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dried Dried vs Fresh Question

I'll start off by admitting I know nothing about peppers. But I recently purchased some dried ghost peppers. My roommate and I saw someone on TV eating one and how much they were suffering from it. He laughed and said he could handle it like a man. So I decided to put him to the test. Long story short, he didn't.

But after he ate one, I started to wonder if a dried pepper is less potent then a fresh pepper. After searching Google, I figured this would be the perfect place to ask that question.

Thanks for any info you can provide.

Also, I ended up filming my roommate eating the pepper. If you wanted to watch him squirm, I posted it up last night here.
 
I'll start off by admitting I know nothing about peppers. But I recently purchased some dried ghost peppers. My roommate and I saw someone on TV eating one and how much they were suffering from it. He laughed and said he could handle it like a man. So I decided to put him to the test. Long story short, he didn't.

But after he ate one, I started to wonder if a dried pepper is less potent then a fresh pepper. After searching Google, I figured this would be the perfect place to ask that question.

Thanks for any info you can provide.

Also, I ended up filming my roommate eating the pepper. If you wanted to watch him squirm, I posted it up last night
Nice vid. I like fresh peppers for flavor, but IMO dried can get hotter
 
Oh MY! Thanks for sharing that video. That's a good laugh!


To expand on what novacastrian said, (from what I understand, and I'm not an expert...)

capsaisin is an oil, which does not evaporate.

so, theoretically, if a person had to choose to eat 1 gram of fresh bhut or 1 gram of dried bhut, the fresh bhut would be less hot than the dried bhut as the dried bhut would have more volume by weight of capsaisin than the fresh bhut.


Either way, it'll fry your face off and turn your tummy inside out....but it's still a nice theoretical discussion. :)


Welcome to the site, thanks for sharing that video.....hope you find lots of fun and information here at THP.

salsalady
 
LOL! I absolutely loved the video.

I ate my first bhut with food and it was HELL.

Learned my lesson not to try eating a hole pod like your friend just did.

Bleash
 
Have him try a Trinidad Scorpiam

I asked him and he laughed at me and said no. :(


Thanks for the information, everybody. I still have eight more peppers left, but am having trouble finding any more friends who will eat one. Especially after seeing this video, lol.
 
Thank-you for sharing that vid. Made me smile.

As for the hot vs dried, in my albeit limited experience, a whole fresh pepper is usually hotter than a dried pepper. I guess it all depends on how the pepper was dried. Some people I know throw them in a hot oven and wonder why they lose potency. :rolleyes:

on a purely subjective level, I find fresh peppers to be much more palatable. One of the worst experiences of my life involve almost breathing in dried habenaro dust. Plus IMO dried peppers tend to dry out your mouth a little more, almost localising the afflicted area.
 
So the dried butchT scorps are hotter than fresh ones? meaning I can handle them?

Err.... Somebody slap some sense into me!
 
The key issue/question is, and has been mentioned already; does Capsaicin loose potency when dried? I have searched a bit (and by no means should this be taken for fact) but Capsaicin is reported to have very low volatility. If anyone has a food chemistry background or perhaps a reference or two, that would be great.

Assuming Capsaicin is stable through the drying process, by weight dried should be much hotter.
 
The key issue/question is, and has been mentioned already; does Capsaicin loose potency when dried? I have searched a bit (and by no means should this be taken for fact) but Capsaicin is reported to have very low volatility. If anyone has a food chemistry background or perhaps a reference or two, that would be great.

Assuming Capsaicin is stable through the drying process, by weight dried should be much hotter.

yep. Will boil off(like when making candied peppers), but I haven't experienced much leaves when drying them.
 
Bro that vid is wayyy better trhan some movies i have watched recently! You have some real talent there. :D
 
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