Smoked Ghost Pepper Salt

[Rajun Gardener]

I decided to smoke some ghost peppers. The barrel smoker was a little too hot and basically it also roasted/dehydrated the peppers but it did add more flavor.

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I reconstituted them in a small bowl of water then into the blender with a little lemon juice and some of the water from the bowl. I'm sure you can add a little "Liquid Smoke" or any other flavors/herbs/seasoning.

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I measured the pulp/liquid for future reference, this was a little too much for a 3lb box of course Kosher salt as you can see the liquid in the pan before they went in the convection oven set at 170F for a few hours to dry.

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I dumped everything back in the FP and added enough of that water to make it a thick slurry. Last time I made pepper salt I used a bigger FP and that worked much better. I didn't have to add as much liquid to get all of the salt mixed thoroughly.

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I left the pans in the oven for about 4 hours and started breaking up the salt once it was dry enough. Here's the final product. It has a slight smoke flavor but I wanted more so I took one jar and smoked it the next day for 8 hours using hickory.

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The jar on the right is the smoked salt and you can smell it so much more than the other jar. I was expecting a darker color but it looks like the smoke washed the pink color out some. It has good flavor and it's not too hot for most people, not as hot as I wanted it so next time I'll double the pepper amount.

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I used 3 handfuls of hickory chips and about 3lbs of charcoal, I set up the coals in the snake method and topped it with chips and that burned about 8 hours.