Tag Archives: douglah

2013 Pepper Grow

My 2013 pepper growing season is officially underway! Last year wasn’t all that great primarily due to the drought. The season started great but then the rain stopped and the temperatures climbed. I still managed to harvest a decent amount of peppers but none of them really grew to their full potential and some plants only produced a handful of stunted peppers. Fingers crossed for a better 2013 growing season.

Here’s the the lineup this year:

Giant Red Bhut Jolokia x 2
Yellow Bhut Jolokia x 2
Chocolate Bhut Jolokia x 2
Caramel Bhut Jolokia x 2
Peach Bhut Jolokia x 2
Red Douglah Cross x 1
7 Pot Brain Strain x 1
Carolina Reaper x 1
Chocolate Habanero x 2
Big Cayenne x 2
Caribbean Red x 3

I put seeds in the dirt on February 3 so should have the first sprouts and day. More than likely I will add some more plants but this is enough to get things rolling.

HP22B, The World’s Next Hottest Pepper?

Ed Currie claims or perhaps claimed the the HP22B Pepper (HP22B stands for higher power, pot number 22, plant B) is the worlds hottest pepper. At the time of this article Ed claimed that he had numerous samples of the HP22PB tested and they are were coming in between 1.375 to 1.474 million scoville units. It appears that Cliff Calloway, a chemistry professor at Winthrop University was involved in the testing.

While this is “old” news it was recently resurfaced when Pepper Joe claimed to know people who were going to announce a new worlds hottest pepper. This caught a lot of people in the hobby/industry off guard as most have assumed that the moruga scorpion would be the next pepper to wear the Guinness crown for world’s hottest pepper.

Jim Duffy, recent spokesman for the moruga scorpion, takes issue with all of this. In a recent post on the THP he says:

“After following this thread and now hearing about the origin of this pepper I will chime in with my thoughts and some facts. First to clarify some things for Macksack331. Initial application was filed by NMSU for Moruga but will not be fully submitted until after peer review by Hort Science magazine and publishing by Hort Science magazine. This can take weeks or months as I have been told because these are scientists and don’t just rush things along. I want to say that there are some very knowledgeable people on this forum. Some of you do have a science background and some of you do know your Botany. So lets look at the facts that surround this new pepper. First of all is it truly a new variety??? The answer is no. Now before you debate me on this let me define scientifically or Horticulturally what a new variety is. A new variety is stable and you can save seeds from it and grow it out year after year and get the same variety. It takes at least 7 generations or seasons to do this. Does not matter if it is Squash or Peppers. Primo who created the 7 Pot Primo now has a stable strain. The Habalokia which has been around a little while is stable. These guys say they have been working on this for 5 years. My guess is the first few years is playing around with crossing and then testing for heat. Then once you find out what you have you breed that for 7 generations. So the time period tells me there is no new strain. So why would anyone want seeds of something not yet true??

My second observation is this. Environment cannot make a new pepper. Maybe over thousands of years environment can affect genetics but not in a few years. The people involved in this project say they used certain techniques to stress the peppers. This will only afftect that particular season and will have no bearing on future seasons grown from future seeds. So why would anyone want seeds?? The Chile Pepper Institute grew their test plots with normal farming just like green chiles. True a New Mexico summer will be hotter than a Northeast summer so there will be higher ratings for peppers grown there. But at least there was no deliberate stress from a nutrient regimen. And if this hybrid pepper chemically stressed does got so hot just imagine using these guys stressing techniques on a Douglah? Moruga? or Butch T? How hot would they turn out?? Of course it behooves everyone involved in this South Carolina study to create a new pepper. Just like Frank Garcia you become exclusive and patent and Trademark and make as much as you can. I am not against making money but do these guys have a Primo and are they calling it something new so it can be their exclusive rights pepper?? I leave that up to all of you to think about. These guys say they have a higher mean average over 3 years. They say they are using stressing techniques. So all that is proven is that their stressing techniques gave them higher tests. Wake up everyone! It does not mean they have a hotter pepper. It just means they can make a pepper test rate hotter! Again stressing is not going to create a hotter pepper for future growing! But Joe and his friends know this and are hoping you dont look at these facts and spend your money. One more time folks stressing and environment will not genetically make a hotter pepper variety!!! Thats why the Institute does not do this. They grew in a clay field with limited nutrients. The Chile Pepper Institute is non profit. A graduate student ran this last study for his Thesis. Whether Guinness rubber stamps it I do not care. But at least the Moruga is a real variety and not a made up one. And at least it was grown like any other pepper. What I see is a well laid out plan by some businessman to make a lot of money off the unsuspecting General Public who wont know squat about Botany 101 or Scoville testing.”

Jim also goes on to say:

“I just find this hard to swallow. If they assembled a team 5 yrs ago then they cannot have a new variety. Because they would at least spend a few seasons crossing to get their potential hottest. Then upon finding that out go about making it stable. Unless of course there never was any crossing at all and they took an existing variety and used feeding techniques to stress it which does not create a new pepper at all. This sounds so much like the Naga Viper. Bosland’s group submits all their stuff to other scientists for peer review. So I wonder if these guys would too. Then again if they did call this a new variety that would be false and it would not be submittable on that basis alone.

One other thing I find funny. These guys plan to release hot sauces with this new pepper to make lots of money. I find that hilarious. Why? Because I know most of the sucessful sauce makers and sucess in the sauce business is limited. Most everyone I know has a day job except Dave, Blair and CaJohn. So just because you have a gimmick ie Hottest Pepper you will not be catapulted to sucess. Sucess in the sauce business is many, many years of hard work. Lots of wholesale customers (CaJohn’s business is 85% wholesale), and a product line that has great tasting products to get repeat sales. When the Bhut Jolokia got fame it did not make any individual sauce maker have great sucess. So any new pepper won’t either. And calling your Company PuckerButt won’t get you on mainsteam grocery shelves either. Having the Hottest pepper sauce does not do it all. Blair and Dave started with extract sauces in the beginning when people were looking for hotter than habanero. Now Blair makes so much money selling spicy snacks to the Asian market and Dave makes Gourmet cooking sauces and that is where they turned the corner. John has spent over 15 yrs to get where he is. And talking to him the other day He said if he knew going in it would be this hard he would not do it over again. I really don’t see PuckerButt or Joe making even a small fortune with this so called hottest pepper. Just sayin……”

Edit: March 28
I have yet to see Ed respond directly anywhere outside of his Facebook page but wanted to pull some of his clarifying comments into this post.

Feb 10 (Facebook comment from Ed in response to the moruga scorpion news)

“Sorry we’ve been gone for awhile, getting the seedlings going and planning out the farms. Looks like were expanding 5 x at least, WOW. The good doctor and I sent Guinness the final report with the stats on the lab equiptment. There are lots of claims out there, what makes us different is we are using a weighted average over four years now. The low range is 1.275 mil the highs are secret now ( just incase we have to play the who’s hotter game). Well over 200 lbs of hp22bs have been tested, awesome statistic, proper scientific process, and superior analysis. If they don’t give it to us, we’re publishing here in the US. Thanks for all the support and God Bless.”

Feb 17 (Facebook comment from Ed in response to the moruga scorpion news)

“K, the title has not been awarded. If you read the actual report, they’re saying one of the peppers was that hot, but the sample was average of 1.2 MILLION. Also, no back up data of retest is avaliable. We have a three year average of @1.5 MILLION. The data to back it up, and we will only show the averages. We gave hotter, yes
Is it good science to go with only that, no.”

March 22 (Facebook comment in response to claims about the cost to apply ($30,000) to Guinness World’s Records)

“The total they sent me was almost that, after the FX rate. When I figured out 19000 was the adjudicators fee, I decided we didn’t need it. the good Dr sent testing methods and lab calibrations to them last week to finish what they requested. The record would be cool, but I just like what I’m doing. Thanks again. Hope all is well”

March 21 (Facebook response to questions about averages vs highs being used for hottest pepper records)

“My understanding from reading the press releases, was that one pepper rated that scoville and the average of the test ( 10 peppers if I remember correctly) was 1.200,000. That would mean 9 of 10 were under a million. I congradulate CPI and the Morouga, Wishing them the best of luck on the future years of testing, but I’m following a different AAOC scientific method. We only publish averages for pounds of peppers over multiple years. If we are going to start publishing one off ratings instead of averages, I guess it;s time to start pulling out the high numbers. I did ask the Proffessor to get the highs and lows on this years testing ( @ 50 lbs of peppers submitted), so we’ll see. But I honestly don’t know if I’m will to start that game.”

I’ve also read a lot of speculation that the HP22B is just a 7 pot Primo being given a different name.

The article I linked to earlier indicates that Ed may hold a contest for the naming rights to this pepper. While unconfirmed Pepper Joe appears to be working with Ed and has started a contest for naming the HP22B pepper. According to info Joe posted he threw a few names for the pepper at the guys and they liked them so Joe has contest going collecting more names and I believe is giving away some free seeds. See for yourself.

In closing here’s a video of a guy trying the HP22B, the “next hottest pepper in the world”…

http://youtu.be/yw984sDocaU

My $$$ is still on the 7 pot douglah being recognized by Guinness as the world’s next hottest pepper.

Pepper Joe Claims a New Hottest Pepper is Coming

According to a post by Pepper Joe he knows a few people that are planning to unveil the world’s hottest pepper in two weeks. If true that would be a fairly significant event seeing that the initial Moruga Scorpion test results were just published and as of yet they have not been officially recognized by Guinness. As of the date of this post (2.24.2012) Guinness still recognizes the Butch T Trinidad Scorpion as the world’s hottest pepper.

Joe’s making a few other interesting claims as well:

1. 50+ pounds of hot peppers have been tested.
2. Tests have taken place over a 5 year period
3. Most of the “Trinidad” peppers actually originated in China (DNA tests will prove it)
4. There’s already an application pending with Guinness (it can be $30,000+ to get in?)
5. The person who is claiming to have the world’s next hottest pepper also claims to have created 600 varieties of peppers!

My money’s on the douglah being the next record setting pepper but if they guys Joe has been talking with are on the up and up we could be in for a surprise.

7 Pot Douglah – The World’s 2nd Hottest Chili Pepper

For now. The recently released test results for the moruga scorion also included results for three other peppers, one of which was called “chocolate 7-pot”. The chocolate 7 pot tested at 1,853,396 SHU on the high end and 923,889 SHU on the low end. It’s mean SHU of 1,169,058 was second only moruga scorpion. Given the chocolate 7 pot’s high highs and consistently high lows I don’t think it’s unreasonable to speculate that if tested again in the future it would not be a shock to see the chocolate 7 pot surpass the 2 million scoville mark of the moruga scorpion.

At this point you ay be wondering why the title of this post is “7 pot douglah” but all I have mentioned is the chocolate 7 pot. In a recent post Jim Duffy shed some light on the chocolate 7 pot used in the tests. Jim said: “Now the Chocolate 7 Pot they mention was Douglah. I got my Douglah seeds from Neal and Semillas. “

News of the douglah possibly being the hottest won’t come as shock to those who have had one. I’ve read post after post and watched countless taste test videos where the verdict was that the douglah was the hottest pepper the person had ever tasted. My personal experience is the same. I think it’s a toss up between the 7 pot brain strain and the 7 pot douglah. While both peppers tore me up I was not at all fond of the douglah taste. The brain strain has a pleasant taste for about 2 seconds until my face started to melt.

I grew a douglah last year but it turned red. The common theme in the discussion was that douglah can’t be red. Fast forward a few months and another forum member had the same thing happen, a red douglah. That person happens to sell seeds and I noticed that this year seeds from those red douglah pods are being sold as Trinidad Red Douglah Offspring. The ones I grew were super hot..right up there with the hottest I’ve tried. I saved a bunch of seeds from the one I grew, maybe I should plant a few this year…

Should be interesting to see how this plays out. My money’s on the douglah taking the record for hottest pepper at some point…now the question is will be it the classic brown douglah or a red douglah offspring?

Links to Douglah information / discussions

Douglah
Trinidad Douglah
Trinidad Douglah (C. Chinense)
Brown 7pod Vs. Douglah
Various forms of trinidad douglah pod in a plant, is this normal?
Red Douglah
Red Douglah
Sam vs the 7 Pot Douglah Chile Pepper

Douglah Taste Test Videos

March 2011 Pepper Grow Update

The 2011 pepper growing season in Illinois is well underway. Yea it’s still dropping into the 20’s at night and we’re 6 weeks away from being able to plant out but when you have a short growing season you have get things kicked off inside if you hope to harvest any hot peppers before fall rolls around. My pepper lineup for this year is basically finalized. Here’s a complete list of everything that has sprouted and I have growing:

Red Bhut Jolokia (aka ghost pepper)
Chocolate Bhut Jolokia
Caribbean Red
7 Pod Douglah
7 Pod Brain Strain
7 Pod Jonah
Trinidad Scorpion Morouga
Pimenta de neyde
Chocolate Habanero
Orange Habanero
Fatali
Giant Jalapeno
Black Jalapeno
Early Jalapeno
Long Red Slim Cayenne

More than 1/2 of my superhots this year will be the red bhut jolokia and the chocolate bhut jolokia. My red bhut jolokia seeds originated from pepperjoe.com. He has them listed as his giant bhut jolokias. I grew those out last year and they did great. Plants were huge, pods were huge and production was high. I saved the seeds from the best plants and pods and am using those this year. Pepper Joe is using one of my photos from last season – the one with the 6 bhut jolokias with a quarter in the middle – on his site this year. He’s using a couple others too but that one’s probably my favorite.

I was given a few fresh chocolate bhut jolokia pods from neighbor at the end of last season and kept the seeds to grow out this year. I started some of them in Nov 2010 in a DWC bucket as an experiment. I still have one of them growing and transplanted the other into dirt. If all goes well I plan to sell some chocolate bhut jolokia seeds from my plants this year.

I’m growing a few of each of the other other super hots in my list and about a combined total of 15 – 20 of all the others…habaneros, jalapenos, etc. Really looking forward to trying the Trinidad Scorpion Morouga and the 7 Pod Brain Strain. I started one of the 7 Pod Brain Strain plants in DWC too but have since transplanted it into dirt.

Here’s how my indoor pepper plants look as of today:

I have around 70 pepper plants going right now. Will end up giving away 20 or so and the rest will be planted in my raised beds.