Tabasco Pepper!

[BigBrownDogHouse]

Making a really long story short, I have about a zillion tabasco peppers. I normally grow Sport and Thai and dry them out to add to noodle soups and other dishes.

I have never grown Tabasco's before and have heard they have a good amount of moisture/water in them.
Can they be dried out the same way as the others....simply laying them out on a cookie sheet?
Would a dehydrator be helpful?

NOT interested in making tabasco sauce. Would just like to dry them out if possible.

Any pointers would be helpful! Thanks much!

[DiggingDogFarm]

Here in the north, I much prefer a dehydrator for any pepper other than the most thinned skinned, cayennes and the like.
I've had bad experiences with air-drying where peppers seemed properly dry, but still contained enough internal moisture to cause mold.

[larskyler]

I have not grown tabasco, but I do grow jalapeno and cayenne. When I dry them I use a dehydrator and it works nice for both. It takes about 2 days for cayenne and 2-3 for jalapeno. If you have a dehydrator I would say go that route to ensure they don't get moldy or anything.

[TZ-OH6]

I grew Tabasco last year (and this year) and they get wet inside when they turn red and the flesh starts to break down, but the flesh isn't that thick so chopping them roughly and drying in an warm oven or dehydrator should be easy. They are fairly solid with little or no air space between the seed core and the outer wall. I use them pickled yellow like sport peppers (just pour on boiling vinegar, cap and refrigerate or can). Especially good with sour kraut on a cracker.

[BigBrownDogHouse]

Thanks everyone so far for the responses.

Don't have a dehydrator yet but we've been thinking about one. I have always dried my Thai's and Sport's the old fashioned way of just laying them out but I am willing to move on to something better.

I've dried some habaneros last year and they didn't dry all that good. Most molded on me.

TZ-OH6!
I'm leaving town for a few days but might PM you when I get back for any details on that canning method if you don't mind. I wouldn't mind canning some tabascos. Is it really that simple?

With sauerkraut on a cracker, wow! That sounds good!

[TomNJ]

Tabascos are the only hot pepper that are solid rather than hollow. I have never dried them, but imagine you would need to at least cut them in half lengthwise to get them to dry.

TomNJ

[Mark0820]

If you like both sauerkraut and hot peppers, you might like the following. When I shred cabbage for sauerkraut and layer it in the crock, I also add a layer of 4 or 5 slices of jalapeno pepper (or any hot pepper) every so often. During the fermentation process, the heat from the jalapenos permeates the cabbage and creates a sauerkraut with a nice amount of heat added to it. This is the only way I will eat sauerkraut now.

[Keiththibodeaux]

I use a dehydrator, but if you don't have one I see no reason you could not do it in the oven at its lowest setting.

[Worth1]

One year I grew 50 Tabasco peppers because my neighbor said I could grow tabascos in south Texas.
Needles to say it was a total success, I had Tabascos running out of my ears.

So I dried many of them.
I simply put them in my oven on warm wit the door proped open a little.
The only reason I did this was because south of Houston the humidity is 100%.
In West Texas I dried them outside on a string.

They were dried whole on both occasions.

My 80 year old Mexican neighbor lady friend Mrs Rodriguez was in the shared yard we had having a beer with me and saw some of the Tabascos I had ground into a powder.
She wanted to try some so I said sure.

She licked her finger and took a big dip into the powder and stuck it into her mouth.

In an instant her eyes grew large and exclaimed "Muy Caliente!!!!!!!!" (very hot) and downed 2 beers one after another.

Her son told me she came home a little tipsy.

Yes you can dry Tabasco peppers, just ask Mrs Rodriguez.

Worth

[BigBrownDogHouse]

Everyone on this forum is so helpful.
Thanks a bunch everyone for the great tips and great stories.

Talk to everyone later this week.....heading to the Northwoods!
Will check back on this thread then!

[TZ-OH6]

The grape sized white habaneros, AKA peruvuian white, white bullet, are more or less solid too, which makes them easy to freeze and then slice and dice up while hard for pizza etc.



I'm not a canning pro, but what I do know is that using 100% vinegar on peppers is very safe even if your canning proceedure is bad, and it's even better if you keep everything in the refrigerator afterwards. So for the Tabascos I poke each one with a knife, pack them into any type of tall narrow jar I have (I've even used glass jars with plastic lids--Tall and narrow isn't necessary). Pour on boiling vinegar leaving about 1/2-1/4 inch air space at top, wipe off the rim, cap but not super tight and put in a big pot of boiling water with water covering the cap by an inch or so. Boil for a minimum of ten minutes to glue the cap onto the jar, remove and let cool. If the cap vacuums down onto the jar (most will make a 'pop' while cooling) it is set and doesn't really need the refrigerator until opened. Let the peppers soak in the vinegar for a couple of months to flavor the vinegar, which is really good on cajun red beans, chili etc. If you use the vinegar faster than the peppers just pour more vinegar on.

I do can peppers and garlic with proper methods using picking recipes with more dilute vinegar etc where I use real mason jars and expect them to last out on a shelf, but for tabascos in vinegar that are going to live in the refrigerator I do the unspeakable and reuse cheap food jars and just give them a fairly quick boil to seat the caps.

The tongs and funnel that come in the little Ball canning kit "Utensil set for Preserving"(Walmart et al) are very handy.

[peppero]

i have pickled in 100%vinegar, air dried, oven dried, pulled plant dried and dehydrator dried. all methods worked well. i think it is a great pepper. jon [

[BigBrownDogHouse]

Just an update:
Anyone looking for massive pepper production, look no further. These Tabascos have been producing like crazy for the past couple of months. Just picked the tray shown in the picture this morning. Still a bunch to pick but my back cannot handle much more even though a few of the plants are about 5 feet tall which makes them pretty easy to pick.

These even out produce my usual Thai and Sport Peppers which I thought impossible.

There are still hundreds and hundreds of smaller ones on the plants and the buds are too many to even guestimate. If the weather holds out a bit longer(been some frosty mornings), I'll have a record year for hot peppers by far.
WOW! is all I have to say!