Capsaicin comparison, amounts

[Halbrust]

I'm interested in eating and using the hotter peppers, but do not love the burn. I like spicy, I do not like hot.
 
Here's the question...
 
If I use 200g of 5,000shu jalapeno in a dish, and wantto replace the flavor with 100,000shu habaneros without upping the heat: Would I use 1g of habanero?
 
I know that shu is not written in stone, and can vary from pod to pod. So my above scenario only works if the peppers in question are exactly that level of heat.
 
Am I thinking this right?

 

[Zoli]

10g of habaneros with this logic, but I think it will still be hotter. For example if you put 5 times more jalapeno in a dish it wont make it 5 times hotter, but the hotness will last much longer.
Be sure to test it in small. Also, there are a few peppers with the flavor of superhots but without the heat, you might want to try them or cut out the placenta from your habs.
 

 

[theghostpepperstore]

Since SHU can be converted to ppm (SHU/16 = ppm)
 
200g of Jalapeno @ 5000 SHU will yield .0625g of capsaicin.
 
1g of Habanero @ 100,000 SHU will yield .00625g of capsaicin
 
So really you would want to use 10g of habanero to, in theory, have the same level of heat.
 
Bear in mind, if you are using fresh peppers, the SHU goes right out the window! The common SHU ratings of peppers are almost always in terms of DRIED peppers. If you test a fresh jalapeno, it will be more along the lines of 500 SHU because of all of the water contained in the cells of the pepper. Since there is no way to tell how much water a pepper carrying, peppers are tested without ANY water.
 
So if you have some REALLY fresh, green jalapenos and some "not-so-fresh" habs that have been off the plant for a couple of weeks, then 10 grams of the habanero is probably going to be quite a bit hotter than 200 grams of the jalapenos due to the habaneros having lost a lot of water weight.
 
To make things even more complicated, there are something like 20+ different capsaicinoids, with each variety and each pepper having some different mix of ratios of them. This is most likely, in my opinion, is what gives us the different heat profiles (instant burn, long duration burn, throat burn, stomach cramps). So even if you use the same amount of total capsaicin you can have a completely different experience depending on the variety of peppers you use.
 
I hope that was a complicated enough answer .

 

[Halbrust]

Great answers! Thank you.
 
And my 200g of jalaeno was a typo, I meant 20g
 
I use fresh peppers for the most part, I just wanted to make sure my thought process was right before I made something and burned a hole through my tongue (or ended up with no heat at all)

 

[Nightshade]

10g of habaneros with this logic, but I think it will still be hotter. For example if you put 5 times more jalapeno in a dish it wont make it 5 times hotter, but the hotness will last much longer.
Be sure to test it in small. Also, there are a few peppers with the flavor of superhots but without the heat, you might want to try them or cut out the placenta of your habs.
 

this is not correct you are adding more capsaicin making it hotter. heres a good discussion on the matter http://thehotpepper.com/topic/42023-question-about-scoville/page-1
I understand the confusion it causes though

 

[Zoli]

this is not correct you are adding more capsaicin making it hotter. heres a good discussion on the matter http://thehotpepper.com/topic/42023-question-about-scoville/page-1
I understand the confusion it causes though

When I said it won't make it 5 times hotter I did not meant it won't make it any hotter, but it does not scale linear. If I eat two habs instead of one it will be hotter but it won't be twice as hot.
The burning will also last longer in this case, but when people refer to hotness they are talking about the intensity most of the time, when it tops, not (just) about how long it lasts.

 

[Halbrust]

When I said it won't make it 5 times hotter I did not meant it won't make it any hotter, but it does not scale linear. If I eat two habs instead of one it will be hotter but it won't be twice as hot.
The burning will also last longer in this case, but when people refer to hotness they are talking about the intensity most of the time, when it tops, not (just) about how long it lasts.

Here's my understanding of it, mainly from reading the link Nightshade provided.
 
Eating two jalapenos won't be much hotter than eating one. But eating two jalapenos will be twice as hot as eating one jalapeno and one "no heat" jalapeno.

 

[Zoli]

Here's my understanding of it, mainly from reading the link Nightshade provided.
 
Eating two jalapenos won't be much hotter than eating one. But eating two jalapenos will be twice as hot as eating one jalapeno and one "no heat" jalapeno.

This makes no sense to me eating a "no heat" jalapeno does not matter, it could also be an orange..
Two jalapenos contain two times the capsaicin amount than one does but we are talking about how it feels to you/anybody.

 

[salsalady]

(    Here we go again!  )
 
The link Nightshade posted is about the best discussion of this topic.  Several different people explained it different ways.  Check it out-
SL