seeds When to pick and seed a Bhut Jolokia?

[Tim in Tucson]

I have a Bhut Jolokia pepper that is red except for the very tip of the pepper.  At what point can I harvest viable seeds from these peppers (or how ripe should they be)?
 
This pepper has taken a few weeks to turn from a shade of brown to red.  These peppers seem to be very slow to ripen!  Is that my imagination?

 

[Phil]

Agreed! They are slow to ripen! You should be okay to harvest seeds now. Go ahead and cut it open and see what's inside!

 

[Tim in Tucson]

Alright, I just cut the pepper open and took the 14 seeds out.  I tasted a small piece from the bottom end, and found the flavor to be wonderful!...But not that hot!  So I cut off a small piece from the upper end, and while it had some heat, it wasn't extreme by any stretch of the imagination.  I cut off a piece closer to the placenta, and again, while it had some heat, it wasn't killer.
 
This is the first ripe pepper from the plant, and and was close to the bottom of the plant.  Will that make a difference?
 
....After five minutes, the tingle is still there, but no hellish flames coming out of my mouth.  
 
Opinions?

 

[Dave2000]

I wonder if it's an accidental hybrid.  Where did the seed come from?
 
The first set of pods at the bottom of the plant are usually just as hot as the rest, given the same ratio of fertilizer, water, sun, etc (same environment throughout the season which of course is impossible since seasons change but still... it should be about the same as the rest that come later).
 
However, sometimes if a bug attacks a pod or there is some kind of bacterial infection then a pod will ripen prematurely and not have much heat as a result, but in that case it gets ripe a lot faster than the rest and usually starts ripening at the point of the problem.