Do you freeze or dry them usually? I have a bunch of Thai chili peppers I won’t get close to using
I think I missed this one. There's 4 ways to deal with this essentially:
1) Dry: you can use food dehydrator (I bought a simple one for 50EUR) or just put them in sun. Former is a safer option and I have found that electricity consumption for that thing is really low. Pros: once dried - can store without worries, can easily give away to friends, I've sent some via mail to Finland even. They keep the spiciness levels also. Cons: They basically lose most shape they had initially. Not a biggie, but for fancy peppers (Habanero, Elephant Trunk etc.) I am always ''ah, that sucks''.
2) Frozen: simply put in a bag/box that doesn't let thru oxygen and put in freezer. Pros: keeps the shape, color, spiciness. Cons: takes quite some space as they keep the initial size. It's gone to a point I am considering buying extra freezer, because the section in fridge will soon not be enough. If you want to give them to friend, but you/friend cannot put it in freezer right away, it will unfreeze to a softer/slushy version of pepper. You can then re-freeze but it's like doing the same w ice-cream: it will lose some quality.
3) Sauce: Pros: can use with food, I did a Ghost pepper-based sauce once and it took literally just a pea sized portion to make a soup taste... a bit wild. But in a good way. If you ferment it properly you can gift to people. You can mix/match; I did Malagueta Pepper + tomatoes + lemon once and it was amazing. Cons: the process is not lengthy but messy. Also, if you make a hot sauce that needs very small application to food (as I did), you will soon find out you won't use all of it before it goes bad. [I gave my semi-bad sauce leftovers to dad when I was visiting and he turned them into wine that could kick you on your ass faster than vodka).
4) Fermentation: Pros: peppers keep size/color. Can store for years in unopened. Can easily give away to people. Cons: they lose A LOT of their spiciness during the heating process. Also, the vinegar addition (that is necessary for preservation) kind of makes them all taste, well, not the same, but similar. A bit messy process also.
This year I am doing 50/50 drying/freezing. If I want to test the pepper when fresh to get idea of how it tastes when right off the plant, before freezing I cut a small part of it off. Did that yesterday with Rocoto Red Giant. It was sweet, almost tomato-like at first, and only 3 seconds it went ''oh. OH. ok''. Really good one, will certainly grow it next year as well.