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When to pick?

Roguejim

Roguejim

Do you pick your pods as soon as they turn color, or is it better to leave them on the plant for awhile? Will the pod's heat level increase if left on the plant?
 
I pick right before full ripe. So if bright red is ripe i pick at light red which is about 3-4 days early. I find the flavor perfect. And if you freeze they will continue to ripen. I notice about a week worth of color change in the freezer over a 6 month period.
 
Don't want to steal your thread here but i also have a question regarding this:
 
How long can u leave them fully ripe on the plant before they go bad ?
 
Ive had some start to soften and wrinkle before completely ripe while others lasted two weeks on the plant after ripening before starting to dry up....
 
Laphroaig said:
Don't want to steal your thread here but i also have a question regarding this:
 
How long can u leave them fully ripe on the plant before they go bad ?
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At least as long as they will last off the plant sitting on a shelf, unless you have a very low humidity and lots of airflow across that shelf so they dry out instead of rotting.
 
Essentially what leaving them on the plant does is continue to provide a bit of moisture so they don't shrivel up as much, which aids the enzymes to further ripen them.  Their heat level doesn't increase if they were already their ripe color, but the taste does.  You can get some of this taste increase letting them sit on a shelf after picking, but not as much before they dry out if they didn't rot first... so at some point it has been on the plant long enough that there is no further benefit to it staying on the plant, but unless you keep track of every individual peeper it is easier to just pick them in waves, several at a time that you know have been ripe for a while.
 
I always leave them on the plants as long as possible, but do pick for a few reasons:
 
-  I want to eat or cook with it.
-  Branch is too heavy, must reduce weight.
-  Several are as ripe as they will get and I might as well pick the others nearly that way instead of having to pick peppers more often than I want to.
-  Time to make hot sauce, need enough to finish a batch.
-  End of fall, frost may be coming overnight and damage them.
 
Justaguy said:
I pick right before full ripe. So if bright red is ripe i pick at light red which is about 3-4 days early. I find the flavor perfect. And if you freeze they will continue to ripen. I notice about a week worth of color change in the freezer over a 6 month period.
Click to expand...
put them in the freezer whole/uncut with seeds and placenta intact? I ask because I have a little suplus of C-Not Madballz Twisted XL's :D
 
I pick them just before they are fully ripe.  For example... a pepper that ripens to a red colour usually starts off with orange and finishes red... I will pick that pepper whaen it is 90% red with a tinge of orange and maybe like 1-2% green (the tip of the tail).  Similarly a chocolate variety starts out green and ripens to a deep purple/brown... I will harvest it when there is still barely a green tint showing.  Likewise, an orange pepper will be slightly yellow... However, a yellow pepper is best harvested when it is just yellow... possibly fading to some orange if exposed to full sun.  I then take it inside and rinse it with cold water and let it sit for 24 hours before putting it in the freezer, whole... (with stem attatched).
 
Apparently peak heat occurs just at the point I was describing... just before the pepper turns fully ripe, because, at the point of being fully ripe, some of the capsaicin has already broken down into sugars.  Thats what I read a couple weeks ago on another thread.
 
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