Is there a cheap, easy way to test spiciness level of a pepper? Like perhaps how sugar level is tested for fruit (but easy, cheap method).

For example, if I'm making batches of salsa, some people prefer spicier. Others prefer mild. But everyone likes the taste / sweetness of certain peppers. Like Fresno peppers - they are very sweet and tasty. Or maybe even jalapenos.

The problem is that the spiciness level varies from each individual pepper to pepper. I've been sorting by tasting each individual pepper.

But that's tedious and time consuming and, after getting the first spicy pepper, I can no longer tell how spicy the subsequent peppers are.

Is there a cheap and easy tool to check spiciness level?

I have several varieties growing in my garden. The a small dab tip of my tongue is the best test.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
Is there a cheap, easy way to test spiciness level of a pepper? Like perhaps how sugar level is tested for fruit (but easy, cheap method).

For example, if I'm making batches of salsa, some people prefer spicier. Others prefer mild. But everyone likes the taste / sweetness of certain peppers. Like Fresno peppers - they are very sweet and tasty. Or maybe even jalapenos.

The problem is that the spiciness level varies from each individual pepper to pepper. I've been sorting by tasting each individual pepper.

But that's tedious and time consuming and, after getting the first spicy pepper, I can no longer tell how spicy the subsequent peppers are.

Is there a cheap and easy tool to check spiciness level?

I don't know of any way to test, but from growing jalapenos for years I've found that the tip end is hotter than the base end.
Also, if they show some straw colored stripes they will be hotter than the smooth ones.
If they've been on the plant long enough to turn red, they will definitely be hotter.

A chef on TV once said that peppers with more curve in the stem are hotter than those with straight stems, but I do know if that's really true.

Interesting..... I'll check that out.

There isn't outside of a lab (the Scoville scale is subjective anyway, so even that isn't precise.) The best way is going to be to look up a heat range for the pepper you're testing online. Even that isn't perfect as sometimes a ghost pepper will be hotter than a reaper, and some jalapenos try to hurt you.

I grow quite a few peppers, and I've kind of settled into a 3 part classification. 0-100,000 SHU is mild, 100,000- 1,000,000 SHU is medium, and 1,000,000 plus is hot. It's not the most accurate, but I've gotten to the point I can kind of tell how hot I'm going to make my food within those ranges at least.

Thanks. But that’s not entirely my problem at hand. If I buy jalapeños, I get some that are mild and some that are very spicy (too much even). I prefer not to sample each one. And even if I do, once I hit a spicy one, I can’t judge anything after that.

I can take a wide range of spicy. But others are very sensitive.

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Yes there is, but I no longer have access to the test lab...

In the past, I would simply give the food sample to my little brother to eat then watch his reaction. Unfortunately, he hasn't fallen for my ~ "Hey Mike, taste this" requests for a long time now.

The good old days, so much fun!!!

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Remove the seeds and placenta (the whitish middle part the seeds are attached to) and you will remove most if not all of the heat from a jalapeno, and most other mild peppers as well. That should make them safe for most people, and you can add some of it back if you want more heat.

Jalapeño peppers seem to be totally random.

My six year old son was eating slices of jalapeño from his Pop’s garden and got overconfident (I guess they were very mild). His uncle brought him one from his garden, he put a slice of it in his mouth, started chewing and then his eyes bugged wide open he ran over to the trashcan and spit it out, screaming MILK MILK MILK MILK!

Fun times

Most of the heat is in the membranes and seeds. I regulate the heat in my salsa by the amount of membranes and seeds I leave in the peppers when I make my salsa.

Let’s say a batch of salsa has 6 peppers in it. For mild leave the seeds and membranes in two of the peppers, medium 3-4 peppers worth of seeds and membranes and hot just leave all the peppers intact.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Jalapeño peppers seem to be totally random.

My six year old son was eating slices of jalapeño from his Pop’s garden and got overconfident (I guess they were very mild). His uncle brought him one from his garden, he put a slice of it in his mouth, started chewing and then his eyes bugged wide open he ran over to the trashcan and spit it out, screaming MILK MILK MILK MILK!

Fun times

I've been making Jalapeno Poppers a few times a year for a long, long time.

I've tried all sorts of things to find out how hot they are, and so far I've failed miserably.

Jalapenos around here vary tremendously in their heat, going from maybe 2 to 10 in my personal hotness meter, but the only way I've found to test them is to taste them.

I’m no Gardner but I’ve read that peppers easily cross pollinate and therefore a jalapeño may get crossed with some other pepper in the same area and take on those heat characteristics. Hence super hot or mild. I haven’t found any reliable way to tell if they are hot or mild. Stripes, bend, color, nothing seems consistent.

One thing to consider is the freshness of the peppers. A Thai restaurant owner the we dine at told us the reason the same dish is hotter some days than others is because the fresher peppers are hotter.

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peppers with more curve in the stem are hotter than those with straight stems,

That's what the old lady said to the sailor.

quote:

Originally posted by frayedends:
I’m no Gardner but I’ve read that peppers easily cross pollinate and therefore a jalapeño may get crossed with some other pepper in the same area and take on those heat characteristics. Hence super hot or mild. I haven’t found any reliable way to tell if they are hot or mild. Stripes, bend, color, nothing seems consistent.

They don't easily cross pollinate, but they can. Cross pollination won't affect the peppers growing this year, they will be true to what you started with. Cross pollination will affect the genetics of the seeds however, so the plants grown from the cross pollinated seeds will reflect the cross.

No, there isn't.

Each variety (jalapeno, serrano, whatever) have a general range and that's that.

Eat lots of peppers, know their ranges, makes lots of things with them, and you eventually sort of know.

But you'll never really know.

quote:

I’m no Gardner but I’ve read that peppers easily cross pollinate and therefore a jalapeño may get crossed with some other pepper in the same area and take on those heat characteristics. Hence super hot or mild. I haven’t found any reliable way to tell if they are hot or mild. Stripes, bend, color, nothing seems consistent.

I do not disagree with you frayedends...Two plus years ago a gal farmer at my local weekend's farmer's market was selling very large jalapeno peppers amongst several tables of her many other colorful varieties of peppers, all of gorgeous rich coloration. When I asked her about the heat of hers and why most fresh jalapenos I had purchased were always so mild she forcefully replied, "Stop buying your jalapenos from Walmart!" So, being guilty as charged, I bought some of hers and they were wonderful & quite hot. And it hasn't been just Walmart, I've confronted the same issue at several other major grocery chains. I am suspicious that they are supplying what the greatest number of their customers will buy, i.e., demand driven. My son is growing his own "Reapers"! So growing your own jalapenos from choice seed may be your answer.

While not exactly the same topic, a very large proportion of the garlic now sold in the USA is of communist chinese origin and seldom, if ever, so labeled. If the roots are closely/scrupulously cut to the bottom of the bulb(a laborious task)to comply with USDA import disease prevention rules then the garlic is most likely of communist chinese origin. In my experience that garlic is near worthless as regards having any flavor; worse that dirt cheap source has very badly damaged the domestic growers of garlic by undercutting domestic growers' costs.. My perception, parallel to the jalapeno notion, is that most folk do not really know of, or care for, strong garlic flavors(their loss). For potent garlic one has to either grow a good cultivar oneself, or get them from local, boutique, and online sources/farmers. Garlic cannot be hybridized BTW, it only reproduces asexually. There are some 1K plus named known cultivated varieties.

I have been growing peppers for a number of years now.....love them. I agree with the above that if you remove the placenta and seeds, the resultant pepper will be quite mild....to me.

quote:

Originally posted by Perception:

quote:

Originally posted by frayedends:
I’m no Gardner but I’ve read that peppers easily cross pollinate and therefore a jalapeño may get crossed with some other pepper in the same area and take on those heat characteristics. Hence super hot or mild. I haven’t found any reliable way to tell if they are hot or mild. Stripes, bend, color, nothing seems consistent.

They don't easily cross pollinate, but they can. Cross pollination won't affect the peppers growing this year, they will be true to what you started with. Cross pollination will affect the genetics of the seeds however, so the plants grown from the cross pollinated seeds will reflect the cross.

Unscientifically, I think hot varieties next to Jalapenos increase the heat of the jalapenos. Maybe. I don't know if the opposite is true, because I can't heat habanero/serrano raw like I can a jalapeno.
I know that water availability will affect heat of the peppers (less=hotter), as well as yield from the plant(more=more peppers). I suspect that commercial farms prefer yield over scoville.

According to my World Encyclopedia of Cooking Ingredients,the more a pepper suffers the hotter it will be. So ,if you are growing them , and want them hot, make the starve for water.
Makes sense as well, that mass grown peppers don't have heat, as mass growers are surely looking for yields, and supplying the necessary water for such.