Why some jalapeños are SO much spicier than others

A HUGE thank you to all our jalapeño taste testers & raters: Melanie, Ashley, Liz, Ryan, Roopa, Lisa, Austin, Scott, Tim, Neuman, Toshi, Maeson, Taytum, James, Bodhi, and Ethan

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰 𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘁𝘆-𝗴𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘁𝘆:

𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗱 (𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲) 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀:

𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿-𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽𝗳𝘂𝗹 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗺𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗰:
-Dr. Ken Sweat, Lecturer in the School of Mathematical and Natural Sciences at Arizona State University
-Danise Coon, Research Coordinator & Senior Research Specialist, New Mexico State University
-Dr. Dennis Lozada, Assistant Professor in the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, New Mexico State University

MinuteFood is created by Kate Yoshida, Arcadi Garcia & Leonardo Souza, and produced by Neptune Studios LLC.

[jpbutler]

I've found that tapping them is best.

The ones that sound more hollow have a smaller pith, while the ones that sound more dense have a larger pith. I make several batches of salsa every year and this helps me choose whether the salsa is more palatable or more adventurous.

[babilon]

So you're saying that those hot jalapeños are peppered among the mild ones with no way to tell?

[Wrugoin]

Thank you! Finally! This solves a mystery from a few years ago. I enjoy spice in my foods, and LOVE the taste of jalapeños. They've always ranked in the tolerable scale of spice for me, so I never think twice about dishes on menus that contain jalapeños. We have an excellent local Mexican restaurant that has the best skirt steak w/roasted jalapeños. I've had it at least 3 or 4 times before this incident. I order it again, and this time the roasted pepper is among the hottest pepper I've ever had. I couldn't finish it. I was visibly uncomfortable and my friends questioned my spice tolerance from "just a jalapeño" I let one of the other guys try a bite and they immediately coughed. We all started to speculate if the restaurant substituted the jalapeño for another pepper because no jalapeños ever get that hot (according to us at that time). This video finally explains that evening.

[harshalshah]

This why I use mostly Serrano peppers as they tend to have consistent heat levels.

[StephenByersJ]

I like playing roulette — sometime the dish is spicier or milder depending on the day. Variety of spice is the spice of life.

[CRUSADER_J]

I remember picking up some Jalapeños from Walmart a couple weeks back and making poppers out of them.
5 of them were mild or at least had little heat at all! but one of them was like straight LAVA for some odd reason, almost as hot as a Habanero!

This video helps alot because now I will be able to pick them out for either an enjoyable meal or super spicy to put in my Chili or soup!

[SamClemens-idcl]

A mexican restaurant herr serves marinated jalepenos as garnish.

And one day, it was the absolutely hattest jalapeno I have ever had. I thought it came from a plant that had accidently become hybridized with a hotter pepper.

It was so hot that the residual capsacin (sp?) on the fork wa enough to cause the mouth onbfire sensation.

[capsicumconsumer]

I'd say 80% of the spice variation in specific variety of peppers is from genetic differences, the other 10% being growing conditions and 10% ripeness. Most likely the stores source jalapenos from multiple different farms all with slightly different genotypes or varieties of a jalapeno some being hotter than others, and some of the stores just throw the all of them in the same area. The idea that a riper or corked pepper is spicer is generally true if you're talking about peppers from the same plant or with identical genetics, corked peppers being in the right climate for capsaicin production and ripe peppers have more time to produce capsaicin, paler green jalapenos also fall into the ripeness category since those are usually just underride jalapenos picked too early, therefore not a lot of time for capsaicin production. My source is I have grown about a 500 pepper plants and ate 10k+ peppers, also working on a bachelor's in botany.

[aloadofbread]

Excellent diagrams & charts (and great teaspoon technique!)

[PattiWinker]

Wow! I needed this. I have a bag full of jalapeños from my farm CSA and have been avoiding using them. I will definitely taste each one first, and not rely on how they look. 👍 Great information!

[mikeh]

I remember getting a jalapeno from a supermarket in Connecticut and dicing it up for making chilli. Then, 20 minutes later, my fingers felt like I had held them over a hot flame for a long time. I couldn't have imagined that would happen.

[JoshVennix]

Excellent presentation. Very well put together

[whitsixkiller]

My method for finding the heat level in a jalapeños has been pretty accurate for several years. Cut the top off and touch my tongue to the pit or core of the pepper it's honestly the only real way to tell. I keep a slice of lime handy incase I run into a psycho hot one. Pop the lime slice in my mouth swish the juice around helps knock the burn down.

[theunknownunknowns]

This is such a good channel. Thanks, Kate😊. The variation is a good thing. Variety is the spice of life.

[Underpantsniper]

I have a big serrano pepper plant growing in my back yard, the peppers vary wildly in how spicy they are all from the same plant.

[gregl]

I think the experiment was pretty informative. Other than a few outliers the color, shade and corking were good indicators. With the additional information of the orange line in the pith, I think it would be possible to pick out a generally mild or spicy batch.

[carlgomm]

Here in Florida I grow my own jalapenos, they're consistently hotter than store peppers, I've had the same plants for several years, such a nice video ❤

[JoJo-JoJo-JoJo]

This is why I don't use jalapeños for Chiles Toreados. I use yellow chiles, my Mom called them güerito chiles that are very constant with the heat levels. Great video, thank you!

[endrankluvsdaloko]

I've been wondering about this for a while. One of my favorite snacks is to get chips with ranch dip. After eating one with a bit of avocado, I take a little nibble of a jalapeno for a little heat and flavor. Some Jalapenos have absolutely no heat. It's like drinking pepper-flavored water. But some are so hot I almost have to spit it out.

[fillmainlol]

Pepper X!! Im so glad yall are educated. You wouldnt believe the amount of channels that still think a Carolina Reaper is the hottest pepper