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Pepper Harvest and Processing

Thought some of you might enjoy seeing our peppers. In an effort to scale our production massively and continue using 100% Canadian grown hot peppers we partnered with a local farmer this year. He absolutely killed it and produced around 6000lbs for us. Unfortunately being in Canada, they all get harvested within a 4 week period making for some long days processing. We can do about 1000lbs in an 8 hour day. We have another 2000lbs sitting in the walk in for this week, and another 2000lbs coming next week that should wrap it up.
 
600lbs of Paper Lantern & Orange Habanero Peppers
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800lbs of Paper Lantern Habanero Peppers with my old man
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250lbs Ghost Peppers & 400lbs Orange Habanero Peppers
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When you say processing, what exactly does that entail? Chopping them up into mash? Do you then keep the mash cold or just add enough salt or vinegar for preservation to occur?
 
Pepper North said:
 
Unfortunately being in Canada, they all get harvested within a 4 week period making for some long days processing. We can do about 1000lbs in an 8 hour day. We have another 2000lbs sitting in the walk in for this week, and another 2000lbs coming next week that should wrap it up.
 
 
 
karoo said:
Wow.
Great to see.
 
Thank you!
 
juanitos said:
wow congrats!
 
Thanks so much!
 
midwestchilehead said:
When you say processing, what exactly does that entail? Chopping them up into mash? Do you then keep the mash cold or just add enough salt or vinegar for preservation to occur?
 
 
 
With such a large amount of peppers coming in a short time we are freezing them for the time being. Our process is to:
1) Wash and sanitize
2) De-stem
3) Split in half and quality inspect
4) Weigh and vacuum seal
5) Flash freeze
 
The Hot Pepper said:
Very cool!
 
Thank you. I owe much of my success to this website.
 
Bhuter said:
Holy moly! Great stuff! That's more than I've ever grown combined, then multiplied. Lol. Awesome!
 
Yeah, it really is an insane amount of peppers. We have 2 skids stacked 8 feet high in the fridge full of peppers to tackle tomorrow.
 
YOWZAA!!!!!  That is Awesome!!!!  Both that your farmer knocked it out of the park with the grow, and that you're getting them processed 1000 pounds at a time.  Hope you got some good tunes or podcasts to listen to~~~
SL
 
DWB said:
That's what I do but 5 pounds whips my ass.
 
Haha, yeah I hear ya. After doing 1000lbs I am pretty wiped.
 
midwestchilehead said:
That is what I need to do, but all of my three freezers are constantly full and I can't find room for more pods :-(
 
 
 
Bummer! We are lucky to have a large walk in freezer.
 
shortsonfire79 said:
Wow that's awesome. Maybe next year I'll have enough grown to actually need to store them. Great processing technique, thanks!
 
No problem, best of luck!
 
salsalady said:
YOWZAA!!!!!  That is Awesome!!!!  Both that your farmer knocked it out of the park with the grow, and that you're getting them processed 1000 pounds at a time.  Hope you got some good tunes or podcasts to listen to~~~
SL
 
Thanks SL! Yes, we burn through lots of tunes. Hard to get everyone to agree though!
 
Walchit said:
Are these peppers sauce now? I wouldn't mind seeing some more pics of this operation!
Some of them are, but its hopefully enough to get us through until next season. We made 2100 bottles today, just over 5000 bottles will be our total this week. We got a rush order for 6480 bottles that has to ship out on Thursday. Heres some pics off my phone, you can check us out on Facebook or Instagram too, we post lots of processing pics and videos.

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