What happened to the jalapeno "bite?"

[GA Home Cook]

Made some salsa at the end of the summer with fresh tomatoes, onion, and jalapenos. Put it in the pressure canner for about 20 minutes.

Just opened a jar and there is no jalapeno bite. I mean nothing, like it evaporated. Any ideas why?

 

[CraigC]

Its the jap. I have gotten japs that seem as fiery as a habanero and some as mild as a green bell. I have gotten pablanos that will light you up. I think it has to do with the proximty to other varieties when grown and pollenation.

 

[CWS4322]

Its the jap. I have gotten japs that seem as fiery as a habanero and some as mild as a green bell. I have gotten pablanos that will light you up. I think it has to do with the proximty to other varieties when grown and pollenation.

I would concur. Some of the jalapenos we grow are mild, others are REALLY hot. Did you taste the mix before you canned it? Could you taste the jalapeno then?

 

[JanaAZ]

I made some jam with jalapeno in it last summer. After I processed it for canning, it lost some of its heat, too. If you canned your salsa, that may be what happened to you, too. I've learned to add more heat than I want so that it's ok when I open up the jar after canning.

 

[GotGarlic]

If chiles are picked too early, they will not have fully developed their heat. Also, chiles develop more heat when the plant is somewhat stressed, so be careful not to over-water them.

 

[jennyema]

Cooking chiles makes them decidedly milder.

 

[GLC]

Supermarket jalapenos have been wildly variable.Some newer varieties, like Jalapeno Fooled You F1, have no heat at all but are no difference in appearance, except for being slightly larger. I don't expect to encounter that one very often in the regular jalapeno bin, but you can get Senorita or another variety with a fraction of the usual heat. And I'm not sure some growers aren't getting cross-pollination that makes the heat yields unpredictable.

 

[GotGarlic]

Cooking chiles makes them decidedly milder.

I'm not so sure about that. I've made roasted tomatillo salsa from home-grown jalapenos and serranos for the last several years and they're pretty hot even after cooking and freezing for several months.

 

[Claire]

The main thing is that many recipes call for seeding and removing the sinew. Once you do that .... well, you might as well use a green bell pepper.

 

[GA Home Cook]

I did taste before canning, to make sure I had the spices right. It had a decidedly hotter bite than after canning. I am going to try it again this year. I will do a test and get back.

 

[Claire]

Anyone who does gardening at home also knows that given weather considerations and cross-pollinating (for some reason peppers cross pollinate very easily) one pepper from the same plant will have a completely different heat level than another one from the same plant. I have taken to growing "super cayenne" rather than jalapeno. They seem to be more consistent. But i used to have a balcony garden, many moons ago. A friend had given us what we called "papal peppers" because he took them from a bush in Vatican City. They were upright and yellow. I used the seeds from them the first year, got upright, and to us medium heat (heat is definitely subjective). Took those seeds the third year and got orange, down pointing peppers (a neighbor was growing cayennes and we had pepper sex going on!)

 

[GotGarlic]

Anyone who does gardening at home also knows that given weather considerations and cross-pollinating (for some reason peppers cross pollinate very easily) one pepper from the same plant will have a completely different heat level than another one from the same plant. I have taken to growing "super cayenne" rather than jalapeno. They seem to be more consistent. But i used to have a balcony garden, many moons ago. A friend had given us what we called "papal peppers" because he took them from a bush in Vatican City. They were upright and yellow. I used the seeds from them the first year, got upright, and to us medium heat (heat is definitely subjective). Took those seeds the third year and got orange, down pointing peppers (a neighbor was growing cayennes and we had pepper sex going on!)

Or the original plant was a hybrid.

 

[jharris]

I see the same thing happen with green chiles from the same patch.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the individual chiles location on the plant relative to exposure to sunlight?