Beyond Hot!

Bhut Jolokia Plant

 I am growing the hottest pepper in the world on my roof! A coworker introduced me to the Bhut Jolokia. The Bhut Jolokia or Indian Ghost Pepper is rated at over 1 million Scoville heat units or SHU. This means that it takes a million drops of water to dilute 1 drop of Bhut Jolokia extract to the point that heat is no longer detected. What does this mean in laymen terms? It means this is the hottest pepper you will have had the fortune or misfortune to eat. It is up to 125 times hotter than a Jalapeño and about 3 times hotter than a Scotch Bonnet pepper.

I originally acquired the peppers from a co-worker in 2010. I saved the seeds and germinated them and produced over twenty young plants. This year my coworker gave me two young plants that I started indoors and then gradually migrated them outside to full sun. One was severely damaged by birds or squirrels. The big producer is pictured here. They do quite well on my second floor roof as they require sun and heat to thrive.

Bhut Jolokia Flowers

In order for the plants to produce peppers, each flower has to be pollinated. The best way to achieve this is to put the plants outside so that wind, bees, and other flower visiting creatures can pollinate them. I know have over twenty plants in various stages of maturity. I’m sure that they all won’t make it. With luck I will have a bumper crop of pepper to share. However for safety concerns, no one will get any peppers from me  unless they agree to my disclaimer. Hot is an understatement describing the effect of these peppers. Hopefully I will be able to update this story with photos of peppers in the upcoming weeks. Read more about this pepper.

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