How do you prefer your chile? Father-son roasters gearing up for the season

The heat is a reminder that summer lingers, and yet that unmistakable smell of roasting chile now in front of grocery stores across town previews a promising autumn.

The season seems to start earlier and earlier in the year — even early August seems too early to Jhett Browne, the younger of a father-son tandem of the same name that has been roasting chile for decades. The two operate the Farmers Chile Market roaster on Eubank, which opened for the chile roasting season Friday.

As shoppers are on the lookout for classics like Big Jim, or newer varieties like the extra-spicy Lumbre, a chile roaster can bring people together like a New Mexican townhall.

“People of all shapes and sizes come together, and you generally have to wait when you’re roasting chile, especially on the weekends,” said the younger Brown. “We try to get people out of here as quickly as possible, so they don’t have to wait. Sometimes they have to wait 30 minutes to an hour. In that time, they meet a lot of different people. I’ve seen lots of friendships develop.”

The elder Browne has been roasting chile since 1977, the younger Browne since age 12. The Brownes owned a chain of local grocery stores, 10 stores at their peak, and roasted chile as part of the stores’ operation. Although the stores closed in 2018, they still operate a seasonal chile roasting business under the same name.

“Chile back then was different than now because everybody had to roast their own, and it takes take four, five, six hours to roast your chile,” said the elder Browne. One day he saw a vendor with a chile roasting machine in the back of his truck, which the vendor said could roast chile in five minutes.

“The light bulb goes off,” he said, “and I think, ‘you know, that might be something really, really special.’ Sure enough, it changed the entire industry.”

The chile market has changed a lot in the decades since the Brownes began roasting. There are more varieties on the market. Industrial chile farms have also become more prevalent.

“The term Hatch chile has become very famous throughout the United States,” said the younger Browne. “And because of that, there’s a lot of farms that grow chile based on United States federal produce standards, which grade things based on straightness and length and things like that. That doesn’t put precedence on the flavor. So, there’s a lot of varieties that are sold in big grocery stores that, quite frankly, don’t have the flavor.”

He added that he would rather buy chile in a sack than a box.

“But the grocery stores, if they get chile sold in a sack, they’re going to complain about it because it curves, because it’s small, things like that. So that’s why most people who buy out of state say they can’t really get hot chile, because the hotter the chile is, the more it curves. The smaller it is, and it doesn’t really live up to those produce-grade examples.”

The Brownes work with more small farms, including several in the Hatch area and one near Socorro. More and more small farms are dropping out of the industry, because it’s more difficult for them to deal with increasing labor costs and continuing water issues, said the elder Browne. New Mexican farmers have faced shortened irrigation seasons for several years, and the state has experienced long-term drought.

Picking chile is very hard work, and roasting chile is hot work. The people roasting the chile wear 18-inch gloves but are still likely to get burned a few times a week.

Chile roasters start with high heat to generate blisters on the chile. The blisters will pop. The heat is lowered after a few minutes and the roaster spins so it takes the peel off. Chile is full of water, which makes it difficult, but not impossible, to burn. With inattention, a pepper can dry out and burn.

“If a chile is more red, it takes longer to roast. If it’s bigger, it takes longer to roast. Every single sack of chile is different, so when I train people, I always tell them to really pay attention to every single one,” said the younger Browne, the business’s primary chile roaster.

Along with chile, the Brownes sell ristras, New Mexico produce — watermelons, onions, garlic and other locally grown food — and Colorado peaches.

“When we get the Colorado peaches, people go crazy because they’re just so sweet and juicy,” the elder Browne said.

They also carry fresh super-hot peppers like Carolina Reapers, which average over 2 million Scoville units. The hottest New Mexico chile averages closer to 10,000 Scoville units in comparison. Some of the Brownes’ favorites are Big Jim, which is meaty and easy to use, and Miss Junie. The elder Browne tastes a pod from every single shipment that comes in to make sure the flavor and heat are correct. If the chile is a hot variety, that’s not always a fun task.

“We’ll get people that come in and get like three or four sacks of Lumbre and it just makes the air spicy. Like it makes your eyes water just being around,” said the younger Browne. “It’s that hot.”