have you done any google searches for info.

If they are too smoky, cut back on the hours that you are smoking them. Jalapenos are small so it isn't going to take much time for the smoke flavor to permeate them.

While smoke preserves them, so does the drying. The smoke isn't necessary to preserve them, so smoke to your taste.

Apple wood works really well for smoking if you happen to have any apple trees that need pruning.

Here in SC I have plenty of hickory that I use. I've used apple when it's been available, and I don't think it is as harsh/strong as hickory. I smoke them for less time (around 7 or 8 hours), and they are still quite pungent from the smoke. Instead of storing them dry, I freeze them. I've found them quite acceptable for a couple of years. Tom

The smoking fire is quite small but burns pretty hot making a fairly unsmoky fire. The fire size is small relative to the amount of chiles being dried.

Smoke temperature is controlled by pouring water on the flue pipe, not by decreasing the rate of combustion.

@ gardendawgie---
yes of course i did the internet search,
but most of those are done by gringos, and i'm trying to
do my best to do it as authentic as possible, although
i do use the dehydrator

@oregonwoodsmoke--
i'm hoping to do 2 batches this fall and
one i'm going to use debarked fresh alder and the other
i am going to use apple....what about cherry, got any
ideas on it or have you ever used it to smoke

@ willard--
i remember your post from last year and thats why
i called you out because you are the only one who i have
ever seen the actual process. i've asked all my mexican friends and none have ever witnessed before,but all want my
chipotles for sure. last year i had a wood stove
connected with maybe 8 feet of stove pipe to the smoke
chamber. possibly this year i will shorten the length of
the pipe, run a hotter fire, and cool the pipe down
with a slow flow of water. thanks so much for the info.

what time of year were they smoking chipotle?

for many
year i would hang out in san blas, nayarit a few months
each year, but its been a while and before i started
growing peppers, and before getting married.
my wifes kids are out of school now
and so i'm hoping to start going back down. i will
definitely be hitting up some of my old friends to see
what and who they may know about chipotles
thanks for all the info you help us out with on this forum
by the way. who knows, maybe meet ya in mexico--adios

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU FOR YOUR REPLIES---TEXAS BOB

In the altiplano in Mexico, chiles grow year-round and they make chipotle year-round.

Here is a link that might be useful: chipotle

Hey Willard. The Fiery Foods website is helpful. I also freeze mine after smoking. A couple of questions.
1. Do you use the smoked pods directly or do you make it into a paste? If so, is there a recipe for the paste?
2. Can I also use Serranos?
Thanks, John A

t-bob, cherry is good for smoking.

My favorite is apple. I also like oak quite well.

I don't like hickory at all. It tastes fishy to me and often has a menthol taste to it.

I've never smoked with alder, so don't have an opinion. If you like it for barbecuing meats, you will like it for chilies.

I'll be trying pear next spring since my pear trees are now big enough to give smoker size prunings.

John A, you can smoke any type of chilies you want to. I smoke poblanos. I would say that it is only the jalapenos that are called chipotle, but you can smoke any chili and it will be good.

Chili paste would be ground dried chilies mixed with enough water to make a paste. You'd have the best luck doing that with a mortar and pestle, unless you are making an enormous batch, when you would use a food processor (cooking for 300 people?)

I throw the dried pods whole, minus stems and seeds, into my pots of chili. For dishes that cook for less time, the chili is ground into chili powder.

I don't have any recipes that would require chili paste. Usually, there is ground power and liquid going into a recipe, so no real need to make paste before starting to cook. But if you want paste, it's easy to make.

My son, who adores chipotle, bought a bottle of a good commercial spice brand chipotle. The stuff tastes like bacon bits. It's disgusting.

I am assuming that they added the smoke flavor artificially.

Chipotle seems to be one of the things that has to be done at home if you want the real stuff.

Chipotle is just a method of drying, really, and any chile including serrano is dried this way.

I think the common misconception is that the Mexicans are smoking the chile because gringos smoke stuff. What they are really trying to do is dry the chiles to preserve them and the smoke is incidental to drying. Pueblos where many chiles are grown in Mexico frequently have no electricity/propane to dry stuff and use mesquite frequently to supply the heat.

I've made paste before but would rather use a molcajete to make powder for use in cooking. If you plan on doing any Mexican cooking, get a molcajete now, it solves a lot of problems.

i agree i'm from new mexico and now live in az and the only way to do it is with mesquite like willard said the smoke is incedental but never the less very flavorfull i also roast my green chile over a charcoal grill with some mesquite takes like grandma used to make oce a hot woodstove when i was a kid.....but back to chipotle i like them smoked and then canned in the adobo sauce that really concentrates the flavor we used to do this with both jalapenos and wenk chile gueritos (yellow hots) i grew up 2 miles from the wenk farm there yellow hots are the best