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Drying Peppers, making Pepper Powder...

McGuiver

McGuiver

Well I ate, and used almost all my cayenne pepper I grew so far. I only managed to end up with 2 pieces that I dried. I'm starting small scale. I'm not planning on selling my powder, just using it.

Here is my cayenne pepper plant. It is now out side awaiting a bigger pot. All these peppers were harvested when red. The plant is now on its second set of peppers growing. Bees were pollinating it last week.

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Here are the 2 dried peppers I ended up with.

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Here are the 2 dried peppers cut up for grinding.

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I picked up a new coffee grinder for this.

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Grinding in progress.

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Final grind of cayenne powder. I picked up the spice Ball jars at Walmart.

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After grinding it was not as dried as I wanted. I placed it on my 2 foot HO T-5 seedling light. I has some good heat on top. It will dry out the mix.

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How are the rest of you drying your peppers and grinding them? I probably need a dehydrator. I used the top of my grow light to dry my peppers.
 
I just hung mine up indoors for a few weeks until they got nice and brittle (crushable by hand). I think you will need a dehydrator if you grow varieties that are fleshier, but for for cayenne type just hanging them works great.
 
filmost said:
I just hung mine up indoors for a few weeks until they got nice and brittle (crushable by hand). I think you will need a dehydrator if you grow varieties that are fleshier, but for for cayenne type just hanging them works great.
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Are you grinding yours too? I left all the seeds in the grinder. They were pulverized. I love how mine stayed deep red after drying. Most dried cayenne I've seen is almost purple after being dried.
 
McGuiver said:
Are you grinding yours too? I left all the seeds in the grinder. They were pulverized. I love how mine stayed deep red after drying. Most dried cayenne I've seen is almost purple after being dried.
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Last year was the fist year for making powder and it came out great. First I smoked them after cutting the peppers in half with cherry wood @ 175 deg., for 1 1/2 hours then into my cheapie dehydrator, I don't remember for how long and used a vintage hand coffee grinder this took for ever, with a lot of sneezing going on too. 
Going to buy a electric one this year.   In the past I stringed up some Thai peppers with a needle and fishing line and hung them up to dry and used my fingers to crush them as needed.
 
Cheapie dehydrator then into the magic bullet. I think I,ll try mixing in some other things for a spice mix next time.

Rymerpt
 
I'm right there with Jamie (romy6).  Pretty much same procedure except when I don't smoke them, they just go straight in the dehydrator.  Blender works great in my experience.
 
Stupid question, but I just had a thought. If you bathed some peppers in a water/ liquid smoke solution then dried them would you get a smoky end result? I'm cheap/poor and have no smoker.

Rymerpt
 
Regarding smoking peppers - you can overheat them in a conventional smoker just as easily as you can trying to dry your peppers in an oven on "warm"  Cold smoking your peppers is easy. Just Google "diy venturi cold smoker" and you will find many links showing how you can use an aquarium air pump and some tin cans as a smoke generator that will burn anything from wood chunks, wood pellets or sawdust.  (I use apple chips from Walmart)  The container you smoke in can be anything from a cardboard box to an old  BBQ grill.  I stack several "Bakers cooling racks" in my small grill and can smoke about 4lbs of peppers at a time.
 
One or two hours of smoking, then into a dehydrator at 125 degrees.  Dehydrating cool keeps the powder bright red.  You can air dry thin skinned peppers, but anything fleshy needs to be done in a dehydrator.
 
If I can find pictures tonight I will post them later.
 
tomclifton said:
Regarding smoking peppers - you can overheat them in a conventional smoker just as easily as you can trying to dry your peppers in an oven on "warm"  Cold smoking your peppers is easy. Just Google "diy venturi cold smoker" and you will find many links showing how you can use an aquarium air pump and some tin cans as a smoke generator that will burn anything from wood chunks, wood pellets or sawdust.  (I use apple chips from Walmart)  The container you smoke in can be anything from a cardboard box to an old  BBQ grill.  I stack several "Bakers cooling racks" in my small grill and can smoke about 4lbs of peppers at a time.
 
One or two hours of smoking, then into a dehydrator at 125 degrees.  Dehydrating cool keeps the powder bright red.  You can air dry thin skinned peppers, but anything fleshy needs to be done in a dehydrator.
 
If I can find pictures tonight I will post them later.
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Thanks!
 
tomclifton said:
Regarding smoking peppers - you can overheat them in a conventional smoker just as easily as you can trying to dry your peppers in an oven on "warm"  Cold smoking your peppers is easy. Just Google "diy venturi cold smoker" and you will find many links showing how you can use an aquarium air pump and some tin cans as a smoke generator that will burn anything from wood chunks, wood pellets or sawdust.
Click to expand...
This has inspired me.... I thought the color was off on my first attempt at smoking peppers. But I used a friends smoker and it had no way of controlling the heat well other than opening it up and letting the heat out. Ended up tasting great but the light peppers ended up rather brown the red kept well tho.

As for grinding I have a 2 stage process. First into a small food processor. Then into a cheap $20 coffee grinder from target. Ends up pulverized into a teeny tiny particulate, which is how I prefer my powders. Crushed just go through the food processor then into bottles or baggies.
 
Regarding smoking peppers - you can overheat them in a conventional smoker just as easily as you can trying to dry your peppers in an oven on "warm"  Cold smoking your peppers is easy. Just Google "diy venturi cold smoker" and you will find many links showing how you can use an aquarium air pump and some tin cans as a smoke generator that will burn anything from wood chunks, wood pellets or sawdust.  (I use apple chips from Walmart)  The container you smoke in can be anything from a cardboard box to an old  BBQ grill.  I stack several "Bakers cooling racks" in my small grill and can smoke about 4lbs of peppers at a time.
 
One or two hours of smoking, then into a dehydrator at 125 degrees.  Dehydrating cool keeps the powder bright red.  You can air dry thin skinned peppers, but anything fleshy needs to be done in a dehydrator.
 
If I can find pictures tonight I will post them later.


Great insight man thank your for the tips.
 
Additonal Detail on cold smoker. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/t8ww147twnkldhm/lCGPv2evoq. Mine is made of some 4" stove pipe and a pair of 4" caps from Home Depot.  The venturi assembly is made of 1/2" copper pipe tee, some 1/2" pipe, a 1/2" pipe cap and I used some small brass tubing from the hobby store for the air injector for the venturi. The "fire grate" is made of a hunk of perforated steel from the case of an old computer power supply. I drilled extra 3/16" holes for additonal air flow. YOu can also just use some sheet metal and perforate it with a 3/16" drill bit.  I blow smoke in my smoker - using a "conventional" smoker for a cold smoker. 
 
A future project will be a home made dehydrator made out of an old microwave oven case, an element from the top burner of an electric range,  computer fans for air circulation and a light dimmer for "temperature control".
 
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