I will be watching this with you as I just came back to ask the same question here.

I ran an experiment on this a couple years ago, using Charleston Hot peppers. I picked peppers that were showing some indications of color change (ie no longer green... some orange, mostly yellow with hints of orange) and put them in paper bags. I put apples (for ethylene) in some bags, can't remember if in all bags or not).

Long story short, most of the peppers did indeed turn red. But they didn't ripen, ie they were very different from those that ripened outside naturally in the sunshine. The outdoor-red-ripened Charlestons had a very sweet flesh that had a rich pepper taste, very enjoyable. The paper-bag peppers had similar red flesh but they were tasteless and even somewhat bitter.

If you are going for taste, you've got to ripen them on the plant. If you just want heat, you can pick them green and avoid the bother of trying to ripen them after they have been picked.

OK thanks Don. Whatever doesn't ripen I may dry out and make flakes. If the flakes are bitter I'll dump'em. Hoping for a couple of more weeks of some decent sunshine and temperatures.

I'm kinda dealing with the same thing. I had a plant growing along side (and I mean side by side) my white bhut. I have been bagging for seed collection, I realized the "extra" plant was not a white bhut, but ripened a very pretty orange and was quite large (3" long and about 1" wide). I assume it was a hybrid, although it was prolific, I was having a hard time bagging blooms, since they were intertwined. So, I cut down the extra one, which was very hard cos it was absolutely covered in fruit. Afterwards a friend told me I should have kept it, it was pretty, and definitely very hot, bhut hot... so, I started to regret it, I have the plant hanging on the fence and hoping the bagged fruit will ripen and produce viable seeds. if not, no biggie, but it might be fun.

Pam