it, the soil at my largest garden spot was terrible, all clay.  I had planted about 150 plants there but none of them grew over 6 inches tall.  I had another spot where I planted about 35 MOAs, just one variety because I wanted to get a bunch of non-crossed seeds.  So as it turned out those bonnets were the only plants I had.  But I estimate they produced about 4 lbs per plant, which was way more than I expected.  I still started the hot sauce company, but I wound up with only about 320 bottles of sauce.  I just sold out of it last weekend, people seemed to really like it.
 
This year I have a new garden spot with much better soil.  I started the plants right about a month ago.
 
Here's the list of varieties:

ID Name Qty
1. MOA scotch bonnets 30
2. Cardi Scorpion? 17
3. Yellow 7 Pot 22
4. Chocolate Devil's Tongue 15
5. Gigantic Ghost 15
6. Caramel Moruga Scorpion 5
7. Peach Fatali 5
8. Caribbean Red 5
9. White 7 Pot 5
11. Jay's Peach Ghost Scorpion 5
12. Aji Pineapple 15
13. Pepper Joe Not Ghost 8
14. Peach Trinidad Scorpion 5
15. Carolina Reaper 5
16. 7 Pot Congo SR Gigantic Yellow 5
17. Aji Jobito 6
18. Orange Fatali 4
19. Padron Pepper 5
20. Sugar Rush Peach 5
21. Fidalgo Amarillo 5
22. Chiero Creme 5
23. Chenzo Chili 5
24. Trinidad Perfume 5
25. Tobago Seasoning 5
26. Pimenta Luna 5
27. Aji Lemon 5
28. Rosemary Pepper 5
29. Turkish Snake 5
30. Cardi Scorpion 5
31. Aji Amarillo 3




I can't seem to figure out how to upload pics on here, so I uploaded one to imgur:
 
http://imgur.com/a/YmqGi
 
I made the rack myself, obviously.  After separating some of the multiples, I now have 266 plants on it total.  Planning to give some away and sell the extras at the farmer's market.  The lights are on 24 hours in case you were wondering.
 
I'm excited!  200 plants is serious business!  I'll be back with more pictures as things progress.
 
 
 
Click to expand...
A few new pics of the Yellow 7 Pots.  I'm convinced that most of them are true at this point.  The pods on a couple of them look totally ghost-like but they're the exception.  I'll definitely be saving seeds from them this year.
 
 
Pods.  I put those little cages around them to prevent more broken branches.
 
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Broken branch full of pods:
 
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Pods:
 
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Plants:
 
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Look at this big beautiful bastard:
 
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Got some new pics from the big spot.  Thankfully I only noticed a few more broken branches after all the rain we got last week.  My little cages are working as I'd hoped.  Also the Scotch Bonnets are finally pushing out a few pods, way more than I expected given how far they've been lagging behind most of the other plants.
 
From the Yellow 7 Pot patch:
 
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Overall shot of the big spot:
 
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Cardi Scorpions, I think:
 
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Chenzos:
 
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Trinidad Perfume.  I think the ones I labeled as Trinidad Perfume in an earlier post were actually the Tobagos.
 
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Pepper Joe Not-Ghost:
 
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Scotch Bonnets:
 
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This is a Chocolate Devil's Tongue that reverted back to red.  I've heard they sometimes do that.  You can see a properly chocolate colored one in the background.  I think the red ones actually look cooler.
 
20170829_180908.jpg
 
Those nitrile gloves are a lifesaver when chopping up tons of peppers.  I've found they work better than latex.
 
They're all going into my sauce.  I'm hoping to one day be the new hot sauce king of the South, lol.  I'll definitely be upgrading to the vendor subscription on here at some point, but right now all my money is going into carboys, commercial kitchens, and woozy bottles.
 
theBelvidere said:
Got the first batch of mash started today:
 
20170908_140230.jpg

 
I started out with about 130 lbs and got through half of them.  Going back to finish them up tomorrow.  Looks like I'll get about 14 gallons of mash out of these, which jives with last year.  I think I have maybe 2x this amount still waiting to be picked.
 
Click to expand...
 
Now, that is a lot of pods!
 
Great work.
 
 
Kegco 7 gallon carboys, there's an ebay vendor that sells them for like $47 with free shipping.  They're working great so far.  Just ordered three more on Friday, bringing me to a total of 8.  I hope that'll be enough.
 
Planning to let them go a month at minimum.  By which I mean, from the day I start the last batch I'll wait a month, so the batches started previously will have gone for anywhere from 1-2 months.  I guess that's on the short end for a fermented sauce but I've found once the bubbling stops the flavor doesn't change that much.  If anyone cares to chime on the topic of fermentation times I'd love to hear other opinions.  Also I didn't use any starter cultures this year, just wild fermentation.  It finally dawned on me the other day what the wild fermented flavor reminds me of, it tastes sort of like a damn slim jim.  It's almost got a smokey taste, even though it's not smoked at all.  Sauces I've made with frozen peppers and yogurt whey or Caldwell's don't have that same taste.
 
Spent the weekend chopping up more peppers.  On the left are all seasoning peppers, some ajis, and a few others I deemed "mild".  Those are going into the mild sauce.  On the right are Yellow 7 Pots.  I wasn't really planning on making a whole carboy of just Yellow 7 Pots, but by the end of the day that was all we had cut up.  I don't know if I'll try to bottle it separately or just mix it with the other mash at cook time.
 
20170930_111457.jpg

 
 
 
These are mostly superhots, ghosts, scorpions, reapers, and a few lesser varieties.  They're going into the superhot sauce.  I wanted to call it "The Unholy Trinity" but someone beat me to it.
 
20171001_110840.jpg

 
 
All the mash.  Bottom row left to right: Pineapple, original, original.  Top row left to right: Yellow 7 Pot, mild, superhots.
 
20171001_155207.jpg
 
Wow that's a lot of peppers looking good [emoji41]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Chopped up about another 100 lbs yesterday.  Mid-heat peppers on the left, superhots in the middle, mild on the right.
 
20171007_113530.jpg

 
 
A few reapers still on the vine.  I grew one reaper plant a couple of years ago and it hardly produced anything so I'm really happy with these.  Everyone at the commercial kitchen was impressed by their abject evil.
 
20171005_182750.jpg

 
 
 
All my carboys are now full so I guess I'll order a few more.  I still have tons of pods on the plants.  I'm terrible at estimating, but I figure I've only picked somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 of the total.  I'm sure a lot of the ones remaining will wind up being picked in a still under-ripe state right before the first frost, but I'd still like to use them.  The test batches I made with those under-ripe peppers last year turned out really good.  I could just smoke them all too.  Decisions, decisions.
 
Here's a batch that I smoked a few weeks:
 
20170917_105537.jpg

 
 
Finished:
 
20170917_171656.jpg

 
 
I smoked probably 50 lbs total over a few days, most of which will go into my smoked sauce, but I saved a big quart jar full for myself.  I absolutely love smoked pepper powder, I put it on everything.
 
Maaan, this is some serious harvest and sure will need some serious dedication to process all this hot stuff. Well done for the successful season and thanks for sharing.
 
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