tony b

To be quite honest, I've struggled with keeping the chips lit in mine, too! Dennis suggested lighting a medium sized chunk of lump and putting it in the middle of the stack of chips. It works OK, but I still have had times when it goes out later in a longer smoking session. I've started mixing the wood chips with the pellets that they use in the pellet smokers. It seems to work a bit better, so give that a try.

I get almost all of my smoking woods from Fruita Woods. I get their regular chunks for the smoker pot. I use their chips in the cold smoker and I've done the larger splits of red oak for doing Santa Maria style tri-tip roasts directly on the fire. Their stuff is top shelf! https://www.fruitawoodchunks.com/shop?olsFocus=false&olsPage=products

Thanks, Bruce! I do it as a side project every year just for the fun of it. I love hot sauces and have dozens in my pantry and probably have tried hundreds over the years. It's hard to beat some of what's out there and I don't have any thoughts/aspirations of trying my hand at producing one commercially.

Yeah, you need to hollow them out. You can go either route - core them and stuff them like a tube; or, split them down the middle, clean them out and fill them like a canoe. Jalapenos are funny - you can't judge the heat of them externally by any reliable method that I know. You can do a batch of ABTs and most of them will have a nice level of heat and then you get one that takes the top of your head off! Sort of a griller's Russian roulette! If you really don't like a spicy pepper, you can always make them with Poblanos. You just need to double the batch size of the filling to account for the larger pepper.

Open the lid on the KK and see what kind of smoke you're seeing inside. If it's not much, the tube into the KK could be a bit plugged, forcing smoke out the side holes. You will see some smoke leak out, but it shouldn't be a lot.

Serious eats, Keith! Nice use of the PC, too!

Yes, they were whole. With the dark color of the beer to start with, you really can't see whether the PC imparted any color or not. Based upon cooking with them, I know that it did, but it will be hard to see in this particular beer. Same was true in the 2 previous beers that I used them in, as both had purple fruit in them - blackberries and blueberries.

Great Pizza, MacKenzie!

Yeah, Bruce, they were one of the first things that I learned to make on the old POSK Forum. You can get very creative with them, as far as fillings go. One of my favs is baby shrimp (aka salad shrimp) with cream cheese and Old Bay. I've done a crab cake kind of filling, too. Chorizo and/or breakfast sausage with Monterey Jack are another great combo. And, I always put a nice BBQ rub on the bacon - typically Dizzy Dust. @5698k - if you haven't tried it yet, get their Ham one. I use it in my red beans & rice and gumbo - better than regular chicken version. Love the mushroom to make my grits.

Hardly! Total of all 3 batches was less than a half-gallon. Tobasco spills that much every second in their facility!

BASTARDS! Stealing our MacKenzie's awesome food pictures and claiming them on another site!

I have 1/2 oz of PC in a beer that's about done fermenting. It's a "winter warmer" ale with brown sugar, crystalized ginger, orange peel and the PC instead of cinnamon/clove/nutmeg. Will see how it turns out?

My crate got turned into a dog house for the neighbor across the street's pooch. I don't know what happened to the KK strip? But, I'm like Jon, I really don't have a good place to put it, if I had one.

Excellent use of the purple crack, Shuley! I just did some roasted carrots last night (in the oven, as I did fire up the grill - insanely windy and cold yesterday!) and I'll remember next time to try them with the PC. btw - spotted the "Better than Bouillon" - their stuff rocks!! I have like 6 different varieties of it in the pantry.

Seriously well done, sir!

It's the fun part of this hobby - experimentation!

The red one is not very hot at all - disappointing really. But the other two make up for it in spades! I also realized later, when they'd been sitting out for a bit, that I'd forgotten to put the xantham gum in it, so it separates out fairly quickly. Just means you need to shake them up well before using. I wasn't about to empty the bottles and refill them just to toss in a bit of emulsifier.

To quote one of my all time favorite TV characters - "Homey don't play dat!"

I see light saber kabobs in my future!

Experiment - mix it with other spices, try it straight, use it in different applications. This was no different for me than other new ingredients that I've learn to use and fall in love with - another good example: gochujang - the perfect marriage of umami and heat. I put it up there, right next to Sriracha. Moroccan flavors - berbere spices, oil cured olives, and preserved lemons. Which suddenly gives me an idea - preserved lemons with purple crack! People - forget all that nonsense that your Mothers implanted in your brains - Play With Your Food!

The aji and ghost pepper ones will definitely "get your attention!"

Well today was bottling day. To finish off the discussion above, I did find some mold on the surface of the red pepper batch, but not the others. Just scraped it off before I dumped the mash into the chinois to strain out the fibers and seeds. Next, mixed in rice vinegar with a pinch or two of salt and into the bottles. The aji (yellow) and chocolate ghost (brown) also got a bit of roasted garlic paste to add some flavor to balance out the heat. The red came out much milder than I was expecting, so it only got half as much rice vinegar as the hotter two, to not overly mask the flavor of the peppers.

You guys are getting it - it's a cross between a clove-like numbness and chile pepper heat, with some other nice side notes tossed in. I think it's similar to Szechuan peppercorns. I've been using this stuff in a lot of things since I got my bag earlier this year from Aussie. I have a flaked salt mix with 2 parts purple crack to 1 part salt that I shake on as I'm cooking. I also have a grinder with the straight stuff right by the stove as well and use it interchangeably with black pepper. Part of the reason that I named it Purple Crack, as I've found it quite addictive. Here's some pics of ribs, chicken and eggs done with the purple crack. All pics are uncooked so you can see how they stain food purple.

Indeed!