First and foremost our paprika and chile flakes begin by indentifying pepper varieties that are traditionally grown to be dried and ground. Since these varieties are not in high demand in the US, we’ve found interesting varieties from primarily from small seed producers. We appreciate the work of Restoration Seeds, Uprising Seeds, and Adaptive Seeds to name a few.

Seed quality and variety are vitally important so we’ve begun producing Hungarian Boldog seed in partnership with Fedco Seeds

Peppers are a long season crop in coastal Maine, we start sowing seeds in February. All told, we had around 2,000 pepper plants this spring. We spend months cultivating healthy plants that will set fruit early, as only red ripe fruits can be used to make Paprika.

Harvest begins in August and peaks in September. This year we enjoyed a beautiful weather in October and abundant late ripening but such bounty is not guaranteed.

The next steps bring us into our barn to halve, deseed and dehydrate the peppers for about 20 hours. It takes up to 15 pounds of peppers to yield 1 pound of dried flakes!

Thanks to our barn’s rooftop solar array, a sun-filled summer not only improves pepper yields but also supports clean energy production for the drying and grinding process.

After the peppers are dried and crisp to the touch we send them through a commercial grinder. We select a fine grind for some varieties and a larger die to create a more rustic flake for others. The paprika is ready to jar, and it has been at least 180 days since the first seed was planted.