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Question about scoville

Anyone ever heard of Resiniferatoxin?
 
Using the Scoville Scale, resiniferatoxin is estimated to have a rating of 16 billion, one thousand times higher than the rating for pure capsaicin.
 
The Hot Pepper said:
You can't fit 400 jalapenos in your mouth at once. If you could the amount of capsaicin you would be getting would be equal to that of a superhot.
 
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I'm not sure I agree with this. Each jalapeno is a certain percentage capsaicin, the rest other plant matter (a reasonable part of which are sugars, which coincidentally counteract the effects of capsaicin). Now of course 2 jalapenos are going to burn more than one. Jalapenos are a bad example though, at such low levels of heat. Say for example, you shove a brain strain in your mouth. It is gonna be hot! Now shove 3 brainstrains in your mouth. Is it going to be three times as hot?

I don't believe so. The "mash" contacting your "heat" receptors would still be the same percent capsaicin either way. Just my 2 cents though, I'm by no means a biochemist lol
 
I said the capsaicin would be equal not the burn would be the same. Accounting for mass, flesh, etc. and how everything touches your skin, tongue.
 
Pretty much all be discussed if you read the whole thing.
 
illWill said:
 Say for example, you shove a brain strain in your mouth. It is gonna be hot! Now shove 3 brainstrains in your mouth. Is it going to be three times as hot?
 
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You probably wouldn't be able to tell... Your mouth would go somewhat numb.
 
I know for fact that 4 or 5 habaneros all at once feels like a superhot.
 
Naga Chomper said:
I know for fact that 4 or 5 habaneros all at once feels like a superhot.
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Yuuuuuuup.
 
Naga Chomper said:
 
You probably wouldn't be able to tell... Your mouth would go somewhat numb.
 
I know for fact that 4 or 5 habaneros all at once feels like a superhot.
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The first part of what you said, is what I suppose I was trying to say. Surely your mouth can only uptake so much capsaicin after a certain point right?

The second part of what you said, I'm not trying to disagree because I've certainly never tried it lol but I just don't quite understand it completely. In my mind, without subtracting non-capsaicin matter from the habanero, nothing should make it hotter, regardless of amount. I now kind of want to shove 5 habs in my mouth lol
 
illWill said:
The first part of what you said, is what I suppose I was trying to say. Surely your mouth can only uptake so much capsaicin after a certain point right?

The second part of what you said, I'm not trying to disagree because I've certainly never tried it lol but I just don't quite understand it completely. In my mind, without subtracting non-capsaicin matter from the habanero, nothing should make it hotter, regardless of amount. I now kind of want to shove 5 habs in my mouth lol
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It took roughly 15+ superhots in powder form to finally get my mouth to go numb. I don't think three brain strains would hit the numb spot. That was more a silly comment than anything. The most supers/ultras I've done fresh at once was two. A douglah, and a 7 pot brown. My mouth didn't go numb.
 
The 5 hab thing was a bit of a shocker. It was easily as hot as a 7 pot, or scorpion but the burn didn't last nearly as long.
 
Interesting.... I guess I didn't expect your mouth to physically "go numb" I just thought at some point whatever receptors process capsaicin would be completely overwhelmed, and not able to process the whole "burn" if that makes any sense.

And 15 superhots in pepper form, wtf! You are crazy lol
 
The Hot Pepper said:
 
I guess then you are no more drunk after 10 beers, than one. Hmmm. Seems you are, so 10 peppers is hotter than one. Have another beer Darth. :lol: Analogies do not help. SHU is not a percentage rating anyway.

Wish it was. Then we could convert it to volume based on weight. There is no volume rating.
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Do you still agree with this?
 
If this is true - "Since SHU can be converted to ppm (SHU/16 = ppm)"
I don't see how you can't look at it like a percentage
 
Blame it on Nightshade...he linked it to an identical discussion.  :lol:
 
Halbrust said:
Do you still agree with this?
 
If this is true - "Since SHU can be converted to ppm (SHU/16 = ppm)"
I don't see how you can't look at it like a percentage
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I'm not even sure what day it is.
 
The Hot Pepper said:
 
I'm not even sure what day it is.
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salsalady said:
PS- I doubt the discussion will ever end.  Just don't ask how many SHUs are in a gram of capsaicin.   ;)
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Well? How many?!? Don't just leave us all hanging like that! 
:D
 
Here's the way I view it. SHU is a concentration unit and pure capsaicin is ~ 16 million SHU or 1 million ppm. But, mass flux capsaicin determines heat level, I think. Mass flux is mass flow per unit area. I think surface area of the mouth is important because it determines the number of taste receptors.

Consider the average mouth has 100 cubic centimeters of surface area and it takes 3 mouthfuls to eat a medium slice of pizza. It also takes 1 minute to eat a slice. Assume in case A that you put 10 grams of a Naga Morich powder on a slice of pizza. Assume also that the Naga powder is 1 million SHU. The mass concentration of capsaicin is .0625 gm per gm of dried Naga powder. The mass flux of capsaicin in this case is .625 gms capsaicin per 300 cubic centimeters per minute.

Consider case B where you have dried jalapeño powder at 5000 SHU. The mass concentration of capsaicin in the dried jalapeño powder is 0.0003125 gm per gm of dried jalapeño. In order to achieve the same level of mass flux of capsaicin, you would need 2000 grams of powder! I'm not sure you can get 2000 gms of powder on one pizza slice since that would be over 4 lbs! But, if you could it would hot and would hurt the next day!
 
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