Tag Archives: worlds hottest peppers

Caramel Bhut Jolokia 2012 Grow Part 1

In the 2011 growing season I found what I’m calling the caramel bhut jolokia growing in my garden. I had a number of chocolate bhut jolokias growing and they all looked the same except for one plant. That plant had bright green pods and ripened not quite red and not quite chocolate…more of a caramel color. I sent the seeds out to a number of growers and am also growing 5 plants of my own this season. So far of the 5 I have growing one looks like it’s growing true (unripe pods pictured above), one appears to not be growing true and it’s too early to tell for the other three, none of them have pods yet.

As I mentioned I sent seeds to a number of growers and some of them have been posting pictures online. Here are links to threads/pictures I am aware of. Some of these all full blown “grow logs” so you may have to scroll through a few pages to see the caramel bhut pictures. If you’re growing this from seeds I sent or seeds you received from someone else I’d love to know about it, free to post in the comments below.

Free Caramel Bhut Seeds
CMPMAN1974 – 2012 Grow Log
Patricks 2012 Grow Log
Mills 2012 Glog
Chiligrower/McHottie 2012 Season

Thanks to everyone for growing these!

Peach Bhut Jolokia Grow 2012 Part 1

I’m growing a bunch of bhut jolokias this year that I’m excited about and the peach bhut jolokia is definitely one of them. I can’t remember where I got the seeds (if it was you please post in the comments!) but I started the season with two plants. Despite a late start the plants were both some of the fastest growers I have. After they got started though that changed…one plant continued to grow pretty fast and already has a about 15 pods. The other plant, which is planted right next to it, is about 1/2 the size and only has a few flowers, no pods yet.

The peach bhut plant with the pods is one of my best plants so far. If the pods turn out like they are supposed to (nice bhut flavor with solid heat and plants that throw off a ton of pods) this one will included in future gardens for sure. Here’s how my peach bhuts looked about a week ago. More pics when I start to see some ripening.

Here’s a great video review of the peach bhut jolokia. I really hope the ones I’m growing are like the ones described in the video: “Really nice flavor overall. Heat was great. Not a bring you to your knees heat, but enough to get your blood pumping. Mostly in the tongue with just a tiny bit of burn in the throat. This chile makes it on to my top 10 best tasting list easily. I would say even top 3. I have had better tasting mild chile, but for a Superhot this takes the cake! ”

2012 Peach Bhut Update Posts
Peach Bhut Jolokia Grow 2012 Part 2
Peach Bhut Jolokia Grow 2012 Part 3

Yellow Bhut Jolokia 2012 Grow Part 1

This season I’m growing 6 yellow bhut jolokia plants from 3 different seed sources. I’m on a quest for the “perfect” yellow bhut.

First up are pods from two plants I grew from seed provided by BigT. Overall both plants are growing well and I like the look of some of the early pods.

 

Next up are pods from 3 plants I grew from seed provided by Spicegeist. These plants are also growing well. While all 3 plants are showing promise the second picture/plant is the best looking yellow bhut I have going right now. Unless the other pods on that plant look a lot different this one will be a seed keeper for sure.

 

Last up is a pod from the only plant I was able to get started from seed provided by cmpman1974. This plant has been a bit of a slow grower but the early pods are taking a nice shape. Really glad I was able to get at least one plant going from the batch of seeds I received.

 

I will post another yellow bhut grow update once some of the pods start to ripen. Stay tuned!

2012 Yellow Bhut Update Posts
Yellow Bhut Jolokia 2012 Grow Part 2

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.