Stickman's 2016 Gochu Glog- Transplanting is Finished

stickman · Jul 25, 2016

tctenten said:
Rick I just read that link on the pickle making. The pickles only ferment a day or two at room temp, then finish up in the fridge? I have a bunch of cucumbers that I am going to try this in a gallon fermenting jar. Would you mind sharing your pickle spice recipe?

Y'know, you're right... I went back and re-read the instructions in the link I posted and he does recommend 2 days out at room temperature and then into the fridge for a week for half-sours. I guess I'd fixated on the one week part. :rolleyes:

I started my pickles on Saturday, and after 2 days out at room temperature the brine has gotten a bit cloudy, the cukes have lost that bright green color and you can see them gently fizzing. They should finish off in the 'fridge by the time my sister stops by with her brood in a couple of weekends. I haven't developed a signature pickling spice blend.. I just buy what they have at the local market. It's mostly coriander seeds with a few black peppercorns, allspice berries, dried chiles, crumbled bay leaves and stick cinnamon, whole cloves and dried orange peel. I just pick out the cloves and use that. Maybe in my next batch I'll work on that aspect by making up a spice blend with mustard seeds, dill seeds, crumbled bay leaves, coriander seeds, peppercorns and dried Takanotsume chiles.

tctenten · Jul 25, 2016

Great...thanks for the info. When I have made them in the past I let them ferment at room temp for about a week. I am going to try two days at room temp and then let them finish up in the fridge.

Essegi · Jul 25, 2016

stickman said:
Cheers Giancarlo! If you like clams I bet you would too. When I was a kid, we'd have a family picnic every summer with the relatives on my Mother's side, and in addition to everything else somebody would bring a couple of bushels of cherrystone clams to steam. We'd eat the clams and drink the broth. My Dad, who never liked fish, threw out the clam broth one year, and boy did he hear about it afterwards! Lol!

Yup, I suspect this season will be kind to everyone who planted Bhuts here. All the pics I've seen show some really gnarly monskers.

Do you know about impepata di cozze? Just another neapolitan stuff (i should have born in Neaples...). Maybe it's similar since there's broth to drink... But mussels and loads of black pepper plus parsley and garlic. I've never eaten much of that but it's one of my favs.
https://translate.google.it/translate?sl=it&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=it&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fricette.giallozafferano.it%2FImpepata-di-cozze.html&edit-text=&act=url&act=url
Probably it's somewhat similar to your dish!

Dunno about bhuts, mine aren't spectacular, maybe i have a strange plant.:p But for sure season hasn't been the best inddeed!

stickman · Jul 25, 2016

Essegi said:
Do you know about impepata di cozze? Just another neapolitan stuff (i should have born in Neaples...). Maybe it's similar since there's broth to drink... But mussels and loads of black pepper plus parsley and garlic. I've never eaten much of that but it's one of my favs.
https://translate.google.it/translate?sl=it&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=it&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fricette.giallozafferano.it%2FImpepata-di-cozze.html&edit-text=&act=url&act=url
Probably it's somewhat similar to your dish!

Dunno about bhuts, mine aren't spectacular, maybe i have a strange plant. But for sure season hasn't been the best inddeed!

No, I hadn't heard of or tried peppered Mussels but they look really good! I'll definitely make them sometime soon. There are no tomatoes in Jogaetang, but there are peppers and broth, so it's probably closer to a Brodetto de Cozze. That's another one I'm gonna make sometime soon. :drooling:

It sounds like the Adriatic and Balkan regions have been really wet and cold during the early growing season. I hope things have turned around by now. I was having a conversation with Chuck about how some chiles come from a part of the world where they get planted during the warm monsoon rains, like Thailand and India. Chiles like the Jwala seem to have very tender leaves and stems, and need regular watering and protection from hot, dry conditions so it seems like that's how they've adapted to the local climate. The Bhuts have a longer growing season, so it looks like they get planted at the same time as the Annuums and get most of their vegetative growth then, but set flowers and fruit during the hot, dry season that follows it. The upshot is that I think your long-season chiles got stunted by the cold early on. Mine didn't seem to grow much either until night-time low temperatures climbed up to about 15 degrees Celcius and the days got to around 25 degrees C. What's your observation?

Essegi · Jul 26, 2016

stickman said:
No, I hadn't heard of or tried peppered Mussels but they look really good! I'll definitely make them sometime soon. There are no tomatoes in Jogaetang, but there are peppers and broth, so it's probably closer to a Brodetto de Cozze. That's another one I'm gonna make sometime soon.

It sounds like the Adriatic and Balkan regions have been really wet and cold during the early growing season. I hope things have turned around by now. I was having a conversation with Chuck about how some chiles come from a part of the world where they get planted during the warm monsoon rains, like Thailand and India. Chiles like the Jwala seem to have very tender leaves and stems, and need regular watering and protection from hot, dry conditions so it seems like that's how they've adapted to the local climate. The Bhuts have a longer growing season, so it looks like they get planted at the same time as the Annuums and get most of their vegetative growth then, but set flowers and fruit during the hot, dry season that follows it. The upshot is that I think your long-season chiles got stunted by the cold early on. Mine didn't seem to grow much either until night-time low temperatures climbed up to about 15 degrees Celcius and the days got to around 25 degrees C. What's your observation?

I know there are some recipes with or wothout tomato, i believe classic version is without. For sure both are worth trying.

But maybe i prefer without.

For weatehr you got it right. First cold and lots of rain. Then some nearly brutal heat for some days (i remember a wednesday evening, car termometer signed 37°C after some minutes on the road after 7pm, before was parked on underground) i guess a sudden jump of over 10°C. Then a bit colder. Then no rain... Peppers got stuck with all those highs and lows.
To be honest my bhut is fine, but not long and a bit broad, not huge and not the coolest shape, just fine.
I bought a Naga Morich and has some flowers but still no pods. 7 pod yellow orange is quite small, it made just 1 beautiful pod then nothing. I bought that one too. The plants i started myself from seeds were bigger during that alternating weather so they grew better.

stickman · Jul 28, 2016

Essegi said:
I know there are some recipes with or wothout tomato, i believe classic version is without. For sure both are worth trying. But maybe i prefer without.

For weatehr you got it right. First cold and lots of rain. Then some nearly brutal heat for some days (i remember a wednesday evening, car termometer signed 37°C after some minutes on the road after 7pm, before was parked on underground) i guess a sudden jump of over 10°C. Then a bit colder. Then no rain... Peppers got stuck with all those highs and lows.
To be honest my bhut is fine, but not long and a bit broad, not huge and not the coolest shape, just fine.
I bought a Naga Morich and has some flowers but still no pods. 7 pod yellow orange is quite small, it made just 1 beautiful pod then nothing. I bought that one too. The plants i started myself from seeds were bigger during that alternating weather so they grew better.

Man! That's discouraging... hang in there though, next year has to be better.

Took a few pictures during the Dawn Patrol this morning, but got a call from my office asking for me to cover for a co-worker who fell and injured himself in addition to servicing my regularly scheduled clients... no time to post the pics 'til now. It's been a really long day with the high temp of 96 degrees. I'm finally sitting down with my shoes off... time to pull the pin and let 'er rip!

The Moruga is chugging along and kicking out the occasional new pod every day or so. Other plants are more prolific, but quality over quantity, eh?

The MoA Bonnet pods seem a bit a-typical in shape, but the one precocious pod that ripened early tells me that the color and flavor is right. All 6 plants look about like these

This is actually the smaller of the 2 Bhut plants. The pods are a little smaller, a little more compactly spaced and a little more numerous than on the other plant, but on average they're doing about the same.

The Aji Pineapple has about 4 dozen pods on it now. Considering the season still has a minimum of 8 weeks yet to go, I'll be surprised if I don't get at least 2-3 quarts of dried pods from it.

The Wild Texas Pequin hedge is flowering like crazy...

... and the pods look about like the same size and shape as the ones on the Chiltepin. Different growth habit though.

The Jwala is really stepping up flower production now and beginning to set fruit in earnest.

and lastly, the Douglah has stabilized and started putting out flowers and axillary growth from the stem. No pods yet, but when it has a large enough leaf canopy I've no doubt it'll start production.

Devv · Jul 28, 2016

I'm impressed Rick! Plants are looking stellar!

What you do in your short season is amazing!

OCD Chilehead · Jul 31, 2016

Looks great Rick. Im glad the Pineapples are producing. I hope they taste good. Mine are just now starting to produce some small pod's. Followed your move and hit them with some Phosphorus foliar feed.

Jwala looks tasty. I might try it next year. I use a lot of annuum's for stir-fry throughout the year. I freeze a stockpile. My Chi-Chien has similar looking pod's that grow upright. Very tasty and hot. Chi-Chien is on the list for next year as well as the Sadabahar. The Sadabahar is very hot. I think a lot of these varieties of Annuum's from Asia and India are related. Probably spread through spice trade ages ago. Some of them do look alike, but have very different flavors.

The Chinese looks like it's ready to do its thing. Mine are stabilizing from the root shock. Still no flowers. I'm sure, I'll get something out of them. More likely somewhere around October.

randyp · Jul 31, 2016

Plant's are looking good Rick.They handle the heat better than we do.

stickman · Aug 1, 2016

Devv said:
I'm impressed Rick! Plants are looking stellar!

What you do in your short season is amazing!

Cheers Scott! I'm certainly not alone... Freeport Bum is just crushing it this year, and Moruga Welder, Comptine, Pulpiteer and OCD Chilihead are also doing very well. It might need a little help from technology, but it's definitely possible to get great long-season chiles to grow in a short season.

OCD Chilehead said:
Looks great Rick. Im glad the Pineapples are producing. I hope they taste good. Mine are just now starting to produce some small pod's. Followed your move and hit them with some Phosphorus foliar feed.

Jwala looks tasty. I might try it next year. I use a lot of annuum's for stir-fry throughout the year. I freeze a stockpile. My Chi-Chien has similar looking pod's that grow upright. Very tasty and hot. Chi-Chien is on the list for next year as well as the Sadabahar. The Sadabahar is very hot. I think a lot of these varieties of Annuum's from Asia and India are related. Probably spread through spice trade ages ago. Some of them do look alike, but have very different flavors.

The Chinese looks like it's ready to do its thing. Mine are stabilizing from the root shock. Still no flowers. I'm sure, I'll get something out of them. More likely somewhere around October.

The Aji Pineapple is loading up here for sure Chuck! It looks like I've got about a dozen full-sized pods on the main plant and many smaller ones, with more setting every day. It's gonna be a great producer! The two excess plants in the veggie garden are beginning to set pods now too, so there won't be any shortage.

I hope the foliar feed helps your plants out and your Chinense varieties start blooming very soon. I suppose the Jwalas might do well for you under the hoophouse if you make sure they get enough water. I think they particularly want a hot and steamy microclimate. If you want, I'll send you some of the Heirloom Gochu seeds. The Gochus are at least as hot as the Jwalas and they've done very well for me this year despite the drought conditions.

randyp said:
Plant's are looking good Rick.They handle the heat better than we do.

Cheers Randy! Yup, they crave the heat more than we do. I think of chile pods as stored summer sunshine that we can break out anytime.

The organza bags are doing their job here, and I'm getting pod set even without using the brushes to hand-pollinate. I bag the blossoms when they show colored petals that haven't opened up yet, and I leave them on until the flower corolla withers and dies. Then I mark them by loosely tying on a piece of bright-colored yarn.

The second wave of MoA Bonnets are beginning to ripen.

Picked my first ripe Gochu this morning... one of the Saeng Cho variety. Sorry for the blurry pic... it looked OK in the LCD screen on the back of the camera and I minced the pepper to put into my breakfast sammie before checking it on my laptop.

The flavor was typical Gochu... a little sweet and fruity but Cayenne-type flavor. I cut a slice out of the middle so I could get a little placenta with it. It had a needling burn mostly on the tip of the tongue and lips that lasted about 10 minutes. Flesh was thin and crunchy and the skin was a little tough... no surprise there. Where these chiles really shine is as flakes or powder. It concentrates the flavor and gives it a heavenly aroma.

That's all for now, have a great week all!

OCD Chilehead · Aug 1, 2016

Looks great Rick. I'll try a couple seeds next year. Your bag process is looking good. Are those the Gochus you keeping pure? The Gochu sounds like it was a hit. Is it good for frying as well?

Stored Summer Sunshine

I like that.

Trident chilli · Aug 1, 2016

Nice to see the MoA starting to ripen ... really enjoying the Gochu story .. Korean cooking is starting to get popular in the UK

stickman · Aug 1, 2016

OCD Chilehead said:
Looks great Rick. I'll try a couple seeds next year. Your bag process is looking good. Are those the Gochus you keeping pure? The Gochu sounds like it was a hit. Is it good for frying as well?

Stored Summer Sunshine

I like that.

I'd be more than happy to share seed Chuck. I think the Gochus would do very well for you there. Korea is a land of extremes... they have very cold winters and hot, dry summers. Sound familiar? They're mid-season chiles that take 70-80 days to ripen. The Koreans do pan-fry these peppers, or slice them into kimchi while still fresh. They also pickle them in a soy-based brine. The bags in the pic are on my MoA Bonnets, and the pods shown are Gochus. I have all 30 of my organza bags in use now on the Bonnets, Bhuts, King Nagas and Aji Pineapple in addition to the Gochus.

Trident chilli said:
Nice to see the MoA starting to ripen ... really enjoying the Gochu story .. Korean cooking is starting to get popular in the UK

That's pretty cool John! Have you sampled any of it yet? You really don't need much if you decide to make it... as pantry staples I always keep gochugaru and gochujang on hand, as well as toasted sesame oil, soy sauce, the Korean equivalent of Miso called Toenjang, toasted sesame seeds, dried kelp for broths, scallions, garlic, fresh ginger and a little lemon juice or white wine.

OCD Chilehead · Aug 2, 2016

stickman said:
I'd be more than happy to share seed Chuck. I think the Gochus would do very well for you there. Korea is a land of extremes... they have very cold winters and hot, dry summers. Sound familiar? They're mid-season chiles that take 70-80 days to ripen. The Koreans do pan-fry these peppers, or slice them into kimchi while still fresh. They also pickle them in a soy-based brine. The bags in the pic are on my MoA Bonnets, and the pods shown are Gochus. I have all 30 of my organza bags in use now on the Bonnets, Bhuts, King Nagas and Aji Pineapple in addition to the Gochus.

That's pretty cool John! Have you sampled any of it yet? You really don't need much if you decide to make it... as pantry staples I always keep gochugaru and gochujang on hand, as well as toasted sesame oil, soy sauce, the Korean equivalent of Miso called Toenjang, toasted sesame seeds, dried kelp for broths, scallions, garlic, fresh ginger and a little lemon juice or white wine.

Thanks Rick. Sounds like my type of pepper. Does remind me of my season. Not having a long maturity date is a bonus. I'll have to try and isolate my Sadabahar and Chi-Chien. I'll send you some seeds of those and or plants.

I'll have to give Korean a try in the kitchen. I've been to a few Korean restaurants in San Diego. They've got a pretty big community down there, as well as Vietnamese and Filipino. Love the food. Never have cooked any of it. Besides Pho. Thanks for expanding my horizons.

FreeportBum · Aug 2, 2016

Hi Rick your grow is looking excellent my friend! love that Wild Texas Pequin bush

Cheers

OCD Chilehead · Aug 4, 2016

Hey Rick. I was checking out Niel's site and came across these. Korean.
http://thehippyseedcompany.com/product/han-rim-gwari-put/

Hybrid Mode 01 · Aug 4, 2016

Great looking plants, Rick. Those MOAs are some of the best looking pods I've ever seen! Very bulbous and uniform.

Devv · Aug 4, 2016

Good to see you're getting some color Rick

And you're correct, all the growers you mentioned above are killing it this season for sure. Me, I just killed them...LOL nature doesn't tolerate a late start in Tejas. Lesson learned :violin:

But, I have round 2 in the wings :dance:

PeriPeri · Aug 5, 2016

Rick buddy, as always - the most interesting blog on the block right here. Pod porn, helpful growing tips and tricks, food, other greens... looking super fine buddy. Sorry Naga's are trailing the pack this season

I saw the bit about the paint brushes... nice touch. One question, how do you clean them to make sure there is no residual pollen on the hairs? Keep the pod porn coming buddy!

stickman · Aug 5, 2016

OCD Chilehead said:
Thanks Rick. Sounds like my type of pepper. Does remind me of my season. Not having a long maturity date is a bonus. I'll have to try and isolate my Sadabahar and Chi-Chien. I'll send you some seeds of those and or plants.

I'll have to give Korean a try in the kitchen. I've been to a few Korean restaurants in San Diego. They've got a pretty big community down there, as well as Vietnamese and Filipino. Love the food. Never have cooked any of it. Besides Pho. Thanks for expanding my horizons.

OCD Chilehead said:
Hey Rick. I was checking out Niel's site and came across these. Korean.
http://thehippyseedcompany.com/product/han-rim-gwari-put/

Thanks for taking the initiative Chuck, but I'm pretty well set for Asian chiles with the exception of Cheongyang gochus that Neil carries. I'd certainly be interested in seeds for those, and his Giant Yellow CARDI Scorpions and Brown Egg. If we could swap some of your Goat's Weed seeds for some of my Gochus, I'll be all set for next year.

FreeportBum said:
Hi Rick your grow is looking excellent my friend! love that Wild Texas Pequin bush

Cheers

Cheers D! It's not a bush my friend it's a :censored:

2-foot-tall hedge! Lol! By season's end I'll be surprised if it isn't a 3 foot hedge and I get at least 2 quarts of dried pods from it.