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preservation Really hot vinegar

Curiosity of my mystery pepper is getting the better of me and the plant has lots of pods on it. Assuming its a Naga i was thinking about adding maybe 2 pods to a smallish bottle and top it off with some heated vinegar, garlic and lime basil. I will probably need to quarter them to get them in the bottle.
 
So do you think 2 Naga Morich is enough to make about 8oz of vinegar reasonably hot? I dont want to use any more off that plant but i do have a couple green ghost i can spare too.
 
Well, i tasted them and i tasted the BloomIQ ghost also. I didn't think either was that terribly hot. This test is probably a bust. Ive had orange habs i tried green (early season) and the heat was much less also. Green ones later in the season were way way hotter.
 
I used 8oz total 50/50 cane/dry white wine vinegar. About 5 small flower tops from my lime basil and almost 1/2tsp of minced garlic. 2 mystery peppers and 2 ghost.
 
On a side note, i thought the flavor of them green was interesting. Not very "habby" at all. More like a Super Chile on steroids.
 
Nagas (or whatever) are a bit beyond my pay grade. But I agree with THP: time is the factor here, i.e., not for next week. Maceration takes time. Also more time generally equals a more complex flavour.
 
Different examples: I make a nice olio peperoncino and I come back in 3-6 months. Kind of the same for rhum arrangé - e.g., strawberry, basil, vanilla & chilli.
 
Ive done many hot vinegars. I got some that are years old. I still have several bottles from last year. I normally wont even sample them for a month.
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Oh yeah! I can almost taste it...  :drooling:
 
Out of interest would you have an example of what you use the vinegar for?
 
(BTW - how hot did you mean by "reasonably hot" in your original post?)
 
I like it on bean soup and cucumbers. In the US we call it cucumber and onion salad. Its just thin sliced cucumber and onion with a little salt and vinegar. Sometimes a little sugar too.
 
(BTW - how hot did you mean by "reasonably hot" in your original post?)
 
 
Normally i fill a bottle with a mix of much milder annuums like Super Chile, serrano and occasionally a couple green habs. Pretty much whatever green hot peppers i have on hand. Green lemon drops work great too.
 
So green is the way to go and not red / orange / yellow?
 
I had no plans for making chilli vinegar but just received a box of 6x 0.5 L Maille chardonnay white wine vinegar today. No joke. Thus I'm now rethinking that a little could go in this direction...
 
I never used my Dragon Cayenne hybrids for vinegar and im not sure why i didn't. I had tons of them and didnt really like them for anything else. Ive got some Sichuan peppers growing atm. They are all still green and i need to try them ripe before i decide if i like them or not. I dont think they are very hot though. Kinda hard to tell since most Asian places (around here) probably dont use real Sichuan peppers and ive never tried one fresh before.
 
Next time im at our nearest Asian market i will see if they got in more of the really tiny green or red Thai peppers. Those suckers are really hot compared to others ive tried.
 
With peppers like Tabasco i fill the bottle almost up to the neck.
Then add vinegar to the bottle. Let it set a few minutes to release any air in the peppers. Top off if needed.
Pour off the vinegar and heat it up.
Then refill with the heated vinegar and seal the bottle.
 
like anything with peppers, I thing the ingredients have to work well together.  If you have a vinegar that you want to use, taste it and think about what pepper would work with it.  If you have a chile you want to use, give it a little taste and think about what vinegar would work best for that.
 
 
This does involve knowing the vinegars. 
My son and I took every vinegar I had in the kitchen and house (I think there was about 12) and we tasted every one straight.  We were looking for a vinegar for a specific something, and by doing the straight vinegar taste test he chose exactly the right ingredient for his project. 
 
 
I totally agree with Boss's comment about the heat building over time.  It happens with our fresh salsa.  Make the salsa the day before market and the people say the SCORCHER isn't scorcher...
 
make the salsa 3-4 days ahead of market???  Oh YEA!!!  that schtuff is BLAZIN'!!!
 
 
 
By not that hot i meant i tasted the green ghost and mystery pepper before adding them to the bottle. They didnt seem to be as hot as a good ripe orange hab. There was virtually no chinense aroma either but i sort of expected that. The heat built pretty slow, probably a good 10-15sec but it lingered for nearly 30min. Nothing i would call really hot but you knew you ate a spicy pepper 20min later.
 
I should taste one of my odd looking MOAs just to compare it. They look brutal to me. More like a Scotch Brain than a bonnet.
 
 
 
Crammed a bottle full of birdeye i get at the market. I got the green since they are half the cost of red. I tasted one of my CCN Sichuan and yeah those got some zip but better flavor. Tossed it in the bottle too. I used a cheaper white rice vinegar. I was all out of my good Korean brown rice vinegar which really ticked me off. I just went to that market. Added 1/4 tsp of minced garlic and filled it up with heated vinegar. Took roughly 25-30 peppers to fill it tightly to the neck. I crammed them suckers in there blossom side down so they would fill.
 
Personally i dont care for Thai birdseye. To me they are bitter and just hot. Might be interesting with some lime leaves or lime juice. I left a little room in case i want to add just a dash of lime to it.
 
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