Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi,

I think it would be nice to have a roundup of suggested cool/ zero or low heat chillies, up to 500/1000 Scoville heat Units. While some think Jalepenos are mild (obvs eat far hotter ones, as these are 2000-8000 SHU), they are far too hot for us. Although they are made less hot by candying them!

I have grown Trinidad Perfume and Poblanos and heatless Jalepenos and they are fabulous - no real heat and a much different flavour profile to bell types - the Trinidads are very fruity tasting, for example.

I wanted to find more to try but there seems be very little information re: varities and how good they taste - it seems the hotter the better is in vogue. I even found it is hard to find Poblano seeds this year, only Victoriana seems to have them (thank goodness someone does). I saw that Seaspring had some but there is little information/ reviews from growers

Do other chilli wimps have any variety recommendations? Or am I alone being a heat-phobe.

Afraid I'm not in your club Breq as although one year I grew a range of chillies, we found the majority of them were far too hot to make our food enjoyable.
I ended up settling for the Hungarian (Hot) Wax variety which I think is regarded one of the milder varieties.

Althiugh interestingly, every so often I would pick a "rogue" fruit from a plant and find it nearly blew cur heads off. I could understand if a rogue seed from a hotter plant had got into a packet by accident but these were a single fruit which burnt your tongue off from a plant where all the other fruits were of "low" heat. Never did discover the reason why and haven't grown any for a couple of years as we still have a big bag in the freezer awaiting consumption. .

I very rarely grow Chillies, especially after growing some Scotch Bonnets…Cook was not impressed….

I'm in your camp Breq, just not into anything that will take the skin off my tongue. However saying that I asked Mr to but me a couple of plants this year as lost sowings. Gave him strict instructions as to possible types & he came back with 2 mega hot chilli's with way too many zero's on the Scoville Scale - 'they looked bigger & healthier' was his response. Grew them anyway & all given to the Food Bank with appropriate warning on the bag.

I grow one that I found in one of the catalogues posted to me that was just called 'No Heat'. It technically should be called mild as there is some heat, but like a slight after warm.

I'm rather in a different camp. I love chilli. 7 pot yellow is a favourite - named because one chilli is enough for 7 pots of food. Can't see the point of growing a chilli without heat - isn't it just a sweet pepper ?