So, I´d read on the interwebs (not on THP, i don´t think, but on other forums/messageboards) that the seeds in dried pods tend to be destroyed by the drying process, which i fully believed without any skepticism, b/c in those days, I knew very little about chiles, and assumed that everyone else knew EVERYthing about´m. Then, I happened upon this thread by Peter Stanley, who is apparently one of these guys who DOES know almost everything about chiles:
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/61375-street-kitchen-peppers/
Well, that got me to thinking, which of course led to me experimenting, which in my experience is the quickest way to learn new shit. One of my jobs is at a cafe, where I go through buttloads of these cheap little dry red pods i get at the Pakistani-style market; I cannot tell if they´re Tien Tsins or Japones, I´m guessing the latter but who knows? Tien Tsin is the cooler name, and while I think i could easily tell one from the other if i had one of each, I really have no basis for comparison. The label just says ¨Chilli(sic) Whole¨... So, I been calling them Tien Tsin.... They´re red peppers, dried up and very cheap, and they have very little heat and arguably even less flavour. I use them to make my Chile, Basil & Garlic Bagels (aka CBGBs) and the white women really like them.
Anyway, I had kicked another plastic sack full of these ¨Tien Tsin¨ pods and was about to crack open another, and I noticed that the empty bag had a buttload of seeds that look just as good as the ones i buy from seed vendors. So, I took´m home, wet up a paper towel, bagged´m up in a ziploc, and tossed it on top of the fridge. Result: 90%+ germ rate. I was enthused.
I made some bullshit beef chorizo out of some Guajillos a few weeks back. I´m calling it ¨bullshit¨ b/c i didn´t like use any casing and i didn´t hard-cure it or anything; I just whipped it up quick as a special for the cafe and for me to eat at home with eggs or on homemade pizza, but whatever.... it tasted delicious and i only let it cure for 24 hours. The recipe called for Guajillos, which I love and they´re cheap and easily obtained, so I bought a sack of those at the mercado and had at it. The recipe also suggested de-seeding the pods, which I did and of course i set a few aside and tried to germ them. I got a pretty good germ-rate out of those, too. Probably 80%?
Blurry photo of Guajillo sprouts... note that there are a few duds, but most sprouted
So, the other day, a THP member named arrgh posted bout Pasillas and I brought up Puyas and I realized that I like Puyas and I wanna make beef chorizo out of those, and see if those seeds were viable, too. This time, for the sake of discussion, i figured I´d document it in a post, with some low-quality pictures and such.
My thoughts on this are kinda like, I can buy a pound of dry pods for $4 and get hundreds of seeds for ¨free.¨ And, while I have no way of knowing this, I suspect that these peppers come from commercial farms, where vast fields of a single variety are grown.... I´m thinking that the likelihood of unintended cross-pollination in the midst of a massive Puya plot is pretty small? And, even if i´m wrong, we are talking about free seeds that come in a big, cheap bag of pods.
Big sac of Puyas.... 1 pound, hundreds of seeds.
Basically, Puyas can be described as turbo-Guajillos... same basic idea, but with more heat. At least, that´s how they tend to be regarded on the internet, but as i recall, there´s more to it than that. Guajillos make me think of tobacco, whereas Puyas have a bit of a licorice vibe to them. Other differences include size, color (to an extent, but both are pretty variable. The Puyas tend more to dry brown with some reddishness, whereas the Guajillos dry to more red with some brownishness.)
Guajillo on the left; Puya on the right.
The first thing I noticed while examining the Puyas was, the seeds looked shittier than the Guajillos' did. I´ve worked with a lot of dried pods; of course Chipotle seeds are beyond destroyed, and I´ve found that Anchos, Mulatos, and Pasilla Negras tend to have some pretty roached-lookin´ seeds in them. The Puyas in this particular bag had some seeds that looked a little skanky.
Roachy Puya seeds on the left; viable Guajillo seeds in the blue dish on the right.
So, I dug around the bag a bit to find some more vibrant-looking Puya seeds. I found a bunch, selected 10 of them, and gave´m the paper towel treatment to see how it goes. I figure that, with ten, it´ll be really easy to calculate the germ rate, right?
Ten test-monkeys, ready to germinate..?
So, for the hand full of ppl who might have actually read this far, do you have any experiences, thoughts, or theories to starting seed from dry pods bought at the market? Would you try it? I realize that none of these varieties i´m looking at are ¨rare¨ or ¨special,¨ but they can be hard to come by in fresh form, and you rarely see them offered on seed vendors´ lists.
I´ll be back to report on how these seeds did, in terms of germination.
Thanks for reading!
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/61375-street-kitchen-peppers/
Well, that got me to thinking, which of course led to me experimenting, which in my experience is the quickest way to learn new shit. One of my jobs is at a cafe, where I go through buttloads of these cheap little dry red pods i get at the Pakistani-style market; I cannot tell if they´re Tien Tsins or Japones, I´m guessing the latter but who knows? Tien Tsin is the cooler name, and while I think i could easily tell one from the other if i had one of each, I really have no basis for comparison. The label just says ¨Chilli(sic) Whole¨... So, I been calling them Tien Tsin.... They´re red peppers, dried up and very cheap, and they have very little heat and arguably even less flavour. I use them to make my Chile, Basil & Garlic Bagels (aka CBGBs) and the white women really like them.
Anyway, I had kicked another plastic sack full of these ¨Tien Tsin¨ pods and was about to crack open another, and I noticed that the empty bag had a buttload of seeds that look just as good as the ones i buy from seed vendors. So, I took´m home, wet up a paper towel, bagged´m up in a ziploc, and tossed it on top of the fridge. Result: 90%+ germ rate. I was enthused.
I made some bullshit beef chorizo out of some Guajillos a few weeks back. I´m calling it ¨bullshit¨ b/c i didn´t like use any casing and i didn´t hard-cure it or anything; I just whipped it up quick as a special for the cafe and for me to eat at home with eggs or on homemade pizza, but whatever.... it tasted delicious and i only let it cure for 24 hours. The recipe called for Guajillos, which I love and they´re cheap and easily obtained, so I bought a sack of those at the mercado and had at it. The recipe also suggested de-seeding the pods, which I did and of course i set a few aside and tried to germ them. I got a pretty good germ-rate out of those, too. Probably 80%?
Blurry photo of Guajillo sprouts... note that there are a few duds, but most sprouted
So, the other day, a THP member named arrgh posted bout Pasillas and I brought up Puyas and I realized that I like Puyas and I wanna make beef chorizo out of those, and see if those seeds were viable, too. This time, for the sake of discussion, i figured I´d document it in a post, with some low-quality pictures and such.
My thoughts on this are kinda like, I can buy a pound of dry pods for $4 and get hundreds of seeds for ¨free.¨ And, while I have no way of knowing this, I suspect that these peppers come from commercial farms, where vast fields of a single variety are grown.... I´m thinking that the likelihood of unintended cross-pollination in the midst of a massive Puya plot is pretty small? And, even if i´m wrong, we are talking about free seeds that come in a big, cheap bag of pods.
Big sac of Puyas.... 1 pound, hundreds of seeds.
Basically, Puyas can be described as turbo-Guajillos... same basic idea, but with more heat. At least, that´s how they tend to be regarded on the internet, but as i recall, there´s more to it than that. Guajillos make me think of tobacco, whereas Puyas have a bit of a licorice vibe to them. Other differences include size, color (to an extent, but both are pretty variable. The Puyas tend more to dry brown with some reddishness, whereas the Guajillos dry to more red with some brownishness.)
Guajillo on the left; Puya on the right.
The first thing I noticed while examining the Puyas was, the seeds looked shittier than the Guajillos' did. I´ve worked with a lot of dried pods; of course Chipotle seeds are beyond destroyed, and I´ve found that Anchos, Mulatos, and Pasilla Negras tend to have some pretty roached-lookin´ seeds in them. The Puyas in this particular bag had some seeds that looked a little skanky.
Roachy Puya seeds on the left; viable Guajillo seeds in the blue dish on the right.
So, I dug around the bag a bit to find some more vibrant-looking Puya seeds. I found a bunch, selected 10 of them, and gave´m the paper towel treatment to see how it goes. I figure that, with ten, it´ll be really easy to calculate the germ rate, right?
Ten test-monkeys, ready to germinate..?
So, for the hand full of ppl who might have actually read this far, do you have any experiences, thoughts, or theories to starting seed from dry pods bought at the market? Would you try it? I realize that none of these varieties i´m looking at are ¨rare¨ or ¨special,¨ but they can be hard to come by in fresh form, and you rarely see them offered on seed vendors´ lists.
I´ll be back to report on how these seeds did, in terms of germination.
Thanks for reading!
