Stickman's 2015 - That's All She Wrote...

Hi All! It's been an incredibly busy winter dealing with one thing and another, and it's only about half over here.   Still, it's time to get on the stick and put my seeds in the dirt in preparation for plant-out in another 12 weeks or so. I have a Manzano over-wintering inside that's going on its third year. It's next to a sliding glass door with a great southern exposure but the light it gets here this time of year is pretty paltry... I expect it'll start to perk up sometime in March. I have a couple of MoA Scotch Bonnets over-wintering at a friend's house because there wasn't space in front of the sliding glass door for them and my wife's indoor plants... the deal is that if they both survive the winter, we'll split the plants. If not, he'll keep the one that lives. That seems fair since he did all the work.
 
The rest of the list is looking like this...

Pubiscens Varieties
Total bust this year... nothing that germinated survived.

Baccatum:
Ditto

Frutascens:
Tabasco
Hawaiian Bird chile
 
Chacoense:
Ditto

Chinense:
7-pot Yellow Turned out to be a red "Not"
MoA Scotch Bonnet
Beni Highlands... Also turned out to be a "Not"... maybe a Mako Akokrosade cross?
Ja Hab
Trinidad Perfume
Zavory

Annuum:
Cabe Rawit (mouse turd pepper, in Singapore where the seeds were collected they're called Cili Padi)
Red Thai
Biggie Chile Anaheim
Poblano Gigantia
Jalapeno Ciclon
Jalapeno Tormenta
Serrano Tampiqueno
Hungarian Hot Wax
Almapaprika
Ethiopian Brown Berbere
 
I'll also be planting a sweet Criolla de Cucina plants and about 20 sweet Kurtovska Kapijas. The Kapijas have the longest growing and ripening times of any Annuum I know, but they're big, meaty sweet peppers that average around a half a pound apiece... just the thing for making that eastern european condiment called Ajvar.
 
Too tired to say more now, but will pick up later... Cheers!

 

[stickman]

Any thoughts of using screen for the shelving so you can put any size pod on there? The contraption looks awesome! 

 
Cheers Chris! I eventually plan to replace the polypro trellis netting with 316 stainless steel screen woven 18 mesh from 0.0090 diameter wire. That seems to have the right balance of size, light weight and price, but it's still too rich for my blood unless I hit the lottery for around a hundred fifty bucks. I'll be saving through the winter to make the purchase next year.

 

[JoynersHotPeppers]

 
Cheers Chris! I eventually plan to replace the polypro trellis netting with 316 stainless steel screen woven 18 mesh from 0.0090 diameter wire. That seems to have the right balance of size, light weight and price, but it's still too rich for my blood unless I hit the lottery for around a hundred fifty bucks. I'll be saving through the winter to make the purchase next year.

Makes sense, nice work!

 

[Devv]

Rick,
 
How about the material they use for a base for stucco? It's cheap and plenty strong. I believe it's aluminum.

 

[stickman]

Rick,
 
How about the material they use for a base for stucco? It's cheap and plenty strong. I believe it's aluminum.

 
Cheers Scott! Do you mean the expanded sheet metal lath? It's made from steel like hardware cloth... too likely to rust with the food placed on it. I could put down a sheet of parchment paper I suppose, but I'd rather keep the air flow moving smoothly. Aluminum wire and Zinc galvanizing might react with the food too, and I wouldn't trust the dyes that color nylon window screening. They do make a knitted polypro mesh that's fine and strong enough but it's not much less expensive than the Stainless steel.

 

[Devv]

Didn't think of that, I guess stainless is the way to go

 

[PeriPeri]

Personally I would have gone with the titanium mesh they sell at NASA, its light and strong and can withstand a lot of heat

 

[Donnie]

Sure Jamie... c'mon up with the materials and you can take it home with you when we're done...
 
If he decides to keep his nute regimen a secret I can understand why... da-yum! those are some good ones!e
 

 
I don't see why it wouldn't work for you at your latitude Donnie, you'd just have to modify the angle of the collector box to maximize the collection of the sunlight. Here at 42 degrees north latitude I made the angle 122 degrees to be most useful during the growing season. At the end of August we're getting around thirteen hours of sunlight. The days have been hot, with high humidity... say daytime highs of around 30 degrees Celsius and an average humidity of 69 percent. With the 4 mil sheet poly I actually had better light transmission. the temperature for 2 hours at either side of noon was about 54 degrees C. in the dehydrator, and around 49 degrees for 2 hours on either end of that. With the Sun-Lite glazing it's been more like 51 degrees C for three hours on either side of noon, and 49 degrees for an hour on either end of that. That's with one set of sliding vent covers completely closed and the other open about 10cm.
 
If your autumn weather is like ours, it may be cooler, but it's much dryer too humidity-wise... which will help with the drying nearly as much as higher temperatures. It may take a few days longer, but you'll get there in the end, and the dehydrator will still speed up the process.

Thanks a lot for your detailed answer, I am encouraged by it and may try to build one myself.

 

[stickman]

Personally I would have gone with the titanium mesh they sell at NASA, its light and strong and can withstand a lot of heat

 
Oh Lourens, you Dickens you...
 
 

Thanks a lot for your detailed answer, I am encouraged by it and may try to build one myself.

 
Cool! I think you won't be disappointed Donnie. It occurs to me that you might want to ask anybody who has passive solar hot water heaters in your area what angle they have them set at. We figured out after the fact that the angle on my solar collector is the same as for our south-facing roof with the PhotoVoltaic and hot water panels on it. You want to have the sun hitting the collector as close as you can get to 90 degrees as often as possible. Sunlight coming at shallower angles isn't as energetic since it has to travel through more of the atmosphere where it's absorbed and scattered.
 
One design flaw that was bugging me about the dehydrator was that it only had a couple of bolts holding the "wheelbarrow handles" at one end. The handles kept pulling upward, and would eventually split the ends of the piece of wood. Mezo took care of that with a couple of diagonal braces, and I did the same this morning. All braced now! I had to notch the bottom corners of the access door to get it to clear the new braces, but it didn't compromise the weatherstrip seal around the back of the dehydrator box, so we're golden. I knew there was a reason I was putting off doing the final painting on that door...

 

[stickman]

Finally starting to roast and peel peppers to put away for the winter. Here's a batch of Kapijas underway...

 
Once the peppers were done, I still had lots of coals and eggplants. Might as well do them too and make Baba Ganouj and Smoked Eggplant Bharta...

 
A pretty good haul of mixed dried pods. There's some Bhuts, Leutshauer Paprika and Fatalis in there.

 
Hope y'all are having a great Labor Day weekend!

 

[OCD Chilehead]

I mostly split my pods lengthways and de-seed them before smoking and/or drying and grinding for powder, but some thin-fleshed varieties I dry whole, without making a cut like you do... mainly because it doesn't take all that much longer for them to dry and I want them to keep as many of the volatile oils inside as possible. That would be the Thais, Gochus, Pequins, and other small wilds. The larger Mexican types like Anchos, Pasillas and Guajillos I just do it because it's traditional and they also keep longer. I need a dehydrator to sun-dry them because the humidity here in New England is so high during the summer that half the pods get moldy inside if I try it without.
 
This morning's load in the dehydrator. Bottom tray Bhuts and Prik Kee Nu pods, second tray Red Thais, third tray ripe Anaheims, fourth tray Leutshauer Paprika, fifth and sixth trays mixed Chinense varieties. The Anaheims, red Thais and Prik Kee Nus will stay whole... the rest will be dried and ground for this year's powder blend.

Looks fantastic. I do the same thing with Thai and Arbol type of peppers. The dry pretty quick. Especially on the top shelf of my dehydrator. I thought of building a box out of sheet metal and wooden shelfs. Almost like a smoker. But I thought it would get to hot and lose the qualities of taste in the peppers. I found that out drying in the oven a number of years ago. I think your solar dehydrator is far more superior then most electric. The product will tell. Glad to see you making some kitchen projects.


Have a great weekend brother.

Thanks for sharing

Chuck

 

[PeriPeri]

It's all going down here - awesome! Time to reap the reward

 

[Pulpiteer]

Holy cow you've got a lot going on here since I was last able to visit! Love the dehydrator. Very interesting to see that all come together.  And you've been doing tons of processing too.  With the puree - is that acidic enough to not refrigerate?  All the dried pods look great - they've got nice color to them.  Glad things are going well for you Rick!

 

[stickman]

Holy cow you've got a lot going on here since I was last able to visit! Love the dehydrator. Very interesting to see that all come together.  And you've been doing tons of processing too.  With the puree - is that acidic enough to not refrigerate?  All the dried pods look great - they've got nice color to them.  Glad things are going well for you Rick!

 
Cheers Andy! Yup, the puree is acidic enough to be shelf stable. I think I like my yellow and orange Chinense varieties preserved this way for the most part. They seem to hang onto their fruity qualities better than drying. The exception this year is the Fatalis. I'm adding them to the powder blend because of their pure heat.
 
This weekend I got the low temperature range pegged for the solar dehydrator. As it gradually climbed up to the place where the meat thermometer begins to register, I made marks on the dehydrator box that correspond to the range from 70 degrees F to 100 degrees. Crude but effective...

We'll
I also had a windfall of yellow Roma tomatoes from a local community farm. They were going to till under their tomato plants to make way for the fall crops, and there were loads of ripe tomatoes that they didn't have the time or manpower to collect, so they announced a "gleaning day" where anybody could come with their own containers and leave with as many tomatoes as they could carry away. I got about 10 pounds to experiment with making sun-dried tomatoes. I washed and split them this morning and loaded them into the dehydrator. We'll see how it goes from here.

 
Hope you all had a great holiday weekend!

 

[JoynersHotPeppers]

Great work!

 

[stickman]

Great work!

 
Cheers Chris!
 
Tomorrow is entry day at the Franklin County Fair, and I'm entering my chiles again so tonight is the big pull before sorting and washing the entries. Here are today's sweet and mild chiles...

 
And the mid-heat to supers. The Anaheims I dried in the dehydrator are done. Drying them whole evidently takes a bit over a week in the dehydrator to finish them off.

 

[JoynersHotPeppers]

Best of luck!

 

[PeriPeri]

  I'm having to wrap my keyboard in plastic wrap again!

 

[stickman]

Best of luck!

 

  I'm having to wrap my keyboard in plastic wrap again!

 
Cheers guys!
 
I entered my peppers yesterday, and stopped by today to see how I did...
 
Serranos

 
Poblanos

 
Thais

 
Scotch Bonnets

 
Almapaprikas

 
Red Marconis

 
and the best pepper collection

 
It wasn't a clean sweep this year though... I got 2nd place for my Jalapenos

 
and 3rd place for my Jalapeno pepper jelly

 
They rejected my Yellow Marconi peppers entirely. Why I don't know, but I'm still happy with the results. $38 in prize money to go toward the cost of the solar dehydrator.

 

[JoynersHotPeppers]

Wow very nice Rick, I need to see if they do that near me! I might be missing out.

 

[PeriPeri]

Well done Rick buddy! That is a testament to you brilliant efforts this season