Can you eat this pepper? Fear the Reaper: Breeding the World's Hottest Pepper

[Johnboy60]

In the competitive world of hot pepper breeding, one man is smoking the competition. Meet "Smokin'" Ed Currie. He's the man behind the world's hottest pepper—the "Carolina Reaper." For the past three decades, Currie has been pushing the limits of the Scoville scale—breeding hotter and hotter peppers. We went behind the scenes at his South Carolina farm, where he's bred a number of secret, unreleased specimens that he claims are even hotter than his famous Reaper. You may want to have some milk ready for this one.

Fear the Reaper: Breeding the World's Hottest Pepper

 

[ReesePiece23]

I draw the line at the Chocolate Bhutla. I've eaten Scorpions, 7 Pots, several varieties of the Bhut Jolokia, and even consumed extracts. But the Chocolate Bhutla? No thanks.

 

[Haipule]

I love hot peppers! My "comfort food" is to cook habanero and green chili chicken sausage by Thomas Adell and have it with a 2 habanero 10 Thai dragon garlic butter sauce with salt and lots of black pepper on lightly fried spaghetti. It'll make your pee hurt! But, oh sooo good!

Yet, I do fear the reaper!

A jalapeno is around 150,000 shu; a habanero about 400,000 shu; Pepper spray is 2,000,000 shu and the Carolina Reaper is about 2,200,000 S-Heat units!

 

[W Johnson]

I love hot peppers! My "comfort food" is to cook habanero and green chili chicken sausage by Thomas Adell and have it with a 2 habanero 10 Thai dragon garlic butter sauce with salt and lots of black pepper on lightly fried spaghetti. It'll make your pee hurt! But, oh sooo good!

Yet, I do fear the reaper!

A jalapeno is around 150,000 shu; a habanero about 400,000 shu; Pepper spray is 2,000,000 shu and the Carolina Reaper is about 2,200,000 S-Heat units!

I don’t know where you get your jalapenos from but all of the info I have ever read about the jalapeno is around 8-10,000 shu.

 

[ReesePiece23]

I love hot peppers! My "comfort food" is to cook habanero and green chili chicken sausage by Thomas Adell and have it with a 2 habanero 10 Thai dragon garlic butter sauce with salt and lots of black pepper on lightly fried spaghetti. It'll make your pee hurt! But, oh sooo good!

Yet, I do fear the reaper!

A jalapeno is around 150,000 shu; a habanero about 400,000 shu; Pepper spray is 2,000,000 shu and the Carolina Reaper is about 2,200,000 S-Heat units!

I'm not going to lie, that sounds pretty sensational. The Habanero and Scotch Bonnet chillies are my absolute favorite. I often just eat the pods as a snack.

And fear not. The Reaper makes for amazing sauce - for me, it's a definite condiment chilli. It's sweet, fruity and very assertive.

 

[prodromos]

I love chili's, but unfortunately I can't eat them anymore without getting violent hiccups. I is the sad

 

[Haipule]

I don’t know where you get your jalapenos from but all of the info I have ever read about the jalapeno is around 8-10,000 shu.

Sorry, too many beers have clouded my memory! But, don't you just love it when you find that one jalapeno that is just MAD AT THE WORLD hot!

 

[Haipule]

I'm not going to lie, that sounds pretty sensational. The Habanero and Scotch Bonnet chillies are my absolute favorite. I often just eat the pods as a snack.

And fear not. The Reaper makes for amazing sauce - for me, it's a definite condiment chilli. It's sweet, fruity and very assertive.

I call that dish "Death" and by the way; I cook the peppers and garlic in the same pan as the sausage then deglaze the pan with the pasta water and then mount it with the cold butter to make the sauce. Drool, Drool!

I looked at the cross section of the Reaper just the other day and it is MEATY! Awesome sauce material for sure! I should be able to invent a sauce just as hot as "Insanity" with out the oleo resin flavor! Thanks for the encouragement to even try! Bon Appetit!

 

[Goonie]

Sorry, too many beers have clouded my memory! But, don't you just love it when you find that one jalapeno that is just MAD AT THE WORLD hot!

The only time I've had a Carolina reaper, it was diluted in a beer.

 

[bill5]

I love hot peppers!

Me too. But I also get that "more is better" isn't always so, that there is such a thing as too hot and at fools who are either unable or unwilling to grasp this...those obsessed with trying to impress people around them (or perhaps themselves) with how hot of a pepper they can eat. I like heat (sometimes) but I also like to actually taste my food and not interested in discomfort as part of my meal. I'm funny that way.

 

[Haipule]

Me too. But I also get that "more is better" isn't always so, that there is such a thing as too hot and at fools who are either unable or unwilling to grasp this...those obsessed with trying to impress people around them (or perhaps themselves) with how hot of a pepper they can eat. I like heat (sometimes) but I also like to actually taste my food and not interested in discomfort as part of my meal. I'm funny that way.

"More is not better": I learned that the hard way!

I once sat down at a restaurant and ordered 1/2 dozen oysters on the half shell. They served them with horseradish and cocktail sauce--with out warning! On the first one, with a little horseradish and sauce, I immediately blasted off into horseradish heaven! On the last one, I thought 'more is better'. So, I spread the rest, about a teaspoon, of the horseradish on it. I immediately was sucked down into horseradish HELL! I could not breathe; my face turned beet red; my eyes were watering like I was watchin' Old Yeller and the snot was hangin' from my nose down to my knees! The manager ran over and asked if I was OK. I nodded. He asked if I wanted an ambulance. I waived him off. When I finally could breathe again I said, "Dude, that is some wicked horseradish!" He, being the consummate businessman asked, "How about another 6 oysters to keep the fun going?" I replied, "Bring it on!"

That horseradish is called "Nasal Napalm".

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

I will stick with jalapeno peppers........

Top 10 World's Hottest Peppers - PepperHead - Hottest Pepper

Are you a PepperHead? Try growing these Superhot peppers!
Top Ten Hottest Peppers In The World 2017
SHU = Scoville Heat Unit (A measure of Spiciness)

 

[bill5]

"More is not better": I learned that the hard way!

I once sat down at a restaurant and ordered 1/2 dozen oysters on the half shell. They served them with horseradish and cocktail sauce--with out warning! On the first one, with a little horseradish and sauce, I immediately blasted off into horseradish heaven! On the last one, I thought 'more is better'. So, I spread the rest, about a teaspoon, of the horseradish on it. I immediately was sucked down into horseradish HELL! I could not breathe; my face turned beet red; my eyes were watering like I was watchin' Old Yeller and the snot was hangin' from my nose down to my knees! The manager ran over and asked if I was OK. I nodded. He asked if I wanted an ambulance. I waived him off. When I finally could breathe again I said, "Dude, that is some wicked horseradish!" He, being the consummate businessman asked, "How about another 6 oysters to keep the fun going?" I replied, "Bring it on!"

That horseradish is called "Nasal Napalm".

lol - PS I hope you and everyone realize I was speaking generally, not about anyone in particular.

Also I've learned my limits the hard way a time or two as well. There was a chicken wing place I went to w/a friend once and they had like 10 levels of hot.......the last few were called stuff like "lava flow", "911," and "flatliners." And if you can eat a dozen of those last few and keep them down, they're free. I asked for about the 3d hottest and the waiter actually said, "uhhhhh......no. You don't want those." He then explained how silly hot those last few levels are, or tried. When he saw I was unconvinced he said "tell you what: I'll bring you a wing with the heat one level below that; if you feel you're good w/that, I'll bring the others. I agreed, ready to show him how I loved and could take the heat. Holy bleep. My tongue near melted. He laughed and explained I wasn't exactly the first one to make that mistake. Then he showed me the wall where if you ate the hottest you got to write your name on it. There was only one name there.

I got the honey garlic. And extra water.

 

[Rion]

What's the point of a pepper so hot that you can't taste it over your tongue screaming at you to let it die?

 

[dgiharris]

What's the point of a pepper so hot that you can't taste it over your tongue screaming at you to let it die?

Wow, me and Rion agree on something, who would have thought

just in case you guys wanted to know what death looks like...

ingenious way to get famous. Breed the world's hottest pepper. And then he claims to have even hotter peppers in his back pocket just in case someone breaks his record.

You gotta click the link in the OP, video is 3 minutes and is very entertaining.

Just watching it made my mouth burn and the top of my head sweat...