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This year we grew puckerbutt reaper peppers and I also bought some ghost peppers.  When we first grew them I actually enjoyed the flavor, but after drying them the reaper lost a lot of the heat and taste more like a Frito chip... but the ghost pepper..  WOW.  I've never had a pepper heat up my entire body and move mucous around like that.  It seems to have really amp'd up the heat index becoming dry.  It actually has a pretty good taste too and the more you chew it the more the heat just cranks. This is my first experience with these but I'm def growing some more next year.

Anyone like hot peppers here?  I'm very fond of jalapenos but I'm really liking these ghost peppers.

[sawguy21]

@Ianab is our hot pepper aficiando. I like spicy but still want to taste the food so there are limits.

[Ianab]

Yeah, I've grown some Ghost varieties in the past, they are certainly tasty  ;D  Be VERY careful when preparing them, that you don't touch your eyes or go to the bathroom without triple washing your hands. 

My location is marginal for the super hot varieties though, the summer is hot enough, but not usually long enough for a decent fruiting season. This season I'm concentrating on my Rocoto plants (tree chilli), These are a different species, growing as perennial as long as you keep the frost off them.  Fruit look more like mini capsicums, with thick juicy flesh, and reasonable heat (about 10X hotter than Jalapeno). But mostly they tolerate the lower temps, and so have about a 9 month growing season. 

The relaiable way to ID rocoto is they have black seeds. The colour and shape can vary, but the seeds inside are always black.

[bannerd]

Yeah, I grow jalapenos in zone 4 and I've been doing that for years.  Just before the fall months I bring the bushes inside and you really can get maximum product from them.  I just set them by the window and in a room where the lights are on a bit longer but it seems the cool night are what really produce.  I've never tried other peppers so I'm definitely going to test them out.  I'm always in for maximum production so I can make cowboy candy and venison poppers.

I'll have to grab some Rocoto plants.  Tonight I'm going to chop up some ghosts and roll them in a cream cheese log with brown sugar for some cracker fun!

[kantuckid]

I love jalapeno's and we cook with them often, grow them too. In spite of my love for Mexican foods, I'm with sawguy21 on heat in food, and fail to see the culinary purpose/logic of any peppers that burn human tissues?
Not to point fingers at all, but it seems like a macho thing to me. Maybe somewhat like high % alcohol in certain whisky? Appeals to a few.
Really hot peppers have been around a very long time but in recent years have become quite a thing, what with websites of their own and even added to fast food menus some. We grow the macho jalapeños which most varieties I know of tend to have lower heat and still great flavor while losing the heat. I also grow poblano's which have natural lower heat. Heat will vary from soil and weather along with variety.

Years ago we didn't use jalapenos as much as we do now, we've evolved on peppers. We still continue to use sweet peppers in potato salad and slaw.
Last nights supper chili used diced jalapenos form the freezer from 2020 garden and wife found it a tad hot overall. Me, I was happy with it as it was.  

During my brief Sante Fe RR career of about 6 months, I worked with some Mexican-American guys who grew many jalapenos under the huge railyard shop buildings, using downspouts directed to in areas that were unused for pepper gardens. None of them grew any other peppers than jalapeños and poblano's, not even serranoes which are hotter but fairly common in Mexican cooking. There were guys in various shop areas who sold Mexican items for lunches as a sideline during lunchtime-one place would be burrito's another tamales, so on. My regular co-workers would bring qt canned jars of jalapeño's and sit there eating them with slices of store bought white bread as their lunch.

I will never raise a ghost or reaper pepper, way too hot for me! Spicy I'm into, heat more than many folks but not too much.
Here in my zone 5 garden, it's tough to get many red peppers as frost gets them. In related way, commercial bell peppers were promoted here in my area by a TN buyer/processor but in a few years nobody was growing them as the money was in the premium paid for reds and weather stymied coloring. 

[bannerd]

I think there is flavor in the hot hot hot peppers honestly.  The ghost pepper roasted has a unique flavor.  There is also a lot of health benefits in those peppers because the capsaicin is much higher.  We own quite a few turkeys that tend to get black head disease and one ghost pepper seems to clear that right up.  Even when they're too far gone and yellow bile is coming out the backside, it's almost instant fix.  They really don't have taste buds so I don't think they notice, BUT just a quick way to help them.

A lot of gatherings with people it does become a macho man thing but there is also purpose.  I agree, nothing beats jalapenos though.. the ones we grew this year have no heat at all.  Plenty in the seed but as far as the fruit itself.. no life.  I was hoping after knocking them against the table the seeds that fell inside would crank it up but unfortunately no dice on this batch.

[kantuckid]

The rating on jalapenos varies a bunch between varieties & growing seasons, but limited range at that. The various larger mucho nacho, giant jalapenos, etc.,  tend toward milder with good falvor.  Anaheim & other green chilies same in my experience. Poblanos never too hot. 
I'd never grow and dry any pepper as certain Walmarts with lots of Hispanic customers sell them cheap in bulk.
 
Not to argue, as we all have our taste for certain foods, but speaking for my own tastebuds cease to sense flavors once they've been burned out. ;D 

When I worked in juvenile treatment programs, it was very common to see the tendency toward how hot you can stand stuff, far more common than in normal teenagers by far.  

[twar]

My wife is Norwegian. When we met nearly 40 years ago, 2 drops of Tabasco and she was dying. Now, we grow chilies in the greenhouse and she makes the hot sauce(s). The kids and I love it hot, but we still have to ask her to DAIL-IT-DOWN a notch with the chilies. "Oh, was that too hot", she asks?  :D

[kantuckid]

You say wife of 40 years ago- One of the many things that change in humans as we age is our taste buds and in profound ways but it's mostly seniors who change not middle aged.  Many seniors up spices from early years. 
With peppers the ways we use them matter much.