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heat what is the hottest pepper in your mind?

Personally, I won't hold it against a vendor if they're 100% in it for the money. And, I won't hold it against them if they want to keep their secrets. Transparency is nice, but I can respect the idea that, if they dont want to disclose things, they don't have to tell us anything. I mean, I'm not itching to support a money-hungry, secretive firm with my hard-earned dollars, but I'm not going to criticize a chile business over such things.

My beef with these PuckerButt guys is the dishonesty. The smoke and mirrors tactics, the self-contradictory origin stories, their fabled 3million SHU pepper that changes color before it is released to the public...

And I'm also put off by their nonsensical bully tactics, threatening hobby-level growers with litigation and what not. Ted B, aka the Fire Breathing Idiot, says the feds questioned him after he did a pod review on Pepper X. I'm smart enough to take that with a grain of salt but, given Smokin Ed's track record, it seems somewhat plausible. I wouldn't even confided such a tale if it was about literally ANY other big name chile company...

But, they say there's no such thing as bad press. For every guy like me who is never gonna spend money with these clowns, there's probably ten guys who are buying the hype, and three guys who just think I ought to just chill out about it.

I assure you, i'm reasonably chill about these shenanigans. I am thoroughly unimpressed, but I'm far from freaking out. Luckily, there are a lot of vendors with whom I AM impressed, and I am more than happy to spend my chile money with those folks...

ThatBlondGuy101 said:
My main bone to pick with them is that 90% of their reason for being in the chilli game is the money. Sure, they're a business, so making money is their job, but surely there is a more transparent, responsible, straightforward and honest way of doing so? I don't like being strung along, not one bit. If they think they have a new hottest, they should go to the labs, get it tested, get it certified, and then share it with the world (at a profit, obviously). None of this "we're still waiting for confirmation, but you can buy our over-priced, limited stock now" BS.

This "oh yeah, it wasn't ripe before" crap really makes my blood boil.

I'll stop ranting now...
 
Bicycle808 said:
Personally, I won't hold it against a vendor if they're 100% in iy for the money.
 
I find it funny you even have to post this. What I see a lot is, people condemning businesses for wanting to make money. Um, why don't you go to work, and see how you feel when your boss says it's all about the passion, and there's no check coming? :lol: Business is business but some people expect these passionate farmers that are in it for the love and want to help the world and not pay their bills.
 
I agree 100% and that's why I am eager to spend money with businesses that offer a level of product, service, and/or social responsibility that I want to encourage and support. Obviously, every business needed the cash flow to keep going. Tbh, I have NO clue how much professional pepper guys/gals make... I imagine there's a pretty large level of variation, though.

The thing is, in my line of work, it really isn't all about the money. Ppl n human services don't make much money. Of they stopped paying me, is be forced to stop doing it, but I never even tried to count all the volunteer hours over put in, for no pay, to coach Sp.Olympics or to help with big events. Not that I want a cookie for any of that, but I do think I'm entitled to at least HOPE that the guys i'm buying seeds from have some of the same passion for growing that I do...

That's my preference, not any kind of expectation. I just expect these folks to not lie to us, not bait'n'switch us, and not sue us... =D
 
Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that the primary goal of a business is profit, and I have nothing against that. What I do have something against is businesses deceiving the public, or not telling the full and honest truth, in order to make those profits. It's not necessary, as quite a large portion of businesses or individuals, especially in the chilli game, manage to make profits without the lies N deception. As for the transparency, Id personally prefer it if businesses, like Smokin' Ed, didn't tell us that they "think" they have a new reckrd holder, and actually waited until after confirmation to announce it. But, I guess that's the way of the world when it comes to marketing, publicity, and promotion. I think its a shame, but I guess that that's just how the ball rolls.
 
I grew mustard habaneros and they were really off pheno. They were from a pretty well known seed stock company too. Hottest thing I've ever put in my mouth, it felt like real pain. I brought the first few to ripen on a camping trip, made a bean stew with a couple in them thinking it would be habanero heat. Jesus christ, I took one bite and was jumping around in circles around the site yelling and cursing. 
 
and I eat reapers! I don't know what happened. Maybe someone threw a hot coal on my spoon before I put it in my mouth, but that's what it felt like. 
 
Will always be the hottest pepper in my mind. 
 
saugapepper said:
My red brains from a few years ago. I thought I was heading either 6 feet under or to the ER. It was awful. People can only feel so much pain and red brains are far more than enough for me. I still get sick to my stomach when I think about it.... we are all crazy! ;)
 
Out of what i grew last year, the Red Brains were definitely among the contenders for hottest.  The 7Pot SR was, as one might expect, very similar in terms of heat and burn profile.  The other standout was the JPGS, which starts out tame but somehow just keeps building and building, til i began to wonder if it´d ever stop.  It wasn´t as ¨in your face"-painful as the Brain, but the overall experience was at least as savage.
 
I think in the end we all feel pain differently and certain peppers attack people in different ways. Of course the Reaper, Pepper X, whatever else may be hotter according to tests but I'll be damned if anyone can convince me the pain difference after you hit a million or a million and a half scovilles.. it just hurts so badly at that point.  Then again, there are some people on this board that can handle a lot more heat than I will ever be able too! As I said... we are all crazy ;)
 
Some people say that the Douglah is hotter than the brain but others say it is not. I think it mainly depends on the pod, because the heat varies a lot in a douglah. What do you guys think?
 
I've had Douglahs that were just as painful as the Brains but again it is a personal thing on how we feel pain. Once you hit over a million scovilles, 99.999999999999999999999% of the population is in for a whole world of hurt.
 
yes this is true. the only way we will know is if it was tested in a lab. This made me think how much it cost to test a pepper. It is probably a bunch of money to do it, since no one has done it on a brain,douglah, or bhutlah. I also know that shu was tested by how much it takes to dilute the spice till it is gone. How do they do it now, because tasting is a horrible way to do it! I know they do it in a lab but do they use the average percentage of oil compared to weight or size of the pod?
 
SHU is a measurement of drops of sugar water taken to neutralise the effects of the chilli, measured by a group of tasters. Noone actually measures SHU directly anymore, though. The numbers given as SHU are actually just Pungency Units multiplied by a factor of 16 to give a comparable and far more objective value.
 
These are obtained by HPLC which, as I understand it, is a method of measuring the amount of something (here various capsaicinoids) in a powder by creating a solution and seeing what weight of material evaporates off at the vapour points of the compounds in question. The weight of compound is then compared to the weight of starting powder to obtain what is effectively a parts per million value, since the Pungency Units cap at 1 million for pure capsaicin.
 
There's a little more to it, with pressure having originally been what the P stood for (it's now "High Performance Liquid Chromatography"), but that's the jist of it.
 
ThatBlondGuy101 said:
Don't get me wrong, I fully understand that the primary goal of a business is profit, and I have nothing against that. What I do have something against is businesses deceiving the public, or not telling the full and honest truth, in order to make those profits. It's not necessary, as quite a large portion of businesses or individuals, especially in the chilli game, manage to make profits without the lies N deception. As for the transparency, Id personally prefer it if businesses, like Smokin' Ed, didn't tell us that they "think" they have a new reckrd holder, and actually waited until after confirmation to announce it. But, I guess that's the way of the world when it comes to marketing, publicity, and promotion. I think its a shame, but I guess that that's just how the ball rolls.
 
The fact you are talking about them means they win and are doing something right.
 
You're right, and every
Time I talk shit about these clowns,I realize that i'm feeding the hype anyway. So, yeah, they're doing SOME things right, but they're doing a lot of things wrong, too. What they're doing is probably great for their sales, but it's bad for the hobby, especially for first time growers. Chile cultivation is confusing enough for the neophyte. The fact that the most well-known chile celebrity right now is a compulsive liar who likes to threaten lawsuits is only going to exacerbate that reality.. That the Reaper is so incredibly popular while being so erratically unstable is only going to discourage ppl. Every 4th post on a FB group i'm in is a rookie asking "these were supposed to be Reapers; what are they?" I guess Ed's Lawyers get right on the cease & desist letters after that, LOL....
The Hot Pepper said:
 
The fact you are talking about them means they win and are doing something right.
 
Bicycle808 said:
You're right, and every
Time I talk shit about these clowns,I realize that i'm feeding the hype anyway. So, yeah, they're doing SOME things right, but they're doing a lot of things wrong, too. What they're doing is probably great for their sales, but it's bad for the hobby, especially for first time growers. Chile cultivation is confusing enough for the neophyte. The fact that the most well-known chile celebrity right now is a compulsive liar who likes to threaten lawsuits is only going to exacerbate that reality.. That the Reaper is so incredibly popular while being so erratically unstable is only going to discourage ppl. Every 4th post on a FB group in on is a rookie asking "these were supposed to be Reapers; what are they?" I guess Ed's Lawyers get right on the cease & desist letters after that, LOL....
+1 on your thoughts!
 
I cant speculate about peppers that I have never grown, but I grow a lot for an old gimp.  Of everything I have grown, I think plain old red Moruga Scorpion wrecks my mouth the most. That's both raw and in cooking.  Love the thing in cooking when the heat spreads out enough to taste the rest of the pepper. 

After Bicycle said what he did, I looked up the FBI pod review on Pepper X.  It is kind of funny to note the man said it looked Moruga Scorpion like.  Then again, a secret unauthorized pod release with plenty of seeds to pass out that was later investigated by federal agents?  So we are back to White Pepper Spy vs. Black Pepper Spy?  Who knows where those pods came from?  Could be someone  mailed him some green moruga hoping to harm Puckerbutt with a review that says they are not all that hot.  Who knows?
 
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