I made it exactly by the recipe, including the cloves. I saved out enough of the batch for supper that night and processed the rest (a full canner load). I had never used the dried beans (rehydrated per the recipe) before, and thought they tasted rather bland in the unprocessed supper batch of chili. I was pleasantly surprised when I opened one of the processed jars--the flavors and texture were much improved and matured by the pressure canning. If you do a taste test prior to processing and are thinking of adjusting the seasonings--I would wait. You can always adjust seasonings after opening the jars, but you can't take it back once you put it in! I've heard that cloves can give a strong taste in canning, but this is a small amount in the recipe. It does NOT give it a clove taste, and after tasting it, I doubt I could even identify that it had cloves in it. On the other hand, when I make this again, I won't leave it out because the whole recipe works as-is. I hope you like it as much as I did. Jill

The nomenclature of chiles, like much of gardening, produce and food terminology can be confusing and misleading. Without trying to cover everything related to chiles, the term "green chile" almost always refers to the large, mild ones such as Anaheim, NuMex and Poblano (aka Ancho, which more correctly refers to the ripe stage of a Poblano). All, or nearly all, chiles go through a green stage, but "green chile" does not refer simply to the color, as in a green jalapeno. It refers to specific types of green chiles. It does NOT refer to any pickled (aka as escabeche) chile. Pickled chiles are a condiment like pickles and don't work in a recipe calling for "green chiles" any more than a cucumber pickle works in a recipe calling for cucumbers. The ones in the little cans labeled "green chiles" (containing no vinegar in the ingredients) are the right ones, unless you get fresh Anaheims, NuMex, Poblanos, or Anchos. Even then, to be exact, it refers to large, mild, green chiles which have been roasted and peeled as the canned ones have. I hope this is helpful. Jim P.S. Those tiny cans must seem silly to the folks who buy theirs by the 40 lb. sack in places like Hatch, NM, home of a big chile festival. Here is a link that might be useful: New Mexico Chiles

Bon, I am glad you found the article helpful. The amount of pepper varieties available is mind-boggling and you can have fun growing new ones every year for the rest of your life if you want. There's so many that you'll never run out of new ones to try. In fact, there are 5 new hybrid pepper varieties among the 2015 All-American Selections national winners. I've never seen 5 different varieties of any one vegetable win in the same year. With almost all peppers, I prefer to let them stay on the plants until they reach their mature color, but I'll harvest bell peppers in the green stage and use them in Annie's Salsa if the tomatoes, garlic, onions, cilantro and jalapenos are ready to use.....I'm not going to hold up the whole canning process waiting for the bell peppers to go from green to red, orange or yellow. I just like the richer, fuller flavor of colored peppers. I suspect it is the commercial growers/grocery industry that has convinced us all to eat our bell (and other) peppers green---because green peppers have a longer shelf life. If growers wait and harvest the peppers at their mature color, the shelf life is much shorter. Carol, We've had that happen before, even when we've warned someone "don't take a bite of that one, it is really hot". They always think "how hot can it be" and then they find out exactly how hot. Some years I have grown the regular orange Habanero pepper as well as NuMex Suave Orange Habanero, which was bred to eliminate almost all the heat. (I think it is around 300-500 Scoville Heat Units.) To someone who doesn't raise these peppers, these two can be hard to tell apart, although the Suave Orange is more of a yellowish-orange than the regular orange Habanero. I always harvest them separately, placing them in plastic containers in the garden that are clearly labeled at the moment of harvest, and I store them in clearly-labeled zip lock bags, and still there will be some point at which a person mistakes the hot one for the low-heat one and lives to regret it Carol, Talking about peppers made me crave poppers too. I've made three batches since this thread began. Every year I am getting better yields than before with poblanos, which is interesting because for so very long they just would not produce much here. They have produced well since either 2011 or 2012. I'm growing a new one this year called Mosquetero. They are supposed to grow to 6" long x 3" wide and the plants are supposed to be heavy producers. I guess I'll find out if those things are true. Amy, I love finding varieties that I remember my dad, grandfather or one of my uncles growing. My dad told me once that "you can't find Amish Moon and Stars watermelon any more", and that was long before I found and started growing heirloom varieties, so I was thrilled when I found it and was able to grow it. I also grow at least one Big Boy tomato plant every year because he always grew it. He loved Big Boy and often about half the tomato plants in his garden would be Big Boy. I like having it in the garden because it reminds me of him. I generally dry some of each type of hot pepper that I make and make my own flakes for use in cooking. When properly dehydated, they store forever, and I can choose which kind of flakes I want to use while cooking. There are lots of pepper plants that I think are worthy of growing as ornamentals whether a person likes to eat the peppers or not. The black and purple ones are my favorite ornamental types, mainly because they contrast pleasantly with the edible ones I'm growing that mature to yellow, red or orange. . I grow Black Pearl and Purple Splash every year, whether I intend to or not. One year I didn't sow seeds of either one, but got some volunteers from the previous year. I've also grown tons of the NuMex ones over the years, like NuMex Sunrise, NuMex Sunset, 6-4, Sandia, Suave Red, Suave Orange, etc. The last 3 or 4 years I've really had to rein in my desire to grow 2 or 3 dozen pepper varieties because I was planting conservatively in the face of anticipated drought. This year, since we are having some winter rain for a change, I'm going to pretend we won't have drought this spring and summer (hey, it could happen!) and I'm going to plant a lot more different kinds of peppers. I need to make some Tabasco sauce and other things that I don't make every single year. Y'all, the NMSU Chile Pepper Institute sells the seeds of lots of the varieties developed there at the university as well as the seeds of some varieties they didn't develop. They include shipping and handling in the price per pack, so keep that in mind when you see their prices. I"ll link its website below. Here is a link that might be useful: Seeds @ NMSU Chile Pepper Institute

Sorry I took days to get back to this. I had to go away for a few days and my personal life was at a stand still. Kay, that is exactly what I intend to do gram for gram...but I just wanted to ask if anyone already had some experience and for my very first round just keep things simple so that I get the ropes of the fermenting procedure itself.....thank you though! Dave, You know, when I was thinking how it could be possible that the calyxes if left on make a big perceptible difference in flavor to the sauce I thought it might be some special bacteria that reside in this tissue that produce some chemical(s) during fermentation that imparts the difference in flavor. I didn't this it would spoil the pepper mix. The calyx region is actually known to cause spoilage?? This recipe is an adaptation from the published and very popular Sriracha book, for all that its worth. A did read in a few places that you are suppose to use about 2% of the weight of the produce in salt. In the recipe I am using there is 1-1/2 lbs of peppers (675gms) to 2 tsp sea salt. I weighed this and it was 13 gms for me which is about 2%. There is no added water. Is that what you know to be correct? Today I read to add 3.3%. Well...maybe next time? And they say to ferment for 4-7 days, stirring once or twice a day, keeping loosely covered. They do say to stop the fermentation and move on to adding vinegar when you like the taste. That is vague for me! When am I supposed to stop? When it tastes 'right' or when fermentation is over? And how do I really know when fermentation is over? People say allow to ferment 1 week, 4 weeks.....you know all about that. Well things seem to be going OK. The fermentation did start on day 2, bubbling nicely, flavor changing very nicely. No mold or off flavors what so ever. This is day 6. I am letting it go on because I really don't know when I am supposed to stop. The fermentation (bubble production) is much slower now. I asked about this in a separate post also. Thank you so much. K.