Scoville Scale or Unit?
Posted by admin
Styx asked:
Does anybody know what I am refering to?
For those that know , know what pain is.
For those that look it up, I think you will find it interesting.
September 23rd, 2009 at 3:06 pm
that was pretty interesting
September 26th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
This is the unit of measurement for hot foods such as chili peppers. I believe that habinero peppers are the hottest…I forget the score…but it’s DANGEROUS.
September 26th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
The Scoville Unit is a scale of hotness for spices and chillies. The higher the number, the hotter it is.
September 29th, 2009 at 5:30 am
The Scoville scale is a measure of the hotness or, more correctly, piquancy of a chili pepper. These fruits of the Capsicum genus contain capsaicin, a chemical compound which stimulates chemoreceptor nerve endings in the skin, especially the mucous membranes. The number of Scoville heat units (SHU) indicates the amount of capsaicin present. Some hot sauces use their Scoville rating in advertising as a selling point.
The scale is named after its creator, American chemist Wilbur Scoville, who developed a test for rating the pungency of chili peppers. His method, which he devised in 1912, is known as the Scoville Organoleptic Test. An alternative method of quantitative analysis, known as high-performance liquid chromatography, directly measures capsaicinoids and attempts to relate the measured chemical values to the Scoville scale using a mathematical conversion factor.
SCOVILLE ORGANOLEPTIC TEST
In Scoville’s method, as originally devised, a solution of the pepper extract is diluted in sugar water until the “heat” is no longer detectable to a panel of (usually five) tasters; the degree of dilution gives its measure on the Scoville scale. Thus a capsicum, sweet pepper or a bell pepper, containing no capsaicin at all, has a Scoville rating of zero, meaning no heat detectable, even undiluted. Conversely, the hottest chiles, such as habaneros, have a rating of 200,000 or more, indicating that their extract has to be diluted 200,000-fold before the capsaicin present is undetectable. The greatest weakness of the Scoville Organoleptic Test is its imprecision, because it relies on human subjectivity.
HIGH-PERFORMANCE LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY (THE GILLET METHOD)
Spice heat is now usually measured by a method using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). This identifies and measures the heat-producing chemicals. They are then used in a mathematical formula in which they are weighted according to their relative capacity to produce a sensation of heat. This method yields results, not in Scoville units, but in ASTA pungency units. A measurement of one part capsaicin per million corresponds to about 15 Scoville units, and the published method says that ASTA pungency units can be multiplied by 15 and reported as Scoville units. This conversion is approximate, and Tainter and Grenis say that there is consensus that it gives results about 20–40% lower than the actual Scoville method would have given.