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How Hot is Hot?  -  The Scoville Heat Unit Scale

Back in early 20th century, Wilbur Scoville contemplated a question that has plagued all seekers of hot food:  how do you measure heat?  He developed a scale based on the Scoville heat unit, which allows you to compare the heat factor in peppers and hot pepper sauces.  Because of Scoville, we can now scientifically measure how "hot" hot is, instead of dealing with subjective opinions.

Scoville developed the Scoville Organoleptic Test in 1912.  Originally it did start out as a more subjective test than we have today.  Taste testers would partake of ground-up chilies that were increasingly diluted (and neutralized) by sugar water.  The hotter the pepper, the more sugar water it took to quash the heat.

So, the amount of sugar-water necessary to entirely cancel the heat in the pepper is the modern-day Scoville Heat Unit.  For example, the hottest pepper recorded scored 577,000 Scoville heat units.  This means it would take 577,000 cups of sugar water to neutralize the heat in 1 cup of that pepper.  The original test was limited by human subjectivity since different people have different heat tolerances.  The heat for the same kind of pepper can also vary tremendously depending on how it's grown and when it is harvested.

Today, the Scoville Heat Unit is still the unit of measurement for heat and through advancing technology, it's much more scientific than what Wilbur originally devised.  (Don't blame Wilbur, he did the best he could with what was available at the time.)  Today, instead of relying on the human palate, Scoville testing uses High Performance Liquid Chromatography or HPLC.  During process, the capsaicinoids, which pack a pepper with heat, are extracted.   They are then placed in the HPLC device and analyzed.  The HPLC can read the amount of capsaicinoids in the pepper, as well as differentiate between individual varieties.  This analysis is then converted into the better-known Scoville Heat Unit.

A "Scoville Heat Unit" is actually a measure of Capsaicin, the chemical that makes a hot pepper hot.  Most capsaicin is found in the ribs and seeds of a pepper, which is why seeding a pepper makes it's heat less potent.

Capsaicin, the active ingredient that puts the fire in the belly, has been touted for its curative powers for muscle aches as well as arthritis, headaches, and the common cold.  Dieters are enthusiastically incorporating peppers into their regimen as they are said to raise the metabolism thus helping burn off excess fat.  Peppers are also known to have a high content of vitamin C.  Researchers are studying the curative powers of capsaicin on some lung and stomach cancers.  Peppers salves are being used to bring relief to the pain of surgical scars.

You might have noticed a Scoville rating on your bottle of hot sauce.  Original Tabasco has a rating of 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units.  The hottest readily available peppers, Scotch Bonnet and habaneros, share a rating of 100,000–350,000.  The rating of a bell pepper? Zero -- no heat from this pepper. 

Until recently, the Guinness World Records had the world’s hottest chili pepper as the Red Savina Habanero.  Generally these peppers range from 350,000–570,000 Scoville Heat Units as compared with a score of 2,500–5,000 for the jalapeno pepper.  The record breaking pepper, Red Savina Habanero, was produced by GNS Spices Inc in 1994 in Walnut, US and measured at 577,000 Scoville units.

Recently however, several super-hot peppers have challenged for the record.  Experts at the Defense Research Laboratory in the army garrison town of Tezpur in the North-Eastern state of Assam, claimed a locally grown Naga-Bih Jolokia pepper, in testing, was nearly 50 per cent more pungent than the Red Savina Habanero at a blistering, 855,000 Scoville Heat Units.  

Seeds of the same Naga-Bih Jolokia pepper (sometimes also called the Bhut Jolokia) cultivated at New Mexico State University have stood-up to testing and in February 2007, a specimen registering a staggering 1,001,304 Scoville Heat Units was officially acclaimed by the Guinness World Record as the new World’s hottest pepper, which makes Naga-Bih Jolokia nearly twice as hot as the previous holder, the Red Savina.  (Pepper spray weapons hit 5,300,000 units.)

"The name Bhut Jolokia translates as 'ghost chili, because the chili is so hot, you give up the ghost when you eat it!"

What should you do if you eat a pepper that sets your tongue on fire?

Do not drink beer.  Water won’t help either.  Capsaicin, the chemical that makes a hot pepper hot, doesn’t dissolve in water, so even ice water or even ice cubes won’t help remove the heat.  Your best bet?  Get milk, because capsaicin is fat-soluble, a compound in milk can actually pull the capsaicin off your tongue and relieve some of the burn.  Another option: eat bread or rice to help absorb the heat.  Cucumber can also have a cooling effect. 

If you are feeling brave (or masochistic), you could try eating another pepper.  According Robert Berkley, the author of Peppers: A Cookbook, you can build up a resistance to capsaicin by eating more chili peppers.  With Berkley’s approach, you get the added high of a capsaicin-triggered endorphin release.  Before you know it, you might be addicted to the hot little things.  

CHOPS BAR & GRILL - HANOVER, MN