Re: Quickie...Re: C is for Cayenne Tincture~!
Consider this amateur advice regarding what to do with Habaneros that are still green or still ripening; I throw them into the tincture bottle just like I do with all the other ones that are ripe. More on this below.
By the way, last year about this time I made a big batch of Cayenne tincture, with home grown peppers raised in South Central Pennsylvania, by the way. This was the largest batch of single herb tincture i ever made, nearly 3 gallons. In 10 years of gardening I've observed that Habaneros are almost always the last to ripen.... not sure why this is, but I've seen this situation repeat several times during the years I've been gardening. I've also noticed that for some reason, Habaneros seem to have a habit of getting rotten spots on them while they are still on the bush and growing.... again, I dunno why this is, but I've observed it repeatedly.
Anyway, last harvest season I got to thinking what I could do with the ones that were still green, either the bright green ones as well as those that were pale and starting to turn what I call Tequila Sunrise Orange. For some reason I recollected a segment from a
Richard Schulze video, it was one of his 3 - day classes and David Christopher was in the class this day. He was comparing philosophies on tincturing herbs. On the one hand, the big business philosophy generally is that they want to isolate and then extract a single ingredient from a given herb. They even have a name for this "active ingredient". One method to achieve this is to use an exceptionally harsh menstrum.... like, grain alcohol "190 proof". On the other hand, herbalists, such as Christophers, Schulze, etc, prefer to use an extraction method that provides a broad spectrum of nutrients rather than singling out one in particular. The idea here is, since the plant naturally contains a spectrum of nutrients, it is important to use extraction methods that also provide a spectrum of nutrients rather than a single "active ingredient". This is one of the reasons why a tamer menstrum, like 100 proof, is desired....so, for some reason I thought about this when wondering what to do with green peppers. The thought occurred to me that a not-ripe (green) habanero pepper probably has most (if not all ) of the same constituent ingredients as a ripe pepper, but they just are not as mature. I figured, maybe it will help to make a more fully broad spectrum tincture to put some green / unripe peppers in the tincture bottle.
As to those that are shrivelling, this is just the beginning stage of the herb starting to dry out. The one thing you need to wathc for with peppers when drying is that while they are drying, they still contain moisture, and sometimes this will form a fuzzy white mold on the inside. I don't know if this kind of mold is harmful or otherwise undesirable, but it does happen. If you want to try something easy to hasten the drying process, take a big bunch of these peppers and put them on a cookie sheet or perhaps inside a big corningware bake dish, set the oven to bake at low temp....about 170 degrees, let them bake at this temp for several hours. Once they have been baked enough, let them cool, then they are very easy to crush and turn into powder.... it helps to have a mortar and pistil but you can easily improvise with kitchen gadgets.
Have fun.....oh, and unless you do not want an extra cayenne surprise, be sure to wash your hands well, at least 4 times, after handling hot peppers. Before I learned this lesson, I washed my hands once, went to the rest room to relieve myself, and then 10 minutes later this bengue like sensation started setting in everywhere where I had touched my fingers to body parts..... it seems that I did not wash thoroughly enough, and this caused a surprise effect that lasted about 20 minutes ! Ha Ha !