Big vs. Small

[fubarhouse]

Heya,

I can chow down orange habaneros of virtually any size, but I had a large red one today to be different. It was almost too much to handle - more so than a sauce I had yesterday hotter than Neil's Yellow7 Turkey Slap. It comprises with a large percentage of trinidad scorpions which I find odd - I would have thought the really hot trinidad scorpion sauce would be harder to handle than a measley habanero - unless the supplier has some kind of freakishly hot habanero.

The sauce eventually gave tears and sweat (~6-7 minutes), followed by endorphins, and the hananero gave endorphins within 4 minutes.... WTF Can anybody explain why this would be?

I am just curious, as much as the "the small ones are the hottest", does that apply with all species, or is it one of those supermarket sayings (ie birds eye chillies are hotter than the standard long reds)? And if not, is it safe to assume the largest of one specific species will be hotter, or visa versa?

 

[UltraZelda64]

There are a ton of environmental variables that determine each individual pepper's heat. I've had some hot ones in mid to late summer for example, and some weak ones picked in fall. But one thing I've noticed is... the bigger peppers tend to be the hotter ones. I've had some "baby" orange habaneros that weren't much different in heat than tabascos, and some larger ones that really kicked my ass. And that's just one variety/species... never mind the pimenta de cheiro, which is even smaller than the orange habanero but never as hot. So I'm not so sure the "smaller is hotter" thing is accurate. If anything, bigger is hotter--but even that is not always true (especially between different varieties).

 

[POTAWIE]

Isn't the turkey slap made with yellow 7 pods?
Orange habs can get to about half the SHU of a yellow 7 and since sauces have other ingredients, it sounds normal for a good hab to be hotter.
Size shouldn't really matter, at least with chiles

 

[fubarhouse]

Isn't the turkey slap made with yellow 7 pods?
Orange habs can get to about half the SHU of a yellow 7 and since sauces have other ingredients, it sounds normal for a good hab to be hotter.
Size shouldn't really matter, at least with chiles

my thinking was more along the lines of why is a typical red habanero harder to tolerate than a sauce made with more than half the bottle being straight trinidad scorpions.... it just stumps me.
maybe I'm just thinking too much... I've pureed the red habs I got today into a chunky sauce so might just experiment and have some really hot stuff planned to try

There usually goes a saying, of which I have neglegted to mention since trying proper hot stuff. That the smaller the pepper the hotter, I am also curious to know if 2 peppers of the same species, one 25mm long, one 60mm from the same plant, both at the bottom of the tree (for example) would the smaller one be hotter or would the larger be?

 

[POTAWIE]

The "smaller is hotter" talk is just a very basic guide for newbie chile eaters. For instance, a bell pepper, Cubanelle, or Poblano are almost always mild where most smaller peppers are hotter. You see this a lot on cooking shows where they try to encourage people to try new peppers.
Different sized pods on the same plant should have the same amount of heat, although individual pods can likely be more stressed and therefore hotter.

Remember, 20 Scorpions are going to be just as hot as 1 scorpion in terms of SHU. A sauce can only get close to as hot as the hottest pepper used, unless extracts are used