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| I can core out the cross-walls and placenta (along with the seeds) using knives - i.e. not touching the deadly toxic fruit - but isolating the seeds is a different matter. It seems inevitable that deadly toxic juice will get on my hands and thence onto various unmentionable bits.
So what are your best tips for getting nice clean, undamaged seeds out of your evil little babies? ... and living to tell about it? |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| buy a box of latex exam type gloves. Not the ones for dishwashing but the ones similar to what they use for medical procedures. They are relatively inexpensive and they are invaluable for working with super hots. Bruce |
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- Posted by scorpion_john 6 (scorpion_john@ymail.com) on Thu, Sep 27, 12 at 19:51
| DM - wear latex gloves like doctors wear. U can buy them cheap anywhere, John |
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| Well, the dishwashing type is a dead loss: they cut easier than pepper skin. I wouldn't have thought the surgical style impervious enough, but I'll certainly try them. Should have a box around here somewhere... Now, how about getting the seeds loose from the placenta? Do you dry the lot first, then pick them out? Tools? Dennis or DuckMan, your choice |
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| DMF: You're worrying about it too much. Put on latex gloves, slice open with knife(or use scissors if you're worried about cutting gloves), pluck out seeds with fingers onto paper towel, carefully remove gloves and discard, wash hands with baking soda, let dry at room temp for a couple weeks(if placenta is attached to seed cluster, let that dry also then separate after completely dry, store in cool, dry place. I also heard on TV last night that people who have been pepper sprayed have used antacids to wash their eyes out. So, I guess you could dissolve some rolaids and wash with it also. /shrug Kevin |
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- Posted by sandysgardens 4MN (My Page) on Thu, Sep 27, 12 at 20:17
| Dennis - most people have their favorite way to de-seed a pepper. My preference is to remove the seed totally and then dry them. Even if you dry them on the placenta, the placental will still have a little power to get you. I use my fingers and if they're super hots, I wear the exam gloves. My daughter worked for a clinic for years, so she stocked me up with gloves. When removing the gloves, just pull them off inside out and toss. |
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- Posted by habjolokia 7 (zellmarkj@yahoo.com) on Thu, Sep 27, 12 at 20:18
| Fingers are my tool, I dry the seeds and placenta together and then pick the seeds off. Then dish soap and water. Key is to wash around finger nails and under them even it you think you don't have long enough nails the oils still get under them. Picked Ghost, 7 pot, and Trinidad Scorps. Who needs gloves! Mark |
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- Posted by fusion_power 7b (My Page) on Thu, Sep 27, 12 at 22:32
| I'm with hab, just use my fingers. There is a knack to doing it though. First I slice off the stem end including enough of the end of the pepper to cut down to the edge of the seed cavity. Then I carefully cut the septums loose around the outside edge of the pepper and use the knife to flip the seed clump out onto a sheet of cardboard. Let them dry at least a week, then rub them in an old t-shirt until the seed separate from the placental tissue. As noted, be sure to clean out from under fingernails! DarJones |
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| Yes, I use my hands most of the time...and quite often cuss myself later on for doing so. Use latex gloves. You can open the peppers, and carefully pick out the seeds with some small blunt tool, even a knife. But what I have found to work best is just cut out the seeds with the placenta and let it dry on a plate for 4 or 5 days, then the seeds fall right off the placenta with very little effort. I then let them dry for several more days spread out on the plate. There is no real "right way" to do it. Experiment and find what works best for you. The key is to get the seeds from ripe pods and to let them dry sufficiently. Good luck, Bruce |
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| I have been okay saving the seeds and drying them. Sometimes I'll just carve out the whole center section and sometimes I'll pick out the seeds with tweezers. This does not require contact with hands. Then there's the matter of sorting out the seeds from the kruft and counting out for seed exchange. Even with tweezers this pretty much requires hands-on. They're dry, right? So what harm could there be? BZZZT! Wrong. Capsaicin is present in a wax-like coating. I didn't use gloves for the seeds. Now I use gloves to handle my body parts. "Say 'Ow!', dear." |
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- Posted by fusion_power 7b (My Page) on Fri, Oct 12, 12 at 15:52
| uh oh. guess he handled his wife too. He will be sleeping on the couch indefinitely. DarJones |
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| I sort seeds like pharms sort pills...I dump them out and count/move them with a butter knife...then I scoop the seeds into a baggie off the side of whatever I'm sorting on. Well, I hope my pharm is using something other than a butter knife, but the same principles apply. For larger amounts of seeds or small bags I'll dump them onto an index card after sorting/counting, semi-fold into a "V" shape, and use the funnel-like action to dump them. |
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| They got highly specialized pharmaceutical grade butter knives for the pros. I'd order one but you have to have a degree. To manicure I dump them into a dished plate under a magnifying lamp and use the butt end of the tweezers to count into little piles of 15. Then set a food funnel into the little plastic bag and scoop with finger. Goes pretty quick. Somewhere I acquired a whole box - probably 1000 - of little poly bags, about 2 1/2" x 5". Perfect. Slip in a label, tape (staple?) closed, and you're good to go. ----- I'm amazed at how flimsy these seedy little guys are. They're mostly envelope, and you can see a tiny, denser germ inside. All this fire from that tiny little thing. Seems like a miracle. 'Seems' hell, it is a miracle! Dennis |
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- Posted by spacetogrow 4 MN (My Page) on Sat, Oct 13, 12 at 13:28
| How nit-picky do you have to be about getting every little shred of placenta removed? If they are well dried, a little shred or three wouldn't cause the seeds to rot, would they? |
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| Not if the placenta is dried. For me it's just about getting the seeds apart. Remember the natural state of the seed. Pod falls, probably rots, and the seed springs forth from the fertilizer. |
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