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hot-sauce Help Needed with Hot Sauce Tasting

We’re having a hot sauce tasting at work and I’m missing some information about the lineup.  Do I have them in the right order from least hot to hottest?  Can you help with any of the missing Scoville unit ratings, or are any of them incorrect?  Thanks!
 
  1. High River Cheeba Gold – 8,910
  2. Ohio State (Hot Sauce Harry’s Cayenne Sauce) – 10,000
  3. Bravado Spice Co. Pineapple & Habanero - ??????
  4. The General’s Shock & Awe - ??????
  5. Blair’s After Death with Liquid Rage – 49,000
  6. Peppers-R-Paradise Bourbon Barrel Aged Extreme - ??????
  7. Torchbearer Zombie Apocalypse – 100,000
  8. Da Bomb Beyond Insanity – 120,000
  9. Liquid Stoopid – 250,000
  10. Mad Dog 357 – 357,000
 
 

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I don't think the Scoville scale is 'broken' as opposed to not understood. HPLC correlates everything back to the 16mil scoville scale. It started with individual tastes with sugar water, but was correlated to the 16,000,000 SHU with the use of HPLC.

Sauce makers make a sauce with '1.5mil ghost peppers' and they claim their sauce is 1.5mil shu!' In actuality, only 10% of the sauce ingredients are ghost peppers, which means the sauce is only 10% of 1,500,000 (1.5milSHU ghost peppers)... do the math... 150,00 SHU is the actual heat of the finished sauce. Which could be tested by HPLC at one of many labs!

I think that is where the breakdown is occurring. Sauce makers can and should use the HPLC lab testing available before 'claiming' to be "XXHOT" of an SHU!



Mad Dog 357 ingredients-Ingredients: Vinegar, Chile Extract, Evaporated Cane Juice, Fresh Habanero Peppers, Garlic, Onion, 160,000 Scoville Cayenne Peppers, Spices, and Xanthan Gum.

Liquid Stoopid ingredients-Ingredients: Vinegar, Jalapeno peppers, onion, garlic, salt, 1 Million Scoville Pepper extract and spices. Fat Free.

Anything with extract, oleoresin, chile oil, or any number of other trade names for that nasty tasting oil extract, will have a distinctive taste for the oleoresin/extract.

Da Bomb- Ingredients: Habaneros (habaneros, salt), Chipotle Puree (chipotles, water, salt, citric acid), Water, Orange Juice Concentrate, Natural Pepper Flavoring, Tomato Paste, Potassium Sorbate and Sodium Benzoate (to preserve freshness).



Sorry for the diversion...Back to brees's OP....

the list looks pretty good from least to hot. Some sauce will ZAP hotter than others. It's kind of the way sauces and peppers work. If you can and folks agree, vid record the 'team building' episode and share with us. S0me sauces will hit Hard and fast, same will be the slow burn, some will be "caning"... (google hippy seed company pepper reviews.. that wacky Auzzy Hippy Guy... :)....)

As a disclaimer... have sugar, cream and (canned whipped cream) on hand as antidotes.
 
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I don't think the Scoville scale is 'broken' as opposed to not understood. HPLC correlates everything back to the 16mil scoville scale. It started with individual tastes with sugar water, but was correlated to the 16,000,000 SHU with the use of HPLC.

I think that is where the breakdown is occurring. Sauce makers can and should use the HPLC lab testing available before 'claiming' to be "XXHOT" of an SHU!

You nailed it SL!


The Scoville scale is broken. It's all based on opinions.
It was not based on opinions;
In the Scoville organoleptic test, an exact weight of dried pepper is dissolved in alcohol to extract the heat components (capsaicinoids), then diluted in a solution of sugar water.[3][7][8] Decreasing concentrations of the extracted capsaicinoids are given to a panel of five trained tasters, until a majority (at least three) can no longer detect the heat in a dilution.[1][3][7][8] The heat level is based on this dilution, rated in multiples of 100 SHU.[7]
The actual laboratory reports are wildly different from what people estimate them to be.
The actual laboratory readings are in HPLC ...
 
The actual laboratory reports are wildly different from what people estimate them to be.
I agree, back to what I said about people using a 1.5mil pepper and thinking the sauce is 1.5mil.

The same goes for fresh/dried peppers. SHUs vary GREATLY from plant to plant, field to field. Just cuz someone grew a Carolina Reaper does not mean it is +2mil SHU.

HPLC testing is also used for the pungency of ginger, garlic, cinnamon and many other spices. MFG can do an HPLC test of a batch of ginger and know how much to use in their recipe so the pungency stays consistent from batch to batch.
 
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