thoroughburro 2022

thoroughburro · Aug 2, 2022

The baccatum are beginning to ripen! To be fair, Ají Amarillo Baby has been irrepressible for weeks, but I didn’t want to write it up before tasting others to compare.

Ají Fantasy Orange, Blended Lemon, and Ají Amarillo Baby:

The colors lost something to the forum compression… the Fantasy is a pale but proper orange, in person. And I forgot to take a post-slice shot; sorry!

I tried the Blended Lemon first. This is a Lemon Drop variant bred for medium heat and larger pods. The other Lemon Drop variant in the grow is Ají Pineapple, and I’ll compare them when they get around to ripening.

Anyway, it certainly has a pleasant, sparkly sourness to it… sweet-tart, but more towards tart. I was primed for lemon, but I really didn’t get any at all. To me, it came across more like a Granny Smith apple. It was also very crisp. Yum! I would call it a “medium” to the average palate, maybe 5 kSHU.

Next was Ají Fantasy Orange, which quickly stole the spotlight: nice tropical aroma upon slicing, leaning towards mango. I’ve noticed a similar aroma in Ají Amarillo Baby before, but it’s stronger here. Really pleasant. This is an extremely crisp pod, like wow! I did not know that’s a possible texture for a pepper! In a good way, very enjoyable, but I wouldn’t want it any more crisp. It also bursts with a very similar sweet-tart, extra tart balance as Blended Lemon, but its flavor is informed by the tropical aroma and comes across a bit rounder and fuller. I wouldn’t put one ahead of the other on flavor, just different; the super-brightness of Blended Lemon is itself really appealing. Probably also “medium”, but a bit lower, maybe 3 kSHU.

Finally, Ají Amarillo Baby disappointed in this tasting… but I’ve been really impressed previously and suspect its less acidic profile just didn’t fare well after the fireworks. It was good, but unremarkable. I’ll give it its own write-up, sometime.

thoroughburro · Aug 3, 2022

Here are three I’ve been waiting to try together.

Datil:

Habanero Marobie:

Habanero Oxkutzcabense (or Oxkutzcabian):

And here they are sliced (Hab Ox, Hab Mar, Datil):

I started with what I expected to be the mildest, the little Datil. I knew these would be small and seedy, and they are indeed small and seedy… their flavor will have to do heavy lifting! They get bonus points for being the only (or oldest, if you prefer) landrace chinense of the mainland US.

This didn’t really stand out to me, but it’s very good. I pretty much stuck to varieties with really solid reputations this year, so bear in mind that varieties which come across as “just all right” in these tastings are actually really good, just not substantially better than the other really good peppers. The Datil flavor is as advertised, but the heat on my peppers is higher than expected… at least as hot as Scotch Bonnet TFM, call it 250 kSHU or so.

Habanero Marobie isn’t widespread in the US scene, and only its originator and Fatalii Seeds seem to sell it, at least to a casual search. It’s a bigger, yellower habanero said to be particularly fruity. It is particularly flavorful for a habanero, but the comparison doesn’t hold… it’s yellow like a scotch bonnet, and it tastes to me more like a less flavorful bonnet than a more flavorful habanero. A habanero for the orange habanero haters, perhaps! Also it’s “hot” at most. Described as low habanero heat, but if it’s hotter than Jalapeño Zapotec I’d be surprised. 10-20 kSHU?

Now. The star. The next hype pepper, you heard it here (or maybe here) first. Habanero Oxkutzcabense. Also known as PI 438629, collected in 1979 from the famous citrus market in Oxkutzcab, Yucatán. The pods are typical of a Yucatán orange habanero in shape and shininess, with a conveniently small amount of top-clustered seeds. But you slice it open, and the smell is amazing. Every pod has a really fruity, often mangoey tropical aroma going on which is strangely similar to that in the baccatums tasted in the last post. The typical orange habanero aroma is still there, to my nose, but in the background. The flavor is equal to the aroma. Tropical fruit and pleasant florals with reminders that it’s a hab in the background. Just a little sweeter than a standard hab, with a little more sour to balance, but nothing remarkable outside the family. The heat is remarkably intense, but it sneaks up. “At least as hot as Bahamian Goat,” I thought, before taking a little break to hiccup and sweat more than BG has ever made me. It’s the hottest pepper I’ve tried, actually, so I can’t place it accurately… has to be north of 400 kSHU, I would guess.

I absolutely love it. Plus, every individual I have of it is more healthy and productive relative to other varieties save Bahamian Goat, with several being very productive. They have smaller, less wrinkled leaves than my other chinense, and they are taller, though still far from lanky.

I got my seeds from RFC, but I’ll be loading up the seed train with a big packet of these, among other favorites, later in the year if you’re patient. I’ll be cheerleading this variety for years to come!

PaulG · Aug 3, 2022

Nice review, TB. I grew the Datil for a few
seasons back in the early 20-teens. The
seed for those came from Jamie (@romy6)
in Florida. The second season produced
some really gnarly firecracker pods. I though
t they were quite hot.

thoroughburro · Aug 4, 2022

I expected this to be a longer-season baccatum along with Sugar Rush Stripey, but CAP 455 continues to surprise:

The pod in the rear is just a day or two away! This is on par with all but my fastest baccatum, despite its lovely, large pods.

thoroughburro · Aug 6, 2022

thoroughburro said:
Fortunately, a few varieties have stepped up as Unburnable, so I’ve been able to shuffle things around to accommodate exposure tolerance. For example, here’s how NuMex Trick-or-Treat has responded to the harshest light in the yard:

With productivity under the sun like this, you’d think it was bred by a New Mexican university!

NuMex Trick-or-Treat continues to be the most branching, most vigorous chinense of the grow, with almost irritatingly abundant foliage. It has also shown no disease, which, based on on the rest of the grow, indicates remarkable resistance to: soil quality and/or water irregularity, wooly aphids, and direct all-day sun at 100F (38C). In fact, they’ve thrived, were among the first chinense to ripen, and continue to produce full-sized, on-pheno pods.

I am out there near every day tying up various branches, but that’s the thing: it’s all branches at every phase of growth, with no clear central stem to prioritize support. It would be a clear negative, but look at the representative example above. The branches don’t break, rather are happy to trail, heavily laden, in the grass.

On any other variety, there are moments when you know to prune this weaker branch, or tie up this stronger one. The plant gets overgrown like this because there are never those moments. And no punishment! I go out after a flash flood-level downpour expecting carnage, but they weather it better than the rest, all the while laden with huge pods.

To me it’s mostly useful as a heat-balancing sauce habanero. But if that’s what you want, it’s a winner.

thoroughburro · Aug 7, 2022

Yellow Pequin is finally starting to ripen. These are from 3 out of 4 individuals; the 4th has yet to ripen. They all seem more orange than yellow, to me.

I tried a couple, and they were both quite grassy. Maybe they’ll improve…

thoroughburro · Aug 7, 2022

thoroughburro said:
Next, I tried Naga Smooky Rainbow:

I thought these had rot inside at first, but nope… that’s a solid, dark outer layer of anthocyanin throughout the placenta. Neat!

Tasting notes on these from other people really run the gamut, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. They don’t have a ton of flavor, but what is there is good. Again, not much chinense, but it’s more present than the above; decent amount on the aroma, just a little in the mouth. Crunchy, slightly sweet. Flavor is on the more savory side, with tomatoey notes. Maybe 100 kSHU at most. Probably a great pepper for those who dislike the musk, but it doesn’t fit any of my needs so, despite its top-of-the-grow hardiness and productivity, I probably won’t grow it again.

An update on this tasting. I made a very simple sauce recipe with the NSR which I usually use with ripe jalapeños (inspired by a three-ingredient Trader Joe’s sauce I was addicted to). I’m also using it as my minimal sauce for taste testing, so I’ll share the outline here:

By weight, equal parts halved and seeded peppers and rice wine vinegar, then 3% of that total in salt. Blend to your preferred consistency, transfer to a sauce pan, bring to a bare simmer, and maintain, covered, for 10 minutes. Bottle.

The Naga Smooky Rainbows tasted great in this sauce: rich, smoky, with that tomatoey, unsweet red pepper background. In fact, they taste very similar to the same sauce made with Jalapeño Zapotec! Tasting this blind, I would never guess it was a chinense sauce except for its heat, which I now think is (the pepper, not the sauce) at least 200 kSHU.

So, a lot more positive than my tasting notes of it raw! Still not likely to grow it again, as turns out I prefer a jalapeño for the same job.

thoroughburro · Aug 8, 2022

All right, it’s the big one. The taste test which determines my primary sauce pepper going forward. This has the potential to shake up my presumed preferences and future grows.

I made three batches of my most used sauce (a now-finalized version of this) with each of Habanero Oxkutzcabense, Bahamian Goat, and Scotch Bonnet TFM:

I aim for browning on between a fourth to a third of the pepper surface, but as you can see I over-roasted the Habanero Oxkutzcabense (left) at about half the surface browned. Makes a big difference in color and flavor. However, I’m used to tasting various roast levels of this sauce and don’t think it impacted my judgment much.

Habanero Oxkutzcabense: it was disappointment at first taste, unfortunately. Where did the mangoes go? Or any fruitiness at all, really? This had a more vegetal, asparagus flavor. Not very pleasant, and I won’t keep this batch. I’m almost certain that wouldn’t be a result of the roast, but I’ll definitely try it again when more ripen. As anticipated, this was the hottest of the three, but not an unpleasant heat profile.

I was openly rooting for it, but whammo… hero to zero as easy as that! Maybe it will redeem itself. I could write this grow up as a wrestling storyline!

Bahamian Goat: ah, that’s more like it. This achieved the deep, savory flavor with fruity overtones that I expect from this sauce, but there is an unpleasant edge on the aftertaste. Well, not wholly unpleasant; it’s remarkably like orange rind, with its orange aroma on one hand but bitter pith on the other. It doesn’t have that “one more spoonful” quality which gets you into trouble with a good sauce. Too easy to stop eating. Also, its heat profile was the most aggressive of the three.

Scotch Bonnet TFM: y’all, it ain’t even close! Wow. This pepper absolutely transformed somewhere in the sauce process. I’ve been enjoying my first scotch bonnet well enough, but was honestly wondering what people meant by “tropical” rather than just, as it seemed to me, an especially flavorful yellow chinense. Did someone sneak pineapple into my sauce?? And tomatillo? And the savory-fruity-chinense notes are there for days as well. It’s quite simply the best sauce I’ve had, which is funny because it’s my recipe! What a pepper! Lowest heat of the three, but in the same range; nice, glowy heat profile.

And sure enough, this changes everything for future grows. Much to think about! I wanted to be an underdog habanero hippie, but it looks like I may be a basic bonnet bitch like anyone else.

Sulsa · Aug 8, 2022

thoroughburro said:
I wanted to be an underdog habanero hippie, but it looks like I may be a basic bonnet bitch like anyone else.

thoroughburro · Aug 10, 2022

thoroughburro said:
I really love the bleeding calyx trait, just aesthetically and as a curiosity, and really wanted to grow one this year. I got some good leads in this thread, but couldn’t find anything non-superhot in time for this season. And maybe it’s all for the best!

This is the first ripe “Habanero Oxkutzcabense”:

Am I mistaken, or is that a bleeding calyx??

The seeds are from Refining Fire Chiles (Jim Duffy). He claims to isolate his seed stock, and I have no reason to doubt that… but most isolation methods aren’t 100% effective, and this trait shouldn’t otherwise be available to a landrace originally collected in 1979, so I assume it’s a cross with one of the many new bleeding varieties.

I would be a little sad if none of my Oxkutzcabense are true, but among 8 individuals that seems unlikely. In the mean time, I’m thrilled to possibly have an early-generation cross which could well wind up meeting my desires: a really tasty, sub-superhot, orange bleeding calyx. Why bother making my own crosses with luck like this?

I should give an update on this. I’m now fairly confident that the above is distinct from a bleeding calyx, and is probably just an early sign of decay or some other reason the plant wants to drop the pod.

First, it has never shown up again as convincingly as that initial pod. When hints of it have shown up, the plant it shows on is not consistent. Finally, a presumably advanced form of the same thing sometimes shows up on pods that are just about drop off themselves for whatever reason, like this:

These pods usually prove to have mold inside or some other defect, and I suspect the plant seals off the pedicle to cut its losses, causing yellowing in formerly green parts similar to when an oak leaf does the same thing in autumn.

I’m not entirely displeased, really; it’s nice to feel more certain my Habanero Oxkutzcabense are true to type.

thoroughburro · Aug 11, 2022

The baccatum which are doing anything are doing it well! Ají Fantasy Orange and CAP 455 are ripening a pod or two per day, with CAP 455 in particular absolutely laden with pods beginning to ripen.

Here’s a representative CAP 455 pod:

I can smell these even before slicing them, right through the skin: a pleasant, melon aroma, more honeydew than cantaloupe. I wouldn’t say it explodes with flavor (in fact, none of the baccatum are flavor-bombs raw so far, not like a good bell pepper), but it impressed both me and my partner. She confirmed that it has truly zero heat, which seems rare compared to claims of such. A refreshing, albeit subtle, melon-flavored no-heat pepper… not to mention early for its pod size, very productive, and among the more trouble-free of the grow. It’s very tall, but with a handsome, easy to manage form, not impossibly viney like some. Might see bigger pods in a bigger pot, but the growth habit and pod size seem to be on pheno in a 5 gallon pot, which is really nice for such a large plant.

I rate it highly, can you tell?

Meanwhile, while Ají Amarillo Baby was early period, not just among baccatum, is easily top 3 in the grow in disease-free vigor, and is pumping out tiny pods… I just drag my heels to harvest them and then struggle to use them. I think it’s me more than the pepper. I’m going to try growing the full sized Ají Amarillo next year; part of my problem is that I don’t know how well it succeeds at its goal of being a very early, albeit small-podded taste-alike of the real deal, and thus don’t feel confident using it as a substitute in Peruvian recipes.

Blended Lemon is giving me a ripe pod every two or three days. Ají Pineapple is still showing no signs of ripening. Neither is Sugar Rush Stripey, but that’s expected.

thoroughburro · Aug 11, 2022

I avoid taking photos when the light is good, because the mosquitoes are absolute murder. I feel like the glog is lacking context, though, so here we go bad lighting and all.

CAP 455, center two:

Ají Fantasy Orange, center two:

Ají Amarillo Baby, center two not that you can see the pots:

Blended Lemon, left two; Ají Pineapple, right two:

Sugar Rush Stripey, center two:

Yellow Pequin:

Ají Caballero:

Rocoto Mini Olive, down to one persevering individual:

Ají Dulce Margariteño Yellow, tallest chinense by a wide margin:

Naga Smooky Rainbow:

NuMex Trick-or-Treat:

That leaves out a solid third of the grow, but I’ll try to post full-plant photos more often.

francisp · Aug 11, 2022

Great looking plants.

Tinkerbelle · Aug 12, 2022

lovely pepper jungle :thumbsup:

Downriver · Aug 12, 2022

Plants look extremely happy tb. How tall is that fence?

thoroughburro · Aug 12, 2022

I’ll go out with a tape measure at some point to get numbers on the tallest plants. The fence is about 5 feet high (1.52 m).

And thank you! They do seem to be settling in a bit. About half of the varieties are still troubled by wooly aphids, and a fourth are still complaining about whatever my soil/watering/nutrient issue is… but even the troubled plants seem to have arrived at a balance and are making solid progress. I’m feeling pretty good, given it’s my first real season with peppers.

thoroughburro · Aug 12, 2022

The pubescens story isn’t over yet! I started with four individuals in two containers. Three died, not at once but in succession, to a sudden wilt during the worst of the heat (days in the high 90s F / 30s C, nights above 76 F / 24 C). Just one plant hung on, unhappy but alive. Foliage healthy but not abundant, plenty of flowers, but bleached of most of their purple and, of course, not set.

Harvest season has arrived, however, and the local climate seems to be headed for autumn. The ten day forecast is at least 10 degrees cooler, both days and nights. I wonder if Rocoto Mini Olive “Sole Survivor” is going to notice…

Wooooo! Get those church bells ringing!

ahayastani · Aug 12, 2022

thoroughburro said:
The pubescens story isn’t over yet! I started with four individuals in two containers. Three died, not at once but in succession, to a sudden wilt during the worst of the heat (days in the high 90s F / 30s C, nights above 76 F / 24 C). Just one plant hung on, unhappy but alive. Foliage healthy but not abundant, plenty of flowers, but bleached of most of their purple and, of course, not set.

That is more or less my climate, and pubescens doesn't do well here. They grow it a lot in the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, but it's much cooler there (and more humid as well).

thoroughburro · Aug 20, 2022

thoroughburro said:
An update on this tasting. I made a very simple sauce recipe with the NSR which I usually use with ripe jalapeños (inspired by a three-ingredient Trader Joe’s sauce I was addicted to). I’m also using it as my minimal sauce for taste testing, so I’ll share the outline here:

By weight, equal parts halved and seeded peppers and rice wine vinegar, then 3% of that total in salt. Blend to your preferred consistency, transfer to a sauce pan, bring to a bare simmer, and maintain, covered, for 10 minutes. Bottle.

The Naga Smooky Rainbows tasted great in this sauce: rich, smoky, with that tomatoey, unsweet red pepper background. In fact, they taste very similar to the same sauce made with Jalapeño Zapotec! Tasting this blind, I would never guess it was a chinense sauce except for its heat, which I now think is (the pepper, not the sauce) at least 200 kSHU.

So, a lot more positive than my tasting notes of it raw! Still not likely to grow it again, as turns out I prefer a jalapeño for the same job.

Later season pods are getting bigger and yet more attractive. Naga Smooky Rainbow is a gorgeous, vigorous, extremely productive variety which also tastes really good. I’m scheming on developing a fermented sauce using it so I have an excuse to grow it each year.

The red ones are fully ripe; they remain “smooky”, and they look even better in person. The seedline I’m growing is from White Hot Peppers. He says to consider them unstable, but the six individuals I grew out are close enough to identical.

thoroughburro · Aug 20, 2022

I should mention: it showed zero signs of suffering or slowing down even during the worst of the heatwave. Worth making a note of, these days…