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i think before i answer any of those questions i i should probably eat a [Music] reaper hey what's going on everybody for first week feast i'm shawn evans and today we have a very very very special video a deep dive into the twisted mind of
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pepper growing legend smokin ed curry brought to you by our friends from bonnie plants now if you've seen the show before you've heard me mention smoking ed curry i think i've called them the michael jordan of hot chilies and not one but two occasions i've eaten
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a carolina reaper along with my friend chilly klaus and then of course week over week you see guests struggling with the last dab apollo recently ed teamed up with body plants to make it easier than ever for pepper heads to grow their own hot peppers
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if you're a do-it-yourself type of spice lord you can now get four of smoke and ed's pepper plants delivered to your door exclusively from bonnieplants.com so without further ado let's delve into the mind of one of the pepper world's most feared and revered characters smoking ed
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curry smoking ed curry welcome to the show thank you sean it's an honor you grow a lot of amazing peppers at puckerbutt i've tried many of them i've tried many of the sauces but i think for hot ones fans the thing they know you for best is the carolina reaper when you
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started growing that pepper was the idea to set a guinness world record for the spiciest pepper was it more like you started building a car and then it turned into a rocket ship it was more like building a car and turning it into a rocket ship
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i was just looking to raise a sub-capsuloid level on peppers when i invented the carolina reaper but we were already making hot sauce and i got this pepper this year and i was like i ate it and i was like whoa i felt high for the first time in like three years
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you know and then boom i had my buddy brett come over and eat it he threw up you know so i knew i had something there we went and got it tested that year and that first year it turned out at 1.275 million scoville heat units now that was the unstable pepper that was just the start
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of the process to stabilize and actually get a genetically stable pepper how would you explain what a capsinoid is and talk to me like i'm five years old those are the compounds that our body perceives as heat through a chemical reaction with a nerve
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called a trvp1 receptor there's no actual heat so it's just those are the compounds that we perceive as heat from peppers in regards to peppers is it true that it's the seeds that make them hot uh no that's a fallacy it's the tissue that's attached to the seed called the
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placenta that contains the capsule on the topic are there any other spicy misconceptions that you can debunk one is that peppers are hot they're not hot it's a chemical reaction that our brain perceives as heat so a pepper cannot burn a hole in your esophagus or your
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stomach usually it's the crap that you're eating that is doing that to you these peppers they have crazy names carolina reaper trinidad scorpion apocalypse red they all sound like they're straight out of a superhero movie how do you go about naming peppers
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mostly what we do is we eat peppers we we wind up getting a pepper buzz and then we start throwing stuff back and forth as a tea or one of the kids actually will name it like the apocalypse i know came from a child because they thought it was the end of
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the world when they tried it what do i have to do to get a sean evans pepper you just tell me the word and the next one is yours my guy the next one is yours i've heard you mentioned that it can take up to 10 years to lock in a crossbreed so are you
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thinking about your spice game chess moves like decades ahead we do anywhere between 100 and 120 crosses every year uh just so one or two of those will make it through the 10-year cycle some years a few more do some years none of them do but i'm already planning what's going to
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happen in the 2030s and the 2040s and what i'm going to pass on to my kids so i'm very curious about the peppers arms race you know how important is security how much are you guys at each other's throats can you can you break that down for me because that's
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probably what i'm most fascinated by when i speak to you one thing that happened one of the other breeders claimed to have went into a field and stole pepper x they actually took pictures of the field but it was not a it was only a field we grew chile de
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arbo and jalapenos in but that was serious enough that the local police the state police the postal service and the fbi all got involved because it involved interstate and international fraud how did the partnership with bonnie plants come to be ed bonnie has been
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a part of my family since i can remember my mom grew up in the south and bonnie plants were always in our garden so it was kind of uh it was kind of a childhood uh you know heartwarming memory to have those people come to me and say supply us with peppers you know
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i'd like to know more more detail about how to grow a carolina reaper but before we get into that i know ed that you are ever the showman uh what do you have going on there well we might have a little bonnie plant here with a little bit of reefer on it
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and i think before i answer any of those questions i i should probably eat a reaper no time like now there it goes [Music] now that your temperature is rising a little bit ed can you talk us through step by step in as much detail as possible how to grow a carolina reaper starting
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with uh the seedling make sure that you water the plant okay they need dirt they need water and they need light okay they can live with just that wow second one's a charm so fill it up with miracle grow organic potting soil you can bury the plant until maybe
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four inches is showing me and when you see flowers start coming out you don't have to worry about pollination they pollinate themselves it's beautiful nature tells you what the plant's supposed to look like so just let it grow my mouth is on fire
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i'm drooling and my nose is running my eyes are watering but i'm getting a good buzz and i'm enjoying life [Music] you know uh before we get you out of here i do want to hit you with uh some rapid fire questions you know i now that i have you in the proper state
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how many carolina reapers do you think that you've eaten over the course of your life 15 years at least three a day 25 000 what is the most overrated pepper and which one is the most underrated most overrated pepper in my opinion is the moruga scorpion
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it tastes like poop underrated one is the chocolate scotch bonnet it's the best cooking pepper there is is there a good on-ramp for people who are maybe novices but curious about spicy food is there a good way to on-ramp them yeah get the classic hot sauce from hot
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ones just make some rice and beans put a little bit in there and use it as a side dish your body will get used to the heat and you will get used to the flavor and you'll crave more ed why should people buy with bonnie plants and with smoking ed
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curry rather than just going out getting their own seeds and doing it themselves all right that's a two-fold question sean one is germination a lot of people have trouble germinating pepper seeds bonnie takes that out of the equation they do all the germination for you
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the second one is that peppers take approximately 150 days to produce fruit so bonnie is also taking the first 75 days out of that process for you and providing a plant that's only 75 days away from producing fruit so you can enjoy that fruit for a longer
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period of time and if you want to get your hands on all four of ed curry's pepper plants smokin heads carolina reaper apocalypse red orange butch tea and yellow scotch bonnet bonnieplants.com to pick up yours smokin ed curry always such a blast happy i got
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a chance to catch up to you let the people know what you have going on in your life we're getting ready for a whole new season with body plants and a whole new season with the hot ones i just want to tell you guys i love you god bless you
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and i look forward to getting your world more spicy that's my guy that's my guy one time you were filming at the hot sauce expo and i said here try this and you you looked at the camera and said if ed curry pulls something out of his pocket and says try this don't do it