I'm starting a search for old school "real" jalapenos.

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Chasdev

Master of the Pit
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Jan 18, 2020
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In the past two or three years my taste buds seemed to have changed and what used to be very hot peppers started to be getting milder and milder.
My bacon wrapped brisket/cheese jalapenos began to remind me of stuffed bell peppers, great flavor but the burn was gone.
I wrote it off to 60 years of taste bud abuse pepper wise, but I just read an article explaining that ALL farmed jalapeno seed stocks have been selected to NOT be hot!!
The article explained that if you want peppers that burn, switching to serranos is the answer.
Seems that Americans don't like hot hot salsa, and since billions of dollars of profit are at stake, mild salsas (and jalapenos) are all that's needed, hence the change from hot to mild peppers getting grown.
I've got $40 worth of fresh organic non/gmo jalapenos on order, due to arrive in a week or so, and my fingers are crossed that they can burn my mouth.
 
You may have to roll your own. I haven't bought any but the are a lot of non hybrid heirloom seed suppliers our there.
I found one after a quick search

I grow a lot of peppers and find it depends more on the weather and seasonal things. I use a lot of jalapenos, reds, blacks, Mucho Nacho. some seasons they are mild others very hot.
I do like a Serrano now and then.

RG

RG 20200903_161924.jpg
 
Hmm. If you want to stuff them, Serrano's are so much smaller...
If you aren't stuffing them, jalapenos are 10 x hotter if you don't remove any veins.
Could you try removing the veins, chipping then up and adding them into your stuffing?
 
Most supermarket jalapenos are mild. The weird thing is I dont wear gloves because of this when I cut and handle them and they will still burn my eye if I accidentally/instinctively rub or touch my eye before washing hands well.

In a way I kind of like the mild jalapenos because I dont like regular green peppers...like Burger King, I am burping them up for a couple days...so I avoid them. Jalapenos dont do that to me and I prefer their flavor, so I use them in any recipe where green peppers are typically used.

The mild spice level allows me to add my other heat spices, red pepper flakes, cayenne, hot sauce, etc. and control the heat level. When I used to grow them, like Chopsaw wrote, I would grow them with other hot peppers and they would cross pollinate and sometimes the jalapenos and Hungarian wax peppers would be as hot as the habaneros. They were so hot I could barely use them in any significant amount in a dish, and I dont mind sweating a bit from the capsicum!

I remember making a gazpacho that I didn't even put that much capsicum in that was so hot we had to eat it as salsa, and even that was borderline outrageously hot!

You can always add some cayenne to your recipe somewhere.
 
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Mrs ~t~'s Green Chile recipe (using 5# of pork butt) has bell pepper, poblanos, Anaheim, and serrano chilies. The amount of serranos is a variable from 4 to 24 and is used to regulate the heat.
 
I grow my own. They get pretty righteous in my soil. Mine are heirlooms and I harvest the seeds. Serranos do well here as do habaneros. Can't grow a decent-sized bell pepper or poblano in this soil though.
 
Here's my jalapeno farming efforts this year, same as last and the year before.
These were marked as extra hot jumbo varity.
Planted the starters in April.
The peppers shown are the first and only ones it produced.
I'm leaving them on the plant, perhaps they will dry out and reproduce next year.
FWIW, I applied a specific pepper type liquid fertilizer as per instructions.
I'm in central Texas, so dry and hot conditions come with no extra charge.
 

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I was told by a local farmer to keep the soil on the dry side , and plant a hotter variety in with the jalapenos .
I've heard similar. Almost starving them of water. Just enough to keep them alive.

Chris
 
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interesting for sure. kinda adds up too. I used to have to wear gloves when cutting jalapeños. I havent for years. Ive bought poblanos that were hotter than the jalapeños at kroger. My buddy grows some scorchers tho. I bet the right seeds and growing conditions will get what you want.
 
Sandia Seeds has a variety of seeds that might be of interest.
 
As mentioned earlier I'd look on the pepper head seed plenty sites. They will have identified as hot. Definitely the grocery store stuff has been standardized to be very mild usually. I have a friend that grows some and the working on them is amazing. Very hot.
 
I grow a wide variety of peppers every year.
I get my seed from specialty sources such as

Intermixing pepper varieties and cross pollinating doesn't show up until the next generation.
The random hot peppers are from last season's cross pollinating

...
I grow a lot of peppers and find it depends more on the weather and seasonal things. I use a lot of jalapenos, reds, blacks, Mucho Nacho. some seasons they are mild others very hot.
I do like a Serrano now and then.
...
I've found this to be very true
...
I'm in central Texas, so dry and hot conditions come with no extra charge.
Peppers don't like to set fruit if the temps are too hot.
 
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Like Hockeydudde Hockeydudde and chef k-dude chef k-dude suggest, adding heat is probably easier than finding jalapeños with the heat built in.

The article explained that if you want peppers that burn, switching to serranos is the answer.
Did a serrano farmer write this article? (j/k) I like serranos, but there are so many varieties of pepper out there to try. The way some people keep an atlas on their bookshelf as inspiration for places they want to one day visit, I have a book on pepper varieties that I want to someday try!
 
My uncle claims that the sharp tipped jalapeños are hotter. No idea if there's any real correlation there.
The Serrano is a great pepper and represents the threshold of my tolerance. When spring rolls around, you should grow some jalapeños and purposefully neglect them a bit. When they're watered regularly and generally cared for, they'll produce milder peppers. Worth a shot.
 
Tam Jalepeno and Mammoth Jalepeno varieties are very common in grocery stores to day, they are mild and usually run about 1500 on the scoville scale.

https://pepperscale.com/jalapeno-varieties/
The mammoth jalapeno plants I grew a couple years ago were described by Bonnie as having the same heat as a normal jalapeno but larger fruit. They were big, but no real heat at all compared to what I usually grow. And yeah, I think Tam peppers are what you mostly find in grocery stores. Same flavor of a Jalapeno with no heat.
 
The mammoth jalapeno plants I grew a couple years ago were described by Bonnie as having the same heat as a normal jalapeno but larger fruit. They were big, but no real heat at all compared to what I usually grow. And yeah, I think Tam peppers are what you mostly find in grocery stores. Same flavor of a Jalapeno with no heat.
I grew a couple of the TAM plants last season. The name is shorthand for Texas A&M, the university where they were selectively bred. I live a couple of hours from the school, so I figured they'd grow really well in the garden. They did great, although I didn't realize until later they're about as mild as it gets. That was a disappointment for me, as I love the heat. The were just right for the family, though.
 
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TL:DR
If you don't want to move up from japs, when selecting fresh take the ones that have the most striations.

IE the ones that have the most white lines running the length of the pepper. Those will be the hottest.

If growing your own, you need to let the plant NEED water. I do that with my reapers==when you see the leaves drooping, that is when you give them some water.

Next time they droop, then water again.

That stress is what makes them hotter.
 
I was told by a local farmer to keep the soil on the dry side , and plant a hotter variety in with the jalapenos .
YES! I have planted jalapeño, habanero and cayenne all in close proximity and had much hotter jalapeños than one would normally expect. Incidentally, many moons ago I planted cayenne too close to tomatoes and had hot tomatoes!
 
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