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Alright, whats the deal?

I'm eating lunch every day with bhut jolokia powder on my food. Are the fresh peppers hotter or milder than powder, because for how much everyone freaks out eating a bhut jolokia i'm wondering if the powder is less intense.
 
Yes, for me it is not even close. The powder is great to bring things up a notch but does not compare in heat to a fresh pepper. Chris's Chocolate Thunder is the only exception and even then it does not last nearly as long a a fresh pepper. Powder gives me a 20-30 second burn at say 40% of the heat of a fresh chile. A fresh pepper's hard burn can last 4 or 5 minutes. Still I love powders and use them all the time. I would not want my mouth burning hard with every meal. The powder is a good happy medium and much easier to use.
 
See the thing is, it is all about how you use the powder as well. If you reconstitute it, you will maximize it's burn potential. Like shaking a little on a sandwich vs mixing it with some spaghetti sauce and heating it on the stove. The spaghetti sauce will burn you up more. Plus it depends on how much you are putting on. I mean if you are just shaking a light dusting of it on...that would probably only equate to 15% of a full pod....and then it's dried so the heat level is of course less. Try upping how much powder you put on your sandwich...put about a full table spoon on and see what happens. It will be exponentially hotter. the hottest it has ever been for me (powder that is) is when I make a salad, sprinkle a whole bunch on it and mix it up really good. That was about 3 times as hot as putting some on a sandwich (for me)

Fresh pods are a whole other experience. I mean....I really doubt that the heat level on powders is pushing 6-750,000 scoville. Where's a fresh pepper can exceed 1.5-2 million scoville. Even a pepper at 900,000 to 1 million scoville will be two to three times hotter than the powder and the burn will last a lot longer because of the oil that soaks into and coats your mouth.
 
See the thing is, it is all about how you use the powder as well. If you reconstitute it, you will maximize it's burn potential. Like shaking a little on a sandwich vs mixing it with some spaghetti sauce and heating it on the stove. The spaghetti sauce will burn you up more. Plus it depends on how much you are putting on. I mean if you are just shaking a light dusting of it on...that would probably only equate to 15% of a full pod....and then it's dried so the heat level is of course less. Try upping how much powder you put on your sandwich...put about a full table spoon on and see what happens. It will be exponentially hotter. the hottest it has ever been for me (powder that is) is when I make a salad, sprinkle a whole bunch on it and mix it up really good. That was about 3 times as hot as putting some on a sandwich (for me)

Fresh pods are a whole other experience. I mean....I really doubt that the heat level on powders is pushing 6-750,000 scoville. Where's a fresh pepper can exceed 1.5-2 million scoville. Even a pepper at 900,000 to 1 million scoville will be two to three times hotter than the powder and the burn will last a lot longer because of the oil that soaks into and coats your mouth.

I mostly agree here. Indeed how you use it is a major factor. But if you had 1 oz of fresh pods and 1 oz of powder, I think you'd find that the powder is MUCH hotter than the fresh pods. The reason being that there is at least 4x (probably more than this) the amount pods that go into that much powder vs fresh pods. So by weight there will be much more capsaicin in the powder than the fresh pods.

I do agree that reconstituting the powder will amp the heat up much more though.
 
Hmm, alright. Well I just put enough on it to make it spicy, I was just amazed that the powder didn't make me flip out like the fresh peppers seem to do to everyone on youtube.

I guess i put roughly have a tablespoon on my lunch every day. Not enough to cause me pain but it is enough to spice things up without giving me ring sting.
 
If they were dried low and slow they shouldn't lose much heat and the powder should be more concentrated. Try the powder on its own and not mixed in food for a real comparison
 
Still not too hot to me unless I eat a lot of it. I don't find habaneros to be unbearanle so I guess my tolerance is just high. I need to buy some pepper powder from people on here whenever I see a thread selling a firey blend haha.
 
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