Smoking dried red peppers

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bluewhisper

Master of the Pit
Original poster
OTBS Member
Apr 1, 2014
3,587
455
Columbus Ohio
This is my second time smoking dried red peppers. This isn't smoking with heat to cook, nor quite cold smoking. The peppers come out crispy but not toasted.

First, the smoker awaits with a new heat deflector duct. That's HVAC duct, drilled for ventilation and heat distribution. It just slips right in.


The peppers on the left were from a Mexican store; they must have been weighed out from a bigger bag because the individual bags had nothing on them but weight and price in marking pen. The peppers on the right were from a Burmese store. They're a little bit larger and a darker red, and much hotter.


I started a fire of chunky mesquite with a stick of maple. I was shooting for more smoke than heat.


This is the kind of thick white plume I avoid for smoking meat, but for this job I wanted a strong, tangy, heavy smoke flavor to stand up to the pepper heat. BTW this was handy for keeping the flies away.


I let the peppers smoke for about 45 minutes, which left them crisp but not toasted (much).


Here's the final result, after breaking the pods open to spill the seeds (they went to a bird feeder mix) and running them through a blender and a coarse sieve. The sieve lets the powder through but captures most of the seed and coarse flake.


The powder makes a smoked paprika with a kick. I used some of the coarse to flavor a bottle of vinegar, turning it dark red like tomato juice.

 
I grow my own peppers, dehydrate them then pulverize them.  I also "strain" mine to separate the powder from the chips and seeds.  I'll put the chips back into the blender to see what else I can get out of them.

I'm still searching how to smoke them (better).

I have my last pickings of peppers ready to go, but not a smoke scheduled.  I may have to use the gas grill instead of firing up the WSM.
 
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I'm using oven to make my own dry pepper. I have my own peppers, homegrown 100% free of any chemicals and poison. Done the same with tomato. cut it on quarters put them on trays and keep it all day outside and use sun to dry them out. awesome you should try it guys ( sun-dried tomato). perfect for pizza salads and soups.
 
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I'm using oven to make my own dry pepper. I have my own peppers, homegrown 100% free of any chemicals and poison. Done the same with tomato. cut it on quarters put them on trays and keep it all day outside and use sun to dry them out. awesome you should try it guys ( sun-dried tomato). perfect for pizza salads and soups.
Sounds real good!

Since I see this is your first post.

Would  you swing by "Roll Call" & introduce yourself.

Then we can all welcome you to SMF!

Al
 
Wow looks good, I never thought of doing that with peppers. We don't get a great asst. of peppers here. Seasonal we get a few of the southern ones but not always...
 
Hit the jackpott on this thread! Amazing tips, pics and I can't wait to get my own peppars done! thank you for sharing guys! :) 

 
 
I was at it again yesterday. While other guys were watching TV, I was watching smoke.

These are dried guajillos on the offset with a level of lukewarm maple smoke that would have been a disaster for any kind of meat. Today I grind them.

guajillos_smoking.jpg
 
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