[CH] Re: Newbie with super chili pepper ?

danceswithcarp (dcombs@bloomington.in.us)
Wed, 14 Jul 1999 10:48:56 -0500 (EST) 

Sorry to reply this to the list, but I'm anaswering two emails on the
subject and lost one.

On Wed, 14 Jul 1999, someone wrote:

> Did you really mean to say that the powder would not be as hot with the
> seeds included?
> puzzled,
> Someone


Capsacian hides in the fruit to the tune of about 6% of the total and
about 4% in the seeds.  The other 90-odd % is in the placental linings and
wals.  If you can shake the seeds out and leave the placental material
intact you'll lose a lot of basically inert material and raise the
percentage of cap.  I don't know if you can do this by sun-drying because
we always end up with leathery/flexible chiles and the seeds won't
seperate from the linings (cayennes do this too) so you lose the placenta
and the seeds, but if you dehydrate for powder you slit the side on the
stem end before you toss it on the rack to dry and you'll get good crisp
pepper innards that fall apart real easy.

This is very possible with habeneros and red savina-types too, but you
completely split the pepper before dehydrating; then the seeds will just
shake out.

And in response to another question that I can't find now but read last
night we use electric coffee grinders to make the powder.  If you leave
the seeds in you'll get little superhard bits of seed in the powder to get
stuck in diners' teeth.  If you remove as many seeds as possbile you'll
get a nice fluffy powder the consistency of commercial cayenne powder, but
lots hotter. Also, to get scatological, seeds don't digest so well and are
the cause of great discomfort (jalaproctitis).  If the seeds are broken
into little bits you add a sort of sandpaper effect too.

A wird to the wise here: Grind outside.  When you pull the lid off of a
grinder or food processor you create a minor vaccuum that sucks
microscopic bits of the powder up out of the container.  Then, if you're
old and dumb like me and you have a fan on, this airborne material will
quickly disperse throughout the wirk area and children will learn to curse
and spouses will deny conjugal rights for days.  

I occasionally make a mistake and run unintended experiments as to whether
airborne hab powder is wirse to breath than volatalized/scorched hab
vapors.  My wife is torn as to which causes more shouting...



carp