For those of you that don't know, this is only my second year growing hot peppers; before I started growing them last year I had always had an affinity for trying to find the hottest hot sauces but never had much experience with just straight fresh pods. Last year the hottest pepper I grew was Orange Habaneros. In all honesty the fresh Orange Habs were enough to make me start dripping sweat and eyes watering like crazy (my body overreacts though, it was still damn hot but I managed alright). This year I seem to have jumped some gaps, going from orange habs as the hottest pepper on my list to 7 Pot Yellows and Yellow Fataliis, and next year I already plan on growing 7 Pot Brown, Peach Bhuts and Red Moruga TS. I'm starting to think I may not have a strong enough tolerance for all these kinds of peppers just yet, but at the same time I've never had a fresh pod hotter than the orange habs so really I have no idea what I'm up against. I'm wondering what's a good way to build my tolerance up quickly? I imagine the simplest thing to do is just start eating more peppers (a trial by fire, if you will). I'd just hate to have grown all these beautiful peppers and then realize I can't handle the heat yet.
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A rather interesting realization...any idea how I can build up a tolerance quickly?
- Thread starter sreinhard88
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Eating them is what will build your tolerance as you correctly state. Peppers which are too how can always be used in hot sauces and in cooking so I wouldn't go out of your way to increase your tolerance, it will happen naturally if you are eating spicy foods. I have been thinking for some time that a high tolerance isn't that good a thing for the following reasons:
- It would be difficult to make food for friends to share with you
- There are perhaps 50 hot peppers at 1m SHU and over while at 100k and over there are probably 1000 hot peppers across all 5 domesticated species so you have more choices
- Any public eatery will be super mild if you are snacking on superhots
I have found super hots at Whole Food stores. There are also several folks here at THP that can sell ya some pepper pods. I would recommend just experimenting with peppers more and more. Make powders to add to everything (add to fudge its awesome), pickle some, make purees, make sauce. Hell become obsessed with peppers and your tolorance will follow.
Testify!Rymerpt said:
Do what I did Saturday,Put a plate full of mostly random pods on a plate close your eyes and grab one.Start nibbling on the far end and if it don't put you on your knees keep working up the pod until it does.The pods that suck you in with the sweetness before the heat kicks in are the ones to fear the most. 
I ate nothing hot for like 16 months and then ate a Moruga Scorpion. I guess it worked. To build a tolerance, just eat the very hottest thing you have. Then, everything else won't seem as hot,
Another thought on this and probably a quick if not painful way to build your tolerance, get a bottle of pure evil, put one drop in a tblsp of olive oil then eat, everyday put a little less olive oil on the tblsp with the drop of pure evil, after like ten days you should be down to basically pure evil! If that don't make your Chile's easierbto handle, I don't know what will! That being said, I have been eating hot food since I was a little kid mom loved very spicy food, and I guess I got her taste for them, after years of eating spicy food and fresh peppers I got to the point that I was eating fresh and powdered habaneros all the time and habaneros were not very hot to me Any more, after years of eating all of the hot peppers I could get my hands on, then 4 yes ago I started reading about gardening cuz I moved to the country and finally had room for more than just a couple nursery plants on a balcony,the more I read the more I ran into mention of superhots! This intrigued me more than ever, I ending up finding the garden web and that was great, I was able to get a lot of info and some seed vendors names etc, I caught the bug quick, soon after I met Romy6 (Jamie) then we found the hot pepper and all told my first year I ended up w\ 175 plants of 90+ varieties, then in 2012 I grew over 300 plants! That was when I started getting a ton of shit from the other half! So I had to dial it back a bit! Now that I've gone of on a tangent, thepoint of all of this is that my first year growing I ate my first super and several hundred more after, I made sauces powders relishes, salsas, hot BBQ sauces, ate them fresh chopped up on everything, now I can eat any pepper fresh, and I'm not bragging, I'm not one of those " it ain't hot " sort of folks, quite the contrary, I enjoy it because it is hot, I'm not immune to the hot peppers, I just enjoy their flavors so much, I deal with the heat, most I don't have problems w\ but occasionally I run into a pod that lights me up like a pinball machine and has me sweating like a whore in church! That's half the fun! 
We had a spoonful of the hottest sauce we could get our hands on (Hot-Headz, 2nd Assault) now most things aren't too hot! The video is on our youtube channel if anyone wants a laugh!
You do not need superhots to build your tolerance. In fact they are not the best to build tolerance from the start. Eat lots of red Thais, most grocery stores carry them. Eat a couple at breakfast lunch dinner every day for a month. One you find those to be heartless which belive me it happens. Now you do the same with store bought Habs.
Build your Hab tolerance, this will take longer, allot longer.
Many people tell me they can eat a Hab, so I give them a whole one and the jump around for a while and say see no big deal. That' is not been tolerant, once you use and eat the pods everyday you are tolerant.
Once you start adding super hots to your routine things become hard and not as fun. You want to just chew the super hot pod preferably a bhut for 4 mins, then 10 and finally 30 minutes.( spit out pepper do by swallow for a Long time)
Keep this up and you will be tolerant. For some they want tolerance for YouTube, I built tolerance solely because I love the taste of peppers in all my food ( not hot sauce)
Well that's my routine, most super hots I do are dried as I can't buy fresh ones here and the ones I grow go bad fast
Becoming tolerant to the cramps, now that I don't know. They hurt if you consume to much.
Some pods are too hot for everyday use in whole form
Build your Hab tolerance, this will take longer, allot longer.
Many people tell me they can eat a Hab, so I give them a whole one and the jump around for a while and say see no big deal. That' is not been tolerant, once you use and eat the pods everyday you are tolerant.
Once you start adding super hots to your routine things become hard and not as fun. You want to just chew the super hot pod preferably a bhut for 4 mins, then 10 and finally 30 minutes.( spit out pepper do by swallow for a Long time)
Keep this up and you will be tolerant. For some they want tolerance for YouTube, I built tolerance solely because I love the taste of peppers in all my food ( not hot sauce)
Well that's my routine, most super hots I do are dried as I can't buy fresh ones here and the ones I grow go bad fast
Becoming tolerant to the cramps, now that I don't know. They hurt if you consume to much.
Some pods are too hot for everyday use in whole form
Wow thanks everyone for the advice! It appears that my best course of action is to just keep on eating the peppers getting hotter and hotter until at the very least I can handle my harvest 
Another thing I'll have to start thinking about is how to use each type that I have growing now (sauces, powders, recipes, etc, most of which I'm sure can be found in the cooking forums)
Another thing I'll have to start thinking about is how to use each type that I have growing now (sauces, powders, recipes, etc, most of which I'm sure can be found in the cooking forums)
As a chef I completely understand this!randyp said:
I never actually took time to build a tolerance, although I quit eating full super hots when a butchT from butch taylor put me down for 36 hours.
I use full pods in my meals, no issues, I just don't have the luxury of a day and a half to spend in the fetal position, got a baby to take care of.
I use full pods in my meals, no issues, I just don't have the luxury of a day and a half to spend in the fetal position, got a baby to take care of.
Well, I don't eat superhots by themselves. That's just insane heat! And the after affects aren't worth it for me when I have to be on my A game at work. But, I do eat a whole one or more in most of my meals. Kinda spreads it out over a whole meal(a HOT meal), instead of just a few bites. I started with habs in my meals and then moved up when it wasn't hot enough anymore. I'm at 2 Naga Morich pods in a meal for my upper limit now. But this year will stepping it up with a bunch of Trinidad and 7-pot/pod varieties!!
So put them in food and increase the amount when you can handle it easily.
So put them in food and increase the amount when you can handle it easily.