White Pepper

[growersmindset]

Day 65-68 for the JEMs. #3 is a bit behind the other two and some of its stigmas haven't darkened yet, but they're all close to done. I'm planning on harvesting all three next week.

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JEM #1. It lost most of its fan leaves. I'll take better precautions against algae next time I move a single plant to a separate clear tray like this.

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JEM #2. This one still smells distinctly like pickle spices. Not dill, but something close.

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One of JEM #2's tops.

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JEM #3, a few days behind the other two.

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Close up of JEM#3's main cola.

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A couple Fatalii peppers, soon to be transplanted. They tend to start out really squat and have bumpy leaves like this. As they mature and approach flowering the stem stretches -- the one on the right hasn't stretched yet. The peppers are excellent, roughly the same heat level as habaneros but even more fruity. I got the seeds from Seed Savers Exchange. I tried cross-pollinating some with other peppers I'm growing outdoors, but I'm planning on keeping these indoors and better isolated so I can rule out random crosses from bees.

hmm pickle as in like a vinegar scent? sounds interesting.

 

[parsing_trees]

hmm pickle as in like a vinegar scent? sounds interesting.

I meant it smells like the kind of herbal flavoring that would often be paired with pickles, rather than the vinegar itself. Like a "pickle jar spice" herb. It also suggests Scandinavian food and aquavit (which is kind of like gin made with caraway instead of juniper). It isn't dill or caraway, exactly, but another note from the same chord. There's a bright green herbal scent, possibly with a little carvone in the background, and carvone on its own smells dead-on like caraway seeds to me. (I have a terpene sample kit from Paraphenalia Social Club but I'm only partway through learning them.)

To be clear: I like the smell. I just can't put my finger on it.

 

[parsing_trees]

I'm trying a different drying / curing process and that seems to go well. The APBE was hanging whole in a tent in my basement (58-60% RH, 63-65F) for a bit over a week, then moved to a closed paper bag which I kept inside a tied plastic bag, and I took out the paper bag daily to let it breathe for a bit. I'm doing the same process with the JEMs, which will go to bags within a few days. Probably sooner for #1, since it has so few leaves and is likely drying faster.

I dry trimmed the APBE last night and jarred it up. The long petioles and very few sugar leaves made trimming quite easy -- it only took a half hour start to finish, including cleanup. There's a very full quart jar, stable around 62% RH now, a bit over 35g. The flower looks cured enough to try soon.

 

[parsing_trees]

What I'm describing as pickle herb smell could be a mix of both chiral forms of carvone, perhaps -- the wikipedia page has a subheading Stereoisomerism and odor, which says "Carvone forms two mirror image forms or enantiomers: R-(−)-carvone, has a sweetish minty smell, like spearmint leaves. Its mirror image, S-(+)-carvone, has a spicy aroma with notes of rye, like caraway seeds." That sounds close, though I'd say "fresh, herbal, green" over "sweetish minty". I've grown plants before that produced one or both mirror images of linalool; one smells like lavender, the other more like Fruity Pebbles, quite different from each other to the nose.

Whatever it is, it's the dominant note in all three JEMs (#2 is just a bit stronger smelling than the other two), and not something that has been prominent in anything else I've grown yet.