I picked the last coupla' pounds of habaneros from the garden at work and have been working on an extract all weekend. This is the process and some notes: First I sliced the chiles really thin and put them in a freezer overnight. Yesterday I added about 2-3c of canola oil to a pot, put in the chiles, and brought it to a simmer and let it go until all the water was gone. It has been steeping at around 170F ever since, while being shut off last night when I went out. The goal here is to get not sommuch flavor, but heat into that oil. It is pretty hot at this point but not quite what I was expecting. Judging the heat of the oil has its own problems though because I know I'm desensitizing myself as I keep tasting it - so this morning I tasted bout 2mL of the oil, and a few minutes later ate a whole wild brazil. The heat is comparable. I'm going to let it go about 4 more hours and then strain it, put it back on the stove to simmer any remaining water out, and bottle it. If I were to repeat the process I would use less oil. While it wasn't even enough to cover the chiles to start, now that they're limp and dehydrated I could have used less. I may even dehydrate them first for the same reason. The other option I think would be to steep them in batches in less oil, which if I can find another pound or two of habs at the store I may do anyway to this batch. Cheers, -Mike -- Teaching Assistant | "The solar garlic starts American Bounty, CIA | to rot." pink@gehennom.net |