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Question about scoville

Lucky Dog Hot Sauce said:
Think of it in simple terms: I suck at analogies by the way.
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agreed. lol

I was getting wrapped up with SHU. one or ten peppers sitting on the counter is all the same SHU. but THPs example of the pot of chili is spot on. And no worries Browning, this one threw me for a loop with the whole, "adding it to pizza/ SHU" thing. I am glad you joined in!
 
Ok now that I'm fully awake and back after it again I made the original post when 1/2 asleep so it was rather rough but asked the intended question just in very simple term obviously adding 1 1 million SHU pepper to a pizza now that I'm thinking about it wouldn't actually make the pizza 1million SHU because of the way it is actually measured but increasing the amount of 1million SHU peppers to the pizza would increase the pizzas SHU but now thinking even deeper into it I think that even adding 500 peppers to a pizza wouldn't raise the SHU of the pizza to equal the average SHU of the peppers on the pizza because if measured properly you would dry and grind the entire pizza adding impurities to the powder there for lowering the SHU of the powder to below that of the average of the peppers added to the pizza so if I'm now thinking correctly if only using one kind of pepper you could never make a food as hot in SHU measurements as the peppers used. am I making any sense and is this remotely correct or am I really off base?
 
It's like when someone says they made a sauce with 16 mil extract. Well now it is IN that sauce, so the "sauce itself" is not 16 mil. It could have one drop.
 
Again, all about the delivery per area. It could taste like Tabasco and be a 1500 SHU sauce.
 
Another point about that extract - its 16M SHU

the Moruga tests out at just over 2M. Reportedly hotter ones aren't a whole lot hotter than 2M.

There certainly aren't 16M SHU peppers. Same thing - a lot of peppers combined to make that. Is the extract made of Jalapeño or Trinidad Scorpion? Doesn't matter. Just the cumulative amount of capsaicin.
 
The Hot Pepper said:
Yup yup. Cap is cap.
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180px-MikeFichera--Cap-Classic-red-white-blue.jpg
     = 
chilepepper.jpg
 ?
 
:dance:
 
I agree though that the burn may differ due to surface area, as in, there is so much capsaicin packed into a superhot, if you eat one, a lot of capsaicin is touching your tongue, where if two other peppers equal that SHU, and you eat two at once, the addition of mass and the fact that some of the flesh is not touching your receptors may result in a lower burn. But the fact is you ingested the exact same amount of capsaisin. However if you were to chew awhile you'd probably hit that burn. But the initial impact may differ, or you may swallow some that didn't get to burn you. So those that test peppers and eat raw ones will notice the most. Those of us that cook with them shouldn't be too worried about which is hotter. One reaper in a chili, or four morugas. Yup, the moruga is a hotter chili, or sauce. So pick the flavors you like and use them. Too many people are focused on the "hottest" these days, and that can easily be taken care of by popping another pepper into your sauce!
 
I'm going to go against the grain and say that even though there is the same amount of Cap in 300 Jalapenos as there is in one naga, the Scoville rating doesn't change just because you have 300 Penos and 300 penos on your pizza may give you the same amount of Cap in the pizza as one naga, but you're still only putting on jalapenos and your mouth and gut will know the difference because the mass of peppers you had to eat to take in that much Cap made them cooler.
 
 
The Hot Pepper said:
I agree though that the burn may differ due to surface area, as in, there is so much capsaicin packed into a superhot, if you eat one, a lot of capsaicin is touching your tongue, where if two other peppers equal that SHU, and you eat two at once, the addition of mass and the fact that some of the flesh is not touching your receptors may result in a lower burn. But the fact is you ingested the exact same amount of capsaisin. However if you were to chew awhile you'd probably hit that burn. But the initial impact may differ, or you may swallow some that didn't get to burn you. So those that test peppers and eat raw ones will notice the most. Those of us that cook with them shouldn't be too worried about which is hotter. One reaper in a chili, or four morugas. Yup, the moruga is a hotter chili, or sauce. So pick the flavors you like and use them. Too many people are focused on the "hottest" these days, and that can easily be taken care of by popping another pepper into your sauce!
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I agree about 80% with you but I still think that since the definition of Scovile is a measurement of the amount of Cap per mass, you can't ignore the mass part. Twice the mass, the scoville rating goes way down. In a nutshell Cap content =/= Scoville rating. They aren't the same. That jalapeno pizza will never seem as hot as the naga pizza for the same Cap content because the Jal pizza will have 300 times the mass of peppers on it that need to be ingested.
 
Lucian said:
... say you have ten pepper all rated at 1 million now adding only one pepper obviously makes the whole pizza rate at 1million ...
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No, the pizza adds a lot of (dry) mass. Let's say the pepper has a dry mass of 2g and the pizza has a dry mass of 400g:
1.000.000 SHU *2g / 402g = about 4975
 
The pizza now has a rating of less than 5000 Scoville.
 
Jeff H said:
I'm going to go against the grain and say that even though there is the same amount of Cap in 300 Jalapenos as there is in one naga, the Scoville rating doesn't change just because you have 300 Penos and 300 penos on your pizza may give you the same amount of Cap in the pizza as one naga, but you're still only putting on jalapenos and your mouth and gut will know the difference because the mass of peppers you had to eat to take in that much Cap made them cooler.
 
 
 
I agree about 80% with you but I still think that since the definition of Scovile is a measurement of the amount of Cap per mass, you can't ignore the mass part. Twice the mass, the scoville rating goes way down. In a nutshell Cap content =/= Scoville rating. They aren't the same. That jalapeno pizza will never seem as hot as the naga pizza for the same Cap content because the Jal pizza will have 300 times the mass of peppers on it that need to be ingested.
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I understand the mass, as stated, that's why those eating fresh peppers may notice more of an inconsistent burn when eating two at once, as compared to one superhot, but the fact is you are doubling the capsaicin. When you cook it breaks down and the capsaicin is released into the sauce, chili, etc. Take the chili again. With each pepper you add, you are adding capsaicin. With each pepper you add, it is getting hotter. If you were to test the actual chili, yeah there are other ingredients, but it would be getting higher in SHU each test. Saucemakers make sauce hotter by adding more peppers. That's just a fact.
 
If you eat one 500K SHU pepper right now, and then eat another variety of pepper, also rated at 500K SHU, you just ate 1,000,000 SHU of peppers. Makes no difference if you eat them separately, or at the same time. That's what you ate. Average per pepper. Now if they are the same variety of pepper, your mouth doesn't know that, so you can't say "Doesn't matter how many you eat, you are still just eating 500K SHU total." That's what he was asking.
 
So, his pizza toppings are the total number of the individual SHUs. Does that mean the burn will be the same if the mass if different, as in a bunch of habs as compared to one naga? No. No one is saying that. But the SHU is the same as far as adding the peppers together.
 
Adriano said:
 
No, the pizza adds a lot of (dry) mass. Let's say the pepper has a dry mass of 2g and the pizza has a dry mass of 400g:
1.000.000 SHU *2g / 402g = about 4975
 
The pizza now has a rating of less than 5000 Scoville.
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Well yeah nobody rates pizzas for Scovilles, I'm sure he means the peppers.
 
As in "I just ate a pizza with 1 million SHUs of peppers."
 
It's all in the wording, if you want to impress your friends. ;)
 
Someone make a pizza with 20 diced morugas, and a pizza with one diced moruga.
 
Post your results.
 
I guarantee you won't be saying you are eating the same SHU on each slice.
 
The Hot Pepper said:
Well yeah nobody rates pizzas for Scovilles, I'm sure he means the peppers.
 
As in "I just ate a pizza with 1 million SHUs of peppers."
 
It's all in the wording, if you want to impress your friends. ;)
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Well, then 1st the question seems obolete to me.
Then 2nd to me, as a non native speaker I have to admit, the sentece should be: "I just ate a pizza with peppers of 1 million SHUs."
And third: If you want something to cumulate: Why not use mg* of Capsacin?
 
lg
Adrian
 
* or micropound or microstone, nail, ounze, drachm or whatever ;p
 
Adriano said:
 
Well, then 1st the question seems obolete to me.
Then 2nd to me, as a non native speaker I have to admit, the sentece should be: "I just ate a pizza with peppers of 1 million SHUs."
And third: If you want something to cumulate: Why not use mg* of Capsacin?
 
lg
Adrian
 
* or micropound or microstone, nail, ounze, drachm or whatever ;p
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Because we dont know the purity of said capsaicin. It is 99.9% pure or 95%...or 50%. 
 
SHU works. 
 
 
Scoville ratings are defined per unit of dry mass, comparison of ratings of between products having different water content can be misleading. Typical fresh chili peppers have a water content around 90 percent, whereas, for example, Tabasco sauce has a water content of 95 percent.[24] For law-enforcement-grade pepper spray, values up to 500 thousand to 5 million SHU have been mentioned,[25] but the actual strength of the spray depends on the dilution, which could be a factor of 10 
 
average by weight.
Concentrated is more scovies than diluted.
 
For your pizza question, you also have to consider the weight of the pizza in your calculation.
 
To make it simple, how far do you have to dilute your pizza until you can no longer taste the heat?
A million times would be a million scovies.
 
I.E.-----if you reduced enough hoopa loopas to get a million scovies, when you add it to the weight of the pizza, it would be considerably less, and by rough calculation, 1/2 the weight of your pizza would have to be 2 million scovies to make the whole pizza 1 million.
 
Confused yet? :banghead:
 
SHU measures the capsaicin present.

If you add a pepper that is 1million SHU, to a pizza, and threw the whole thing in a blender, it would measure less SHU than if you did the same thing with a pizza that had 10 million SHU peppers on it. The pizza is definitely a dilution factor.



Multiply all of that by 3.14 X the distance to the bar, plus the weight of a glass, ice cubes and full up with hhwiskey, and you will have your answer. At least I do. hahahahahahahahaha
 
Scoville DeVille said:
SHU measures the capsaicin present.

If you add a pepper that is 1million SHU, to a pizza, and threw the whole thing in a blender, it would measure less SHU than if you did the same thing with a pizza that had 10 million SHU peppers on it. The pizza is definitely a dilution factor.



Multiply all of that by 3.14 X the distance to the bar, plus the weight of a glass, ice cubes and full up with hhwiskey, and you will have your answer. At least I do. hahahahahahahahaha
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You need to multiply the whiskey x3.14 to be able to stomach the blended pizza :sick:
 
JoynersHotPeppers said:
http://denver.cbslocal.com/top-lists/some-like-it-hot-top-spicy-foods-in-denver/
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Some Like It Hot: Top Spicy Foods In Denver
In the eyes of the beholder, or taster in this case, heat is relative. The Scoville Heat Scale (a measure of hotness) ranks capsaicin chili peppers a tongue-lashing 16 million, but this article covers five Denver restaurants that all scored high on the heat scale.
 
Heat Hot Sauce Scale: 11 million plus, ask for the roasted jalapeños for caramelized heat
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I was like WHAAAAAAT???? Then I saw:
 
Here’s a great list for some of Denver’s spiciest menus and hottest restaurants (ranked by the author’s own Heat Sauce Index).
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Well gee thanks for making up your own usless scale, but mentioning the Scoville, and putting your rankings in the millions :lol:
 
How useless :lol:
 
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