I cut the tops and bare-root them then trim the roots to a size appropriate for the container they will spend the Winter in. I use approx 1 gallon pots where possible (a second year fatalii is in a larger pot).

You can prune them this much:

And they turn back into this next season:

wow! And I was going to dig up the entire live,leafed plant with rootball & plant it in a big container for the winter! Doing it your way willard3, do you water it during the winter & does it regrow from that stump whiile indoors or does it stay dormant all winter to replant outdoors in spring?

I put it back in the pot and it took care of itself....I grow in hydro year-round.

Vieja, the pepper will resprout from the stump, and you should have a nice plant by Spring.
If your pepper stays too cold, it won't grow much at all. Try to keep the root-zone about 50F.


Josh

It's nice to know you can go that far (eases the mind that you won't screw something up too terribly) but, I don't prune back near that much.

Wow. When I pull the last of my pepper plants from my Topsy, I'm gonna trim a couple down to that size and stick them in a gallon freezer bag and stick them in the pantry over the winter - just for sh!ts - and see what happens. I was planning on scrapping them all and starting from seed in the spring anyway, so if they die this way then it's no big loss.
(The one plant I'm going to take major efforts to overwinter is my best jalapeno plant - the one that nearly died in my topsy earlier in the summer when I yanked it out, re-rooted it in a glass of water then planted in its own pot. For this one I plan to perhaps leave it rooted in this pot and prune the top way back... or is root-pruning CRUCIAL?)

Pantry? With no light?
Peppers need light to survive the Winter. A window-sill is usually enough.

Josh