HOWTO make a chili mister

Instructables has just posted the latest installment in its series of HOWTOs inspired by my latest novel, Little Brother, a young adult novel about hacker kids who fight the DHS with technology in order to restore the Bill of Rights to America.

This week, it's HOWTO build a spice-mister, a low-intensity edible pepper-spray to douse your food with (one of the characters in the book is a serious capsaicin junkie). Being the kind of guy who'd brush his teeth with Tobasco if I could, I love this one.

Putting the spice mister together is not hard. Simply remove the pump, fill with your choice of hot sauce, and put the pump back in.
To add a quick burst of intense flavor to your food, hold the mister a few inches above the dish and spray. Repeat until desirable heat is reached.
Keep it away from your face, and never spray at anyone else - capsaicin in the eyes hurts like hell. Pepper spray is nasty, evil stuff and should never, ever be used on anything except food.

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I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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FarrisGoldstein

Tobasco is nasty. Get your hands on some real, vinegar-free hot sauce. Like Tapatio. It’s delicious, and it’s the only hot sauce with a picture of my dad in a sombrero.
Jake0748

Tenn @ 39 – best low-tech Rickroll ever.

I hope you’re not feeling down about stomach problems. My brother has a pretty full-blown case of Crohn’s and/or IBS. I have none of it. I was afraid for a while, since that stuff seems to have some genetic component, but my innards seem to be pretty happy, no matter what I eat.

But when I was your age hot spicy stuff gave me problems too. I guess alls I’m saying is that give it a few years, you’ll be surprised at all the stuff you can put down your gullet with no problems.

In our house we call a stomachache a stom ach a chee.
Jason McIntosh

@ 6 & @ 17 -

Missing the point. The article isn’t “Hey, wow, there’s this device that you can place liquid into and it shoots out, kazow!”, it’s “Hey, I bet you never thought of putting yummy high-intensity pepper sauce into a spritzer.”

And, verily, I bet you never have, either. (I haven’t!)
Tenn

Why, thankee Jake. What with the ‘Never give you up,’ Tak-kun was just inviting it. Yeah, my grandma’s got the Crohn’s and my uncle’s got the IBS and my aunt’s got the IBS so. It’s not just hot & spicy, so I’m pretty sure it’s something or other. Thanks for the optimism though, with luck you’ll be right.
Agent 86

Dave’s Insanity Sauce is their hot one, their Special Reserve is a limited run they pull out that is 3 times hotter than their regular Insanity sauce. It’s only purpose is to cook a large batch of chili, or destroy someone’s ability to taste for about a week.
Sister Y

Xopher, yeah – somehow the fraternity hazing situation seems morally different from the situation where somebody, say, asks his lover to pepper sauce him up like a dumpling. Maybe it’s the implication of coercion in the first situation. Maybe it’s the whole “had to be rushed to the hospital” thing.

Antinous, some of my heroes are flaming cocktails.
Tenn

Isn’t hazing voluntary, too, Sister? I know if I was in a club that asked me to demean or endanger myself I’d tell them to go burn. I suppose the whole group mentality thing I always blame is at fault, though.

Stupid human herd beasts.

You guys are pissing me off. Talking about chiles, making plans for misters, mentioning your wonderful sounding sauces-

and I can’t have any of it. At all. I’ve been banned by the gastrologist. I hope he cuts me up and figures out what’s wrong (shoving a camera down my throat next Thursday- hush Antinous) and if they don’t figure out what’s wrong with me I’m going to kill myself with cayenne and habanero.
Sister Y

Tenn – yeah, exactly. It’s consensual in some sense, but it still seems intuitively abhorrent to me . . . either my intuitions or wrong or my theory or both. Group pressure might negate consent in some circumstances. And there is evidence that people value group membership more when they’ve suffered to attain it.

By the way I’m having an extra helping of hot lime pickle in your honor.
Avram

I’m not enough of a spice-head to go for spraying capsaicin directly on my food, but my girlfriend sometimes mocks me for how much Sriracha I use.
Antinous

What are your symptoms?
Antinous

Is it possible that this is illegal? Commercial pepper spray is regulated as a weapon in some jurisdictions.
bokodasu

Wait, we need step-by-step instructions for filling a spray bottle now? The people who designed the warning label for my hair dryer were right – we are a nation that can’t find it’s arse with both hands and a map.
Takuan

grizzlies, browns, blacks and the odd Spirit bear are known to return to a bear spray site and roll in it. Truth.
Antinous

I â™¥ lime pickle. I had some last night.
Tenn

Sister Y- I’ll pretend your extra helping is meant to console me rather than tout your healthy innards. Suuuureeee. Just wait until you’re gumming your food. I’ll have extra servings of the crunchiest things I can find.

I guess I value my group (JROTC teams) from ‘suffering’. My Color Guard had to learn to do everything in less than a week more or less on our own, and we’ve always been the ones to get yelled at most by our Sergeant. The group pushups and workouts have made us one, I guess. That and with Sergeant Simms, I felt pretty ‘groupy’ with the other people who fell over and vomited from sheer exhaustion.

Symptoms.

Stabbing pains. Twisting pains. (Abdominal region) Nausea, fever (usually when I don’t eat in order to avoid the pain), black outs, lethargy. Insomnia because of the pain. It’s worse when I eat something that interferes- citrus, spice, salt, soda, energy drinks, school food, red meat. Anything delightful (with the exception of the school food.)

I have a family history of Crohn’s disease, colitis, stomach cancer, chronic ulcers, and various other ailments. That’s just on my mother’s side.
Antinous

I’ve seen loads of patients with UC and Crohn’s when I worked in the hospital. Living situation and family dynamics are really big co-factors. Don’t rush into surgery until you’ve had the opportunity to live unharassed for a while.
Tenn

Yeah, I figured that. It’s why I’m considering not attending college (grades might kill me even if I wanted to) and simply hopping from state to state, living on my own, working small jobs and just- absorbing culture.

I might be essentially forced into surgery, though- my grandma insists on me taking her pills to rectify the situation (as I haven’t been given any yet) and is the sort to push antibiotics on me at the slightest sign of a cold. I’m pretty good at palming things, though I take the acid reflux pill since it seems to help. I’m always nervous about takings something I’m not prescribed, though. I don’t think insisting on surgery would be beyond her at all. With luck I’ll be kicked out by then.
Perla

I come from a hot cayenne eating country, and Tabasco sauce is pitiful when you eat the real stuff. :-)
Xopher

Pepper spray is one thing. Pepper spritz is another. I wouldn’t worry about it.
Takuan

Tenn-chan-sama

This is for all the lonely people
Thinking that life has passed them by
Don’t give up
Until you drink from the silver cup
And ride that highway in the sky

This is for all the single people
Thinking that life has left them dry
Don’t give up
Until you drink from the silver cup
You never know until you try

Well, I’m on my way
Yes, I’m back to stay
Well, I’m on my way back home

This is for all the lonely people
Thinking that life has passed them by
Don’t give up
Until you drink from the silver cup
She’ll never take you down or
Never give you up
You’ll never know until you try
Antinous

I live in California. Our lives revolve around potential litigation.
Tenn

Taku-san-sensei,

Never gonna give you up
Never gonna let you down
Never gonna run around and desert you
Never gonna make you cry
Never gonna say goodbye
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you
arnettb

That cautionary aside about capsaicin reminds me of a short story I wrote. (Assorted caveats: it’s not great literature, it’s gross-out comedy; innocent characters in my story get hot pepper in horrible places; I’m a long-time reader, n00b commenter; I hope linking is not uncouth.)
Agent 86

This is the reason I hate hot sauce. I’ll stick with sliced banana-peppers and jalapeÃ±os for my kick.

Tenn, my favorite version.
Lexica

FarrisGoldstein @ 5 –

Arrrgh. Tabasco is not nasty, it’s a perfectly acceptable vinegar-based hot sauce. Sometimes one wants a vinegar-based hot sauce â€” for dipping french fries in, ketchup mixed with Tabasco is the only way to go, IMO. Mixing with Tapatio, or Crystal, or Cholula, or any of the others doesn’t give the same flavor, because the vinegar balances out the sweetness of the ketchup.

Could we please get past this idea that “if I don’t like something, it sucks”? Different people like different things.
bluemonq

I don’t dislike Tabasco because it isn’t spicy enough to be called a “hot sauce”; my problem is that it’s too watery. It doesn’t really stick well to anything.
Sister Y

“What they were doing was burning the young men,” he said. Fraternity brothers were said to have used boiling water containing pepper spray and a “crab boil” seasoning mixture containing cayenne pepper. The water was poured on the pledges’ backs, he said.

“The ones who screamed first didn’t get burned as badly,” he said. But as the evening wore on and the water grew hotter and hotter, the ones who had not screamed were severely burned.

Wow my parties suck.
Agit

@12
When I saw that the first thing that popped into my head was: “Damn, looks like the cock (Sriracha) would be too thick for that”

The ex-wife used to use that stuff like catsup, I tend to go a bit overboard with it when eating noodles.
Xopher

I can see Manhattan from where I’m sitting. (Well, OK, I have to stand up.) So maybe you’re right. In NYC everything is legal except in the presence of the police.
Miss Cellania

What a wonderful sentence: “Pepper spray is nasty, evil stuff and should never, ever be used on anything except food.”

Kinda like sex, which is nasty, sinful, dangerous, and should be only for someone you really love.
RikF

Miss Cellania,

the first – only if you’re doing it right
the second – only if you’ve subscribed to that set of morals
the third – only if you’re doing it wrong
the fourth – the best way to use it for sure, but the others have their place
funkyderek

If you want to make these on a commercial level you’ll need a special spice-mister-transporting machine. Here’s how to make one:
Step 1: Get a van. Any van will do as long as it has a working engine and space for your spice-misters. (A car will do but it may have less space.)
Step 2: Fill the van with spice-misters.
Step 3 (optional): Put a sticker of a chile on your van so people will know what you’re transporting.
Foolster41

That’s pretty cool.

“Keep it away from your face, and never spray at anyone else – capsaicin in the eyes hurts like hell. Pepper spray is nasty, evil stuff and should never, ever be used on anything except food.” Not even muggers?
Xopher

Cory, you spelled Tabasco wrong in the main post.

I keep expecting someone to dive in and accuse Cory of hypocrisy, because while the tabasco chile is a generic name, the people who make Tabascoâ„¢ sauce have successfully defended their trademark, to the point where no one else is allowed to make a hot sauce that says ‘tabasco’ anywhere on the labelâ€”including the ingredient list. (Please note I would think that it was stupid to accuse Cory of hypocrisy for liking the product; I’m just surprised the idiocracy hasn’t jumped on this yet.)

Our beloved moderator once posted a recipe for the making of habanero oil on her own blog. I’ve made it and it was damn tasty.
tuktuk

cory-

your comment about “brushing your teeth with tabasco” conjured up an image from the deep and strange lair of my childhood: the 1980 album cover of joe “king” carrasco and the crowns, which features an image of his keyboardist doing just that very thing, among other things. why did i have this (decidedly strange) nuevo huevo album hanging in my room? because joe “king” carrasco is my uncle, and his strange cover art was (and still is) quite fascinating.

here’s a shot of that cover:
http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/joe_king_carrasco/joe_king_carrasco_and_the_crowns/

(note the speech bubble wherein he offers a night with his sister (my aunt) for those that buy the album. this almost resulted in a lawsuit, and is still talked about around the thanksgiving table)
Cory Doctorow

Tuktuk! Hilarious — what a family tree!
Xopher

The sheer level of fire isn’t the ONLY important characteristic of a hot sauce. For example, when I make my habanero flavoring oil, I put orange peel and rosemary in it, which enhances the whole experience well beyond the sheer hotness.

The tabasco chile has its own distinct flavor, as does the chipotle. Neither is at the Scotch bonnet or habanero level in terms of Scovilles, but they are fine peppers and should not be summarily dismissed.
drivenbyboredom

I was once at a BBQ and the burgers were very spicy. I asked the cook what he put on it and he told me that since he didn’t have any spices, he borrowed a girls pepper spray and misted it up into the air over the burgers. It was actually strangely delicious.

Also once I walked through a sports related riot and I got near someone who had been citrus sprayed, and while extremely painful in a way, it did smell lemony fresh.
bbreader

#6 Bokodaso

couldn’t agree more.

postings like this are just blog-filler crap.
nobody special

Bokodasu: Right on! I totally agree.

Next up on Howto: instructions on creating attractive (and useful) mini-blocks of frozen water, and later, a step by step tutorial on sandwich assembly…
Xopher

Sister Y,

I have to say that my idea of a good party will henceforth include “one where no one was burned with boiling water and cayenne by his alleged friends who are criminals who should all be in prison.”

Thanks,
Brother X
Antinous

postings like this are just blog-filler crap

Hey, you forgot to link to your blog on your profile page. We all want to see some examples of really great blog posts.
Antinous

I set a guest on fire once with a flaming cocktail.
Agent 86

I’m happy, I just told my friend about this idea while he was pouring what amounts to an entire bottle worth of wimpy hot sauce, and he got up and hugged me. Never again will he suffer from being offered sub-par spice!
Tenn

No love like hawt sauce love. By the way, Dave’s is good tasting stuff. I’ve met some of the representatives and tasted various product and I quite like them. I like Tabasco for most stuff, but Dave’s has a special flavor. There’s also a brand that comes to the market at my school, I can’t recall the name but they make a mean habanero sauce. They had a couple of whole ones at the table and the maker offered one to this guy next to me who was posturing about hot sauces, and he was like no way man, so I challenged the maker to see who could get it down fast enough. Lost, I’m afraid. And I wonder why I have stomach problems.