Paprika For Everyone

About the Grow:

The (hydro) spice must flow

This year I am starting Pepper Joe’s Leutschauer indoors and transitioning them outdoors

The entire grow will be using hydroponics

Once finished I will produce several lifetime's worth of Paprika, also cornering the market

I'm starting 10 seeds and will do a pheno-hunt in my indoor tent for a mother plant

Once the mother is established I will do about 10 clones and transfer them outdoors

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Stages of Growing:

Seed starting
Solo cups
5 gallon bucket
55 gallon drum (outdoor)

I'll document these methods in following posts

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About Me:

I'm not exactly a master grower but I have successfully created crosses and done quite a bit of pepper growing in the past

I can't handle any heat anymore, which has limited me to extremely boring sweet peppers in a traditional outdoor garden

After stumbling on the idea of growing some paprika peppers I decided to dust off the hydroponic equipment and give it a go

Thanks for reading and I look forward to sharing my experience with this project

 

[Hydronerd]

I have switched to Deep Water Culture (DWC), I added an air pump and 3 stones. The air pump is relatively quiet and about as loud as a fan

My setup is a little weird, the air pump I'm using has 2 outlets that have to be "bridged" together. I'm also only using what I have on hand

So a bridge to a check valve, which prevents backflow, then to a 3 gang distribution valve

For the stones themselves I have round aquarium stones

So far the setup has been very little trouble. Install took very little time. I haven't had to do a major nutrient change yet but as far as access for trimming and photos it's been great

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Unfortunately the mother is looking...soggy

The mother was 1 of 3 plants up-potted into a 5 gallon setup. It was looking very yellow and dropping leaves and small peppers so I upped the nutrient level a bit. After a few days of continuing to look wilted I swapped it with a successful King of the North plant

It's continuing to look fairly wilted, but has several large fruits. Not too much more I can do for it, I have 2 backups that are dying to get into a larger container so I'm not too worried

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The mother has some nice fruit developing. They are pleasantly shaped like a traditional pepper and about a medium size. Not a ton of flowers but it's still the first round. I'm hoping to have these fruiting for as long as possible.

 

[Hydronerd]

Quick update, I decided to do a little Low Stress Training (LST)

LST promotes airflow, and uses tie downs to spread open the canopy. It can be a bit of work, however peppers don't grow as fast as other types of plants that use this technique

I also organized and updated the air pump. The only way I could get the setup to work is to slightly close the valve next to the valve that I had to split (3 gang valve and 4 plants)

Fruits are developing nicely, very even distribution

 

[Hydronerd]

Just a short fruit update

I included some pics from the other plants as well

 

[growyourown]

wow that datil x dracula is a real looker.

 

[Hydronerd]

Not a lot happening, waiting for fruit to ripen. The new growth is looking pretty good. Each section has a very tall branch growing vertically that I will eventually support, section, and tie down

I'm not going to do too much more training until the plant gets into its final home, a 2x2 Vivosun grow tent. Once inside the tent, I'll use a net and do a "screen of green" (SCROG). At that point I'll probably have to also circulate nutrients through the reservoir, as I won't be able to just pull it out and dump it anymore. I'll use an auto siphon or maybe a small fountain pump

There are new buds starting in the middle on the lowest sites, I'm unsure if I'll let them continue to grow, but ideally they would produce new stems there

Nothing changing on the hydroponic front because they are in 5 gallon buckets. The reservoir is about 1/3 down, so I will be refilling within a few weeks. My pH pen and my EC meter both bit the dust. I was going to upgrade to a very expensive one that is used for actual laboratory science, but settled on a middle of the road unit that tests both pH and EC for about $30

The goal for now is to let these 6 or so pods ripen and try a small batch of paprika, making sure I can even complete the process

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A hiccup I'm running into is failing clones, I didn't expect that as I really have never had problems with it

I might try clonex, but I doubt that is the issue. I don't think it could be that the plant is resistant to cloning, although that is definitely a scary outcome for this project. I really don't want to have to grow a bunch of mature plants from seed at this point

 

[CaneDog]

Unfortunately, pepper cuttings don't seem to root as easily or consistently as some other plants and it can take a longer time when they do. I see some people post that they have/had no problem starting them, while others fail. My experience has been mixed and not what I'd consider as dependably easy/quick or consistent.

 

[Hydronerd]

Another general plant update, the fruits are beginning to ripen to an extremely bright fire engine red

No changes to the setup at all, the beauty of hydro is beginning to present itself. I just watch and enjoy them growing, and monitor the water level once a week. When they get into the 55 gallon containers, I will barely have to do nutrients at all

I'm going to pick and eat the first few ones, as I'm interested in how they taste fresh. I will probably wait until the next round of fruiting to start drying them for paprika

I haven't tried any new clones, there hasn't been a lot of trimming as I've been letting the vegetation grow out to fill in the area evenly

I included a root update as well, they're finally big and white enough to show off

Nutrient changes soon, cloning experimentation also to come

 

[Hydronerd]

Not a lot to report. The peppers on the mother are fully bright red but not yet ripe enough to pick

There were a couple of small fruit growing on the backup plant that are starting to turn color. I decided to pluck them to not only see how the fruit will counter ripen, but also to give that poor plant a chance of survival. At one point it had more fruit than leaves

Received and calibrated my nicer water tester. Seems ok so far. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CN9CLZWJ

Hopefully back with some fruit picked off the mother plant soon

 

[Hydronerd]

The results are in. I have harvested a small amount of peppers and produced hydroponic smoked spicy paprika (HSSP)

There's good news and bad news

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The bad:

- It's too spicy

I initially took a pepper and dabbed it on my tongue and knew I was in trouble. They are probably somewhere around a habanero, which doesn't make for a pleasant paprika flavor (in my opinion). The smoke and flavor are completely overwhelmed by the heat. In past projects, I've had the boosted hydroponic output concentrated into the capsaicin production rather than bigger and better fruits.

- The process was incredibly labor-intensive

I smoked the peppers for around 4 hours until they achieved that gummy feeling and were starting to char a bit. I used a standard pellet smoker with applewood pellets. The capacity of my normal little pellet smoker makes it so that I'd have to run it a lot to make any bulk amount of spice

After that, I dehydrated them for about 8 hours and thought for sure they would be dry. No, another 8 hours later and they were ready to make chili powder. This project falling somewhere in between a kitchen idea and commercial means I'm not going to purchase any special dehydrators, and again I'd have to run mine for weeks on end to produce any sizeable amount

Then pulverizing the dehydrated chilies wasn't the best either, the spicy dust nuked out the kitchen for a few minutes and definitely went straight in through my nostrils into my brain and incapacitated me for a minute

- Space is limited for the winter

I don't see myself moving into the outdoor phase in the spring, or mass-producing the spice. I will keep this in a 5 gallon bucket and produce enough paprika to hook up a few curious friends and stock my pantry for a while. After that I'll probably just axe the plant, it's been a fun grow but nothing special at all.

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The good:

- Harvest was a success and the beautiful peppers it produced are very pretty

I'm happy that I concocted an idea in February, and in September I'm enjoying the spicy fruits of my labor. Growing peppers in an office wasn't an easy task.

- I found some chocolate bell peppers that I'm in love with

This project and the blog will continue as I've found a new love. These chocolate bell peppers are growing weirdly elongated, but the flavor is incredible. They are so sweet, I can eat them like an apple. The leaves on the plant are about as big as my palm, and it shows excellent root development and growth

I will definitely be producing paprika / chili powder with it, and will keep updating about the Leutschauer plants as long as they are around. As of now, that's going to be a long time. They might even stay around indefinitely if other plants don't take their place.