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Hot chilies
The heat in chile peppers is measured in "Scoville" units.
How is the Scoville rating measured?
--Nancy Murphy, Albuquerque, NM
In 1912, while working for the Parke Davis pharmaceutical
company, Wilbur Scoville answered the question: "How hot are
your chilies?" by measuring their pungency. His units are still the
standard today.
He gathered a panel of taste testers for the original test. Scoville blended pure ground
chilies with a sugar-water solution and presented it to the testers. The brave panel sipped
the concoction and they practically breathed fire. Scoville added more sugar to the
chile-sugar-water mixture until the chile drink no longer burned their mouths. He then
assigned a number to each chile based on how much sugar was needed to reach that
comfortable state. Those numbers are the Scoville units.
The units come in multiples of 100. The Guiness Book of Records ranks the "Red Savina"
Habanero pepper (over 577,000 Scoville units) as the hottest chile pepper in the world.
Here's a Scoville rating of a few peppers:
- 0-100: Bell
- 500-1,000: New Mexican
- 2,500-5,000: Jalapeno and Mirasol
- 30,000-50,000: Cayenne and Tabasco
- 200,000-300,000: Habanero
- 16,000,000: Pure Capaiscin.
The molecule, Capsaicin, is what makes chilies hot. Capsaicin is highly soluble in fats, oils,
and alcohol. So, to douse the heat while eating chilies, drink milk or eat ice cream or
yogurt. Dairy products break down the Capsaicin oils and put out the fire. Peanut butter
is good too. Water spreads the flames.
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