You may have spoiled your peppers by attempting to dry them. Need to keep the peppers from touching each other, or anything else. Air needs to circulate to remove the moisture. Low heat (95-100F, not in direct sunlight) is preferred over high heat as the outside may dry but the inside still contain moisture and eventually get mold on the inside. Hanging peppers or threading them with string. Just the heat from a oven's pilot light (gas) is all that is needed. Plus a few days. The dried pepper should be thoroughly dried. Should be crisp and brittle.
You can tincture fresh cayenne. Fresh herbs are usually tinctured at a 1:2 ratio. (dried herbs at 1:5) where one part herb :equals 2 parts solvent There are different opinions on using alcohol, vinegar or water and salt on preparing cayenne. But drying cayenne or other peppers have the same standard and procedure. Ed Kasper LAc. Licensed Acupuncturist & Herbalist Santa Cruz, CA. -----Original Message----- From: Wayne Fugitt [mailto:cwfug...@earthlink.net] Sent: Saturday, September 02, 2006 5:09 AM To: silver-list@eskimo.com Subject: CS>Cayenne Tincture Methods Thanks to Dan, Kasper, and Everyone of the ideas on Cayenne > Why is everyone so against a little alcohol? A little alcohol is good >for you. Cayenne tincture should be made with alcohol. You can make it >yourself with 80 proof vodka and cayenne or fresh (hot) peppers. The Everclear I had in stock was 180 proof ( 85 % ). I had to purchase one more bottle, $ 15.00 per fifth. All they had was 180 proof. In July a few friends picked all their excess peppers and gave them to me. I placed them in a greenhouse in metal pans for about 10 days. The idea was they would grind or chop better if dry. I chopped the complete batch. They were still too moist and sticky to grind into a powder or very small particles. I simply placed this into pint jars and covered with Everclear. The jars were about 65 to 70 % full so I covered with the Everclear. A few days later the pepper material had swollen up a bit so I made another pint jar for a total of 4. About then I read something about 50 % alcohol so I added about 2 ounces of distilled water instead of more Everclear. I also read brew times that ranged from 15 days to 60 days. More confusion. I also talked to a few people that has made the Tincture and got different data. I left the jars on the cabinet and did in fact shake them several times per day. After near 30 days, I did not detect the strength I wanted. At this time, I added 1 heaping TBS of Cayenne Powder to each jar. At a later date, about 45 days, I still did not detect the strength of the bought Tincture so I added another heaping TBS of Cayenne powder. The total time is approaching 60 days now. The strength is getting better. In the absence of an instrumentation test, I add a specific number of drops to 4 ounces of water and compare the taste and heat to the bought Tincture. The taste of the tincture I am making is not as strong in flavor as the purchased Tincture, but the heat and bite is getting close. I am thinking of straining and bottling one pint after 60 days and may leave the other 3 pints another few weeks. I still feel my alcohol per cent is a bit high even after adding a few ounces of distilled water. I may have done a few things differently if we had this thread two months ago. The cost of the Health Food Store Tincture is about $ 120.00 per gallon. The cost of the home brew Tincture is about $ 6.00 per pint, mostly the cost of Everclear. Any ideas, suggestions, or criticism are welcome. Next time, I may use all cayenne powder. It is very reasonably priced. Wayne > If >fresh peppers, cut them up and put in blender container, fill empty >space with vodka and blend (just enough vodka to cover). Put in a jar >and shake up every day for a week or so and then strain. You can do the >same thing with the ground dried cayenne but you may need to use a >different gage for filling with alcohol (add vodka to cover and go above >the cayenne by one third of the volume for example, I mean add more >vodka). Make it strong. Just don't be drinking more than a couple of >droppers full at a time, or more than a shot... ;-)) > >One MD (David Williams) is recommending drinking one or two cups of >Irish coffee at the first sign of a heart attack... > >Richard Schulze (I think it was) recounts a story of an herbalist >throwing a pinch of cayenne in his own eye at the start of a lecture to >prove that cayenne wouldn't harm the eye. It didn't. With this in mind >and some experience using lesser doses of cayenne in an eyewash I >decided to test the theory. I threw a large pinch of cayenne into my >eye. I really wished I hadn't for about 20 minutes, it really hurt. >After that the eye was perfectly fine. > >Half vinegar and half alcohol is used to make a tincture of lobelia. > >Dan > > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Ed Kasper [mailto:edkas...@pacbell.net] >Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 10:46 PM >To: silver-list@eskimo.com >Subject: RE: CS>Cayenne > >Thanks Julie. I make a cayenne extract with my kombucha distilled >vinegar (2% acetic acid). I use 180,000 HU. It has a tendency to fall >out of suspension and has to be shaken. >Even with the low percentage acetic acid it doe not seem to attract >mold, but long term storage may be a problem. >Tabasco Sauce uses vinegar and vinegar is extremely healthy for you >especially compared to alcohol. I have also made kombucha mushroom tea >using cayenne and comes out really spicy. > >Tabasco is hotter and tastier but it is a different pepper. >Lots of peppers are hotter than cayenne - some over 1,000,000 HU, so >IMO, I don't think Tabasco would work. I seem to know a lot of folks who >gobble down really hot peppers daily and they seem to have the same >problems as the rest of people who don't eat hot peppers so cayenne must >have special attributes otherwise Dr Christopher, Shultz, and others >would have used even hotter peppers or simply Tabasco sauce. > >One thing I am leery of is the claim that cayenne scan/should be used in >the eyes. I trained police for years in the use of pepper spray, as a >matter of policy (and group >pressure) I had to be pepper sprayed and it did knock me down with for >what I thought was a long recovery time. >Police pepper spray is simply capsicum oil (cayenne pepper) and water >and pressure. maybe I should practice up for the coming events. > >In your opinion what would be the difference if one used vinegar instead >of alcohol ? > >Ed Kasper LAc. Licensed Acupuncturist & Herbalist Santa Cruz, CA. > > > >-----Original Message----- >From: julie martin [mailto:wolfp...@yahoo.com] >Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 7:17 PM >To: silver-list@eskimo.com >Subject: RE: CS>Cayenne > > >Ed, > the two bottles i have are from different companies. one says >"neutral grain spirits (38%), distilled water." the other says >"extracted with 95%grain alcohol and distilled water." i also keep the >powder on hand to make a hot tea with, which after you get used to it is >pretty good. i try to buy the freshest available and the highest heat >units. >i would use the powder for any cut to stop bleeding and would reach for >any form of cayenne before i took nitro. >julie > > > I was just wondering if you cayenne extract was an alcohol based > >extraction or what solvent was used, >maybe >vinegar? any ideas? > >Ed Kasper LAc. Licensed Acupuncturist & Herbalist Santa Cruz, CA. > > > >-- >The Silver List is a moderated forum for discussing Colloidal Silver. > >Instructions for unsubscribing are posted at: http://silverlist.org > >To post, address your message to: silver-list@eskimo.com > >Address Off-Topic messages to: silver-off-topic-l...@eskimo.com > >The Silver List and Off Topic List archives are currently down... > >List maintainer: Mike Devour <mdev...@eskimo.com> >
