Smoked Habaneros

great post tony.
smoking chipotles is a real art they say. i smoked some the other day. they were alright, but i've nothing to compare them with. have you ever eaten any commercial chipotles? and how do yours stack up against them?
could the chillis be dried before smoking?

Tony,

That post makes my mouth sweat. I would imagine you have to take it easy when sprinkling those babies or do you have an asbestos mouth and gut.

Happy Trails

Those are Habaneros, I haven�t tried chipotles. Chipotles run around 3000 on the Scoville heat scale, Habaneros run around 400,000. I started growing habs I�d guess 7-8 years ago, a person builds up a tolerance as well as almost an addiction. If you would like some but don�t want to grow your own I�ve used www.grindhot.com when I�ve run out. Theirs isn�t smoked but is very good. I really like their MaxMill dispenser, I have one at home as well as at work�I�ve been eyeing their small travel version.

Tony what smoker are you using? You didn't really describe what you did, and the subject comes up about smoking peppers, so some details might help others who want to try.

Smokin'

First off, if you choose to work with Habaneros be sure to wear disposable gloves. I just cut of the top, make one slice down the side and spread the pepper apart. I remove most of the seeds, but am careful not to get to aggressive as you want to keep the white part (I'm having a brain fart as to what that is called). Anyways, that is where most of the heat is located. I smoke them with a chunk of hickory about half the size of a deck of cards for around 2 hours at just under 200 degrees. I just put some in this a.m. at 150. Really what I'm looking for is smoke not heat..maybe someone can tell me at what temp does the wood start to smoke? Then I just dehydrate them until they are dry enough to crush into flakes. I use the 008 and a $30.00 American Harvest dehydrator.

On a side note, the dehydrator came with a little press for making jerky out of hamburger. I almost through it out, but then thought what the heck. I brought the end result to work and know one even new it was hamburger. I'll be making some more of that.