When to tell a pepper is ready to eat?

[Hammerfall]

Hi Guys,

Have been having some peppers and when do you tell it's ready to eat?

I have a Chocolate Fatalii which is brown from a long time ago.
the peper is still very firm on the touch.

will it turn a bit softer when ready?

how about other peppers?
usually color is a good thing to evaluate but my brown fatalii was brown from the beginning?

Thanks

 

[geeme]

That totally depends upon each individual pepper and your own taste buds. The most common example is jalapenos - many people actually prefer eating them green, but they are not ripe until they are red. So the first question for a given pepper is what color is it when fully ripe? And then: have you tried it at the various stages of ripeness? Only you can tell your personal preference for any given pepper.

That aside, regardless of the final color, if the pod starts to get soft, it's time to pull it off the stem - this means it's getting ready to pop open to release its seeds, which is usually considered a bit on the over-ripe side for eating. This is an ideal time to gather seeds for maximum viability, but not usually for maximum flavor. You can gather seeds before this stage though, at any time after the pods ripen to their mature color, if you are planning on planting them.