Harvesting Cayenne Peppers

 

My son Mark is a big fan of HOT food, so last spring

he planted cayenne pepper seeds.

 

He had to move in late May, so he brought the seedlings to me

to babysit and I fell in love with my grandpeppers!

 

I lovingly nurtured them into this enormous

planter of red hot glory!

 

 

I ended up with more than 200 peppers.

 

 

The peppers were supposed to grow two to four inches long,

but some of mine were 10-12 inches!

 

My grandpeppers were so red and gorgeous,

I wanted to harvest them in a way we could use

them for cooking.

 

I decided to dehydrate them and

crush them into hot pepper flakes.

 

I harvested in mid-September when the peppers had

gotten a bit wrinkly.

 

I used scissors to clip them from the plants

keeping a bit of the stem.

 

I washed them with warm water

while they were still intact.

 

Then I patted them down with a big towel

until they were dry.

 

We were in the midst of a 90-degree heat wave,

so I spread the peppers on a table outdoors

to sun dry for a day.

 

This isn't necessary, but it got the drying process underway.

 

Then I lined a cookie sheet with parchment paper and laid out many

of the larger peppers and some small ones and

baked them in my convection oven at 185-degrees.

 

I did NOT cut open the peppers because I didn't want

that HEAT spreading through our house.

 

Then I put the rest of them into my food dehydrator and

plugged it in on the back porch.

 

I didn't want too much pepper smell indoors, so

this method worked great!

 

I had four layers of peppers.

 

I wanted to compare the dehydrator

with oven drying.

 

 

The oven worked faster, but I felt the dehydrator

maintained the rich color better.

 

I checked every hour and removed any peppers that

were at the brittle stage for crushing.

 

It took between 5 and 18 hours for them to dehydrate...

the big peppers took the longest.

 

 

They were ready when they were no longer leathery...

but brittle, so I could crush them.

 

The red pepper on the right is freshfrom the vine.

 

 

I simply squeezed the peppers between my fingers

and if they crackled...they were ready.

 

I donned rubber gloves because I figured the hot oils

and seeds from inside the peppers could burn my skin or worse,

I would accidently rub my eyes.

 

I started by cutting the stems off the top and putting the

dried peppers into a large zip lock bag.

 

This got tedious, and I found it was much easier and faster

to break the stems off with my fingers...and I

ended up not using the gloves and I did not have

any problems. 

Made sure I washed my hands well after this process.

 

 

Next, I used my meat mallet to crush the dried peppers

right in the zip lock bag.

 

This didn't do the job completely,

so I whizzed the crushed peppers a few times in my food processor.

 

Lordy, the dust cleared my sinuses...so

be very careful breathing around the

finished product if you use the food processor.

 

 

The result:  Beautiful, fragrant, colorful

crushed red pepper flakes!

 

 

Definitely NOT the bland flakes you find

on the table at the local pizza parlor!

 

I bottled some up in shakers for

Christmas gifts.

 

Of course, my son will be getting

a nice big bottle! 

 

Such a FUN and exciting summer project.