The Trade Journal for the Modern Chilihead
NASA’s PH-04 experiment grew chile peppers on the International Space Station for 137 days. A newly published microbial analysis of the returned fruit raises a question worth chewing on down here: is sanitizing seed too well actually costing plants their defenses?
Read More
As one of two hot sauce sponsors for the recent Mid-South Chili Pepper Classic League of Fire Belt Match –
Read More
Gettysburg’s two-day pepper festival that raises money for first responders — and now hosts the League of Fire World Title. Recap of the 2025 event and a preview of what’s coming in September 2026.
Read More
$3 billion in retail sales. The end of heat creep. Fermentation as baseline. What 2025 told us about the hot sauce industry, and what the makers, growers, and distributors should watch in 2026.
Read More
Hot sauce doesn’t burn anything. It binds to a single receptor in your nervous system and lies to your brain. Here’s how the mechanism actually works, and what it means for sauce makers.
Read More
The mold that makes soy sauce is quietly rewriting craft hot sauce fermentation. Here’s what koji does, who’s using it well, and how to try it in your own ferments.
Read More
Ed Currie spent over a decade developing the pepper that would replace his own Carolina Reaper. Pepper X is what came next — and it’s built for the people who actually make hot sauce.
Read More
I had no intention of our first post being on Wendy’s but here I am. Wendy’s is known for having
Read More