What Makes It So Hot?

All chile peppers contain a chemical, called Capsaicin, which is found concentrated in the veins of the fruit (not the seeds as is widely believed). Capsaicin, when brought into contact with mucous membranes, such as the inside of the mouth, stimulates the nerve endings, making your brain think that they are being burned. Your brain thinks that real pain and damage are being inflicted. Your brain counters by releasing endorphins, similar in structure to morphine, which bring about the "Chile-High", just like a runner experiences euphoria after passing the peak of their endurance.

The amount of Capsaicin in a pepper determines how hot it is and how hot a sauce it will make; but how can we measure this heat? In 1912 a chemist named Wilbur Scoville, working for a pharmaceutical company, developed a method to measure the heat level of a chile pepper. This test, called the Scoville Organoleptic Test, is a dilution-taste procedure. In the original test, Scoville blended pure ground chiles with a sugar-water solution. A panel of testers then sipped the concoctions in increasingly diluted concentrations, until they reached the point at which the liquid no longer burned the mouth. A number was then assigned to each chile based on how much it needed to be diluted before you could no longer taste heat.

For example, one cup of chile pepper per 1,000 cups of water rates as 1 Scoville Unit. Pure Capsaicin rates over 16,000,000 Scoville Units! The power of chile peppers is measured with these Scoville units, from the bell pepper at 0 Scoville units, to the incendiary Habanero at 300,000 Scoville units! The creator of the "Red Savina™" Habanero had it tested at over 577,000 Scoville units! This was so much hotter than the normal Habanero chile pepper, that the "Guinness Book of Records" listed it as "the hottest chile pepper" in the world. The Naga Bhut Jolokia, or "Ghost Pepper" is now considered the hottest pepper at about 1,000,000 Scoville units!

The validity and accuracy of the Scoville Organoleptic test has, however, been widely criticized. The American Spice Trade Association and the International Organization for Standardization have adopted a modified version. The American Society for Testing and Materials is considering other organoleptic tests (the Gillett method) and a number of other chemical tests to assay for Capsaicinoids involved in pungency. Even so, the values obtained by these various tests are often related back to Scoville Units.

Nowadays the High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) test is used. In this procedure, chile pods are dried, then ground. Next, the chemicals responsible for the pungency are extracted, and the extract is injected into the HPLC for analysis. This method is more costly than prior methods, but it does allow an objective heat analysis. Not only does this method measure the total heat present, but it also allows the amounts of each individual Capsaicinoid to be determined. In addition, many samples may be analyzed within a short period.

As a result of all these tests, various varieties of chile peppers can be ranked according to their heat or "pungency" level:

• 0-100 Scoville Units includes most Bell/Sweet pepper varieties.
• 500-1000 SU includes New Mexican peppers.
• 1,000-1,500 SU includes Espanola peppers.
• 1,000-2,000 SU includes Ancho & Pasilla peppers.
• 1,000-2,500 SU includes Cascabel & Cherry peppers.
• 2,500-5,000 SU includes Jalapeno & Mirasol peppers.
• 5,000-15,000 SU includes Serrano peppers.
• 15,000-30,000 SU includes de Arbol peppers.
• 30,000-50,000 SU includes Cayenne & Tabasco peppers.
• 50,000-100,000 SU includes Chiltepin peppers.
• 100,000-350,000 SU includes Scotch Bonnet & Thai peppers.
• 200,000 to 500,000 SU includes Habanero peppers.
• 1,000,000 SU includes Naga Jolokia peppers.
• 1,400,000 SU includes Trinidad Scorpion " Butch T " Peppers. ( Current Official Worlds Hottest Pepper )
  
• Around 16,000,000 SU is Pure Capsaicin.