Carolina Reapers

[scrubchub]

Mother in law knows I'm a fan of hot food so got me some 'Insane Reaper Pods' for Christmas. Checking on the companies website confirms they are indeed the infamous Carolina Reaper - worlds hottest pepper!

Been sitting on the shelf since Christmas so thought it about time that I considered using them for something.

Anyone any experience with extreme heat like this? I like spicy food but are these basically inedible? Would they ruin anything that they were added too?

[wseed]

If you're worried they're going to ruin whatever you cook them in you could add them whole and remove before serving. They would work well with a pasta sauce or a soup.

[rsbmw]

If you have to ask, they probably will ruin anything for you.

There's a thread somewhere on the fresh ones.

[V5Ade]

I was given some Reaper chilli peanuts for Christmas and just a couple kept me up all night with stomach pains. Be really careful with these!

[PapaJohns]

I'm a big fan of the Komodo dragon chilli pepper which clocks about 1.4million scovilles.Now the reaper claimed the Guinness record for the hottest chilli with 1.569 million scovilles back in 2013,and according the interweb has seen readings as high as 2.2million ! So tread with caution.

I personally haven't tried the reaper, but my first experience with the Komodo was basically it chopped up on a frozen pizza and cooked in the oven for 20-25mins , certainly made it interesting and hot !, these go down a treat in a homemade chilli n lime tuna aswell.Still I find the best way is to cook them in a Chilli con carne .

If your worried start with 1/2 or 1 in what ever you decide(highly recommend Jamie Oliver's chilli con carne recipe) then add/subtract in futures recipes to your liking, have a pint of milk before your meal if your really worried

Enjoy

[Pferdestarke]

Just try a little. It'll blow your head off but at least you'll have tried.

Then I'd make Jamie Oliver's Wills and Kate pie and supercharge it with one of these

[soad]

Can you take the heat? Pain, sweat, heartburn...

[eltawater]

I bought some of the Carolina Reaper peanuts from Chilli Wizards a couple of weeks ago.

I have successfully managed to reduce some Indian colleagues to tears with them, quite an achievement given that they thought nothing of the Ghost Pepper peanuts from Dr Burnorium :P

I've found the reaper to be a more concentrated burning sensation that weirdly is more pleasant as it feels to be better localised. The Ghost Pepper was less hot but seemed to spread more easily.

[ukbabz]

how were they? I've got 4 seedlings sprouting at the moment on a radiator in the office!

[gun12b]

I grow some of these, there about as big as a peanut full size, not enough sun to make them grow on the window.

[ukbabz]

gun12b said:

I grow some of these, there about as big as a peanut full size, not enough sun to make them grow on the window.

Ah hoping being a bit further south may help give them a bit more sun and slightly bigger chillies.

Do you grow yours indoors all the time?

My cayenne is going mental and has a couple of 2inch long chillis growing / ripening since jan..

[gun12b]

yes, windowsill chillies
had some luck with the purple chillies a year back. seeds from eBay.

[ChilliWhizz]

I've got some reaper seeds, naga viper seeds, nagabrain chocolate chilli seeds, and Trinidad Douglah Planning on starting the germination process this weekend

[TheOversteerLever]

I wouldn't mind growing some of these. Any tips?

[Mr Gearchange]

You should smoke them - as demonstrated by this collection of future Nobel Prize winners.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq1Qtn3XxYk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trkwkbDrUzs

[ChilliWhizz]

TheOversteerLever said:

I wouldn't mind growing some of these. Any tips?

I'll have a go

I've had a six year layoff from growing chilli plants from seed, primarily due to working away from home, but I did have some success growing Bhut Jolokias and Dorset Naga's... I took quite a few photographs too so will include these below...

Previously I used a propagator to get the seeds on the go, and I think this ranged from near 100% growth (seeds emerging from compost) for the milder chillis (cayenne etc) to about 50% for the hot ones like the Nagas.. This time I'm going to try the wet paper towel method as per this link.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxNJpJBT0Qg

Here's a really bad photograph of (I think) the Cayenne baby's emerging from the compost in the propagator...



The Propagator sat on the floor in my lounge during this time, and I took this photo on the 23rd of March, If I recall it would have been around the end of February when I first put the seeds in, so about 3 weeks for these particular ones to appear That stuff on the top of the compost is vermiculite... more info on that here.. https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/soi...

As soon as the shoots had two obvious leaves and were about two cm high I carefully removed them from the propagator into individual pots... note that I did discover that the hotter the chillis the longer the growing time... but I'll come back to that..

The little seedlings sat on my kitchen windowsill for a few weeks before putting them outside - but not in the open...

End of March..



Here we are now in April, having just moved them into the plastic greenhouse thingy I bought.. Note that the front cover only got lifted on warm days and only for a few hours around mid day...





August and the plants are now permanently outside.. and we're cooking with Gas


Those are the last photos I took in 2009.... however, I moved the Naga plants indoors, and ruthlessly cut them back in the hope they'd survive the winter... I saved two out of six (they lived in the kitchen and lounge with me)..

Mid December 2009...


I started working away for weeks at a time in 2010, so I entrusted my Mother to look after my precious Nagas..

End result in September 2010...

And


They were properly hot
Had great fun down the pub with them, but mostly I made lots of Chilli Jam... and gave it to friends and family....

Fingers crossed now for this years Chilli adventure

[TheOversteerLever]

Wow, thanks for that. You're certainly living up to your PH name - plenty of top tips for me to consider.

Sounds like a need a propagator first of all, then I'll try and follow your advice. The end results looked impressive (and hot)!

Cheers

[ukbabz]

Nice work dude!! I planted 6 Reaper seeds, and currently have 4 2 leafed seedlings going.

I've got them on a propagator at the moment, until the leaves appeared I had them sat on a radiator as well as I heard the heat would help. Took about 10 days for the first to appear and 2 weeks longer for the last to appear. Also got some Numex twilights that am waiting to see if they germinate (been about 2 weeks now)

You're supposed to cut them back over winter.. I left my cayenne in warm sunny room and it seems to be OK and happily growing more chillis this year.

[ClassicMercs]

I have a hardly touched pack sat on my desk at work - in the interest of macho experiments.

Just a little in the mouth is enough to blow your socks - the heartburn - you feel its passage through the upper parts of your digestive system based on where the heat / pain is. A lad at work has used a few in dishes where its possible to get a palatable dish (based on your tastes !)

My mate at Yorkshire Chillies will be starting again any day now. He has plenty of dried stock - but think he's out of the Reapers. And he was experimenting last year which seems to have produced something hotter - just need to see how this years production turns out based on the harvested seed stock.

[ChilliWhizz]

As mentioned above I used nearly all my home grown chillis to make jams with, from a basic seriously hot chilli jam to things like plum chilli jam, rhubarb chilli jam, and, what became much in demand by friends, hot chilli marmalade Fresh oranges and chillis turned into marmalade is proper yummy... But whatever you do, if you whizz your mega hot chillis in a food processor before adding them to the pan, DO NOT take off the processor lid then put your face six inches above the whizzed chillis and have a sniff.... I cannot adequately describe what this does to your nose, eyes, sinuses, sense of smell, and general wellbeing..

I only did it once