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Home Scoville Testing ?

bentalphanerd

bentalphanerd

Been thinking it's about time someone put together a scale we can all measure and aspire to. The original Scoville test is obviously flawed due to personal resistance, can the lab test be adapted to hand winding centrifuge & a stove top? I doubt it.
There Must be a better way, all options open, all thoughts considered. Where do we start brainiacs?:shocked:
 
The lab equipment you need to accurately measure capsicinoid concentration will cost $10,000 - and that is low end. There are methods beyond chromatography, but chromatography relatively fast and SOPs have been developed. After that, you would need to be trained in it's use, order precise standards (again, very costly) so you can calibrate your machine, and then you would have to invest in solvents, replacement pumps...running an HPLC is very expensive.

Since you are dealing with chemical detection below 1 part per million, you need a very sensative detector, and the only one one available that won't cost more than $3000 is your tounge, which is sensative but not designed for quantitative analysis.
 
I was talking with CaJohn on this and appearently, from all his reading, and from some testing experiments he did, the scoville tests are not accurate. They have a 10-30% margin of error. In my book, that's huge!
 
Well, I'm assuming he is combining error and variance. Error would be systematic, as in the concentration (to run a sample, you have to dilute it to less than 0.1% sample), injection sample volume, and proper use of the machine. These errors should be no more than +-5%, perfectly accepable in scientific literature.

Variance would be uncontrolable, because this would be the individual variance in the pepper. While increasing the number of peppers in a batch will help reduce variance (a good average), the peppers would still potentially vary from batch to batch; so that batch A might be 50,000 and batch B would be 62,500 SHU (that's a 25% difference).

if you are getting 30% error, and not variance, it's time to find another company IMO as a professional chemist.
 
From what he told me, he took one bottle and tested it three times and got the 10-30% swing in the results. When he told the testing people that the samples were from the same bottle then freaked out and got really pissed at him.
 
All I know is if flames shoot out my butt after eating it, it's hot! If I spill some on the floor and it burns a hole through the earths crust to the mantle of the planet, then it's really hot. If a full bottle of the sauce falls off the kitchen counter and breaks and the ensuing result is that it rips another hole in the universe...then it's really, really hot!!
 
:shocked:


texas blues said:
All I know is if flames shoot out my butt after eating it, it's hot! If I spill some on the floor and it burns a hole through the earths crust to the mantle of the planet, then it's really hot. If a full bottle of the sauce falls off the kitchen counter and breaks and the ensuing result is that it rips another hole in the universe...then it's really, really hot!!
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Put some on your chest and see how long it takes to make a hole. :hell: Or elsewhere on the body.:lol:
 
why isnt there a sort of 'litmus' paper test? surely something could be invented that would 'read' the amount of capsaicin... if they can do those little sticks to read spa/pool chemical levels why can't they do it for this? I guess there is a limited market for Capsaicin Reading Kits when compared to pool/spa ownership.
 
chilliman64 said:
why isnt there a sort of 'litmus' paper test? surely something could be invented that would 'read' the amount of capsaicin... if they can do those little sticks to read spa/pool chemical levels why can't they do it for this? I guess there is a limited market for Capsaicin Reading Kits when compared to pool/spa ownership.
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My thoughts exactly chilliman64 - Im not much of a chemist, more a physics/electronics/IT kind of nerd, but when I look at the scales I see scoville ratings from Pimento at 100 to Jolokia at 1,000,000 with only about 20 major groups in between. I dont think a test needs to be that accurate for our purposes.
From what I've read the capsaicin is oily {thats why fatty products like meat & milk put out the flames in your mouth} - if its the only oily product of the pod, could it be cooked off and measured against the weight of the original pod.
Like I say, im not much of a chemist, im not even really after a scoville reading if its too hard to get. Just some kind of home testable ratio we can use to understand better alternative growing techniques, would help when seed swapping...Oh & bragging rights too of course :)
 
you could test the heat before and after you eat it. has that ever been done??? I wonder how much of the capsaicin gets eliminated as bodily waste and how much is absorbed - some mornings it feels like all of it evacuates, often in a big hurry.
 
haven't had that problem since i stopped eating the seeds chilliman64, but by all means... take a sample & run some tests...u may get the perfect scoville reading & everyone will take your word for it :))
 
Without going into too much detail, pH strips work by using organic acids/bases that function as indicators (one color for protonated form, a different color for the deprotonated form), with several different indicator molecules; and the agregate color is observed and compared to standard strips (usually provided). Each indicator molecule is designed to react at a certain pH so that a broad range of pH can be measured. Because the indicator molecules undergo a chemical reaction, you are not directly measuring the pH (hydronium ion concentration), but observing the agregate sum of several yes/no indicators that give you an idea of what the pH is.

The reason this wouldn't work for detecting capsacianoids is that they are not reactive. Hydronium and hydroxide ions are fairly reactive and easy to detect. Capsacianoids don't have the ability to protonate or deprotonate much of anything, let alone a wide range of molecules.

pH probes work on electrical currents based on ion concentraion, so a capsacianoid equivalent wouldn't be possible.

That just leaves direct detection, which as stated in other threads as well as this one, requires some kind of chromatography, with HPLC being the most available.

I don't test samples for a living, so I have nothing to gain by disuading you from thinking about it; I'm just trying to provide you with the science behind what you are thinking to give you a better understanding of what you are up against and how significantly different the chemistry is between acid/base chemistry and the chemistry of complex organic molecules.
 
dreamtheatervt said:
Without going into too much detail, pH strips work by using organic acids/bases that function as indicators (one color for protonated form, a different color for the deprotonated form), with several different indicator molecules; and the agregate color is observed and compared to standard strips (usually provided). Each indicator molecule is designed to react at a certain pH so that a broad range of pH can be measured. Because the indicator molecules undergo a chemical reaction, you are not directly measuring the pH (hydronium ion concentration), but observing the agregate sum of several yes/no indicators that give you an idea of what the pH is.

The reason this wouldn't work for detecting capsacianoids is that they are not reactive. Hydronium and hydroxide ions are fairly reactive and easy to detect. Capsacianoids don't have the ability to protonate or deprotonate much of anything, let alone a wide range of molecules.

pH probes work on electrical currents based on ion concentraion, so a capsacianoid equivalent wouldn't be possible.

That just leaves direct detection, which as stated in other threads as well as this one, requires some kind of chromatography, with HPLC being the most available.

I don't test samples for a living, so I have nothing to gain by disuading you from thinking about it; I'm just trying to provide you with the science behind what you are thinking to give you a better understanding of what you are up against and how significantly different the chemistry is between acid/base chemistry and the chemistry of complex organic molecules.
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What the Captain said are my thoughts exactly. I couldn't have said them better.
 
that's the most complex "what you want is not possible" post I think I've ever read. but as I'm a glass is half full kind of dude combined with the fact that I have absolutely no training, technical knowledge or experience in this field whatsoever I must rebut your position. the only thing is, I'm not smart enough to counter with a rational, well thought out, scientifically based response so I will cause a quick diversion and sneak away... here goes

look - is that a dog over there ??? ===>>>>
*sneaks away*

Mark
 
chilliman64 said:
that's the most complex "what you want is not possible" post I think I've ever read. but as I'm a glass is half full kind of dude combined with the fact that I have absolutely no training, technical knowledge or experience in this field whatsoever I must rebut your position. the only thing is, I'm not smart enough to counter with a rational, well thought out, scientifically based response so I will cause a quick diversion and sneak away... here goes

look - is that a dog over there ??? ===>>>>
*sneaks away*

Mark
Click to expand...
: looks over there :
 
Dcp_0038.jpg


Even the dog was distracted :hell:

Chilliman, I just posted a semi-detailed (you don't want the detailed version) because I'm the type of person who doesn't believe anything without evidence - that's just the scientist in me.

I think it would be great if there was some quick, cheap, practical way to get a SHU.

Bental's idea of trying to make an extract would be difficult because there are lots of other organic molecules that would also be present...not to mention that would be a lot of work to get an inaccurate reading.
 
dreamtheatervt said:
Even the dog was distracted :hell:

Chilliman, I just posted a semi-detailed (you don't want the detailed version) because I'm the type of person who doesn't believe anything without evidence - that's just the scientist in me.

I think it would be great if there was some quick, cheap, practical way to get a SHU.

Bental's idea of trying to make an extract would be difficult because there are lots of other organic molecules that would also be present...not to mention that would be a lot of work to get an inaccurate reading.
Click to expand...

no problems dreamtheatervt, I appreciate your post. I too am a believer in scientific rationale. maybe technology will get us there one day. until then...

nice dog you've got there ===>>>
 
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