Ok lets say I have a bottle of hot sauce and its rated at a modest 50,000 scovilles. Is that 50,000 scoville for the entire bottle or is there a certain rating per certain amount? Reason for asking is Ive tried so many different hot sauces and its hard for meto tell a difference between a 50,000 rated bottle and a 500,000 rated bottle.
Scoville rating question.
- Thread starter Necrocannibal
- Start date
Scoville is essentially a concentration unit. If numerous samples are taken, the average of samples of 50k product would be 50k. Easy way to remember it is 1 tsp 50k + 2 tsp 50K = 3 tsp 50k; it is not an additive process.
dreamtheatervt said:
this is how I understand it also. of course if you add 1ts of 50k hot sauce to a bowl of food, the heat will be dispersed throughout the food. 2ts of 50k will be twice as hot as 1ts by comparison as there is more hot sauce in the bowl. 1ts of 100k will be twice as hot as 1ts of 50k mixed through the same bowl. this is the only time the heat 'increases' - by using more.
the hotter the sauce the less you need for the same effect.
the rating is not for the chiles used but rather for the heat of the sauce. some saucemakers say that they use extract/chiles rated at xxxk SHU's to make their sauce - I think this is what Cajohn's Wanzas Wicked Temptation says - ingredients measuring 2mil Scovilles but I doubt the sauce is actually rated 2million:
http://www.cajohns.com/store/mercha...de=CFF&Product_Code=C222&Category_Code=Ultras
http://www.sweatnspice.com/562-34.htm
if it's really 2million then you gotta ask why is it so cheap??? especially when Blair's 3am is an extract rated at 2mil and costs heaps more (I know it has the fancy bottle) and has no other ingredients, whereas Wanzas is chockful of vinegar and fruit juices etc. just MHO...
http://www.sweatnspice.com/92-13.htm
I didn't want to talk about dilution because I wanted to keep it simple, but yes, chilliman is correct about dilution. I just wanted to state that in the bottle it was a weighted average and not additive.
I usually ignore sauces which tout their SHU rating because for the most part because if that is their major selling point, it usually lacks in the taste department, and because of the dilution factor that chilliman talked about. Unless you are drinking it straight from the bottle, its best to just find a flavor you like and get it in a ballpark. If you don't want a lot of chili flavor and want to add heat, a little of a hotter sauce is the way to go, but if you want the chili flavor to dominate, than just concentrate on finding a sauce with a flavor you like and add until you are happy.
When a producer gives a SHU number, remember it isn't accurate. Chances are it is rounded up from the hottest test sample, and not indicative of the product as a whole. Not all chilis, even from the same plant, are identical.
Also remember, that as you increase in SHU units, your tongue has less of a gauge of how hot it is. Eventually, you just reach a point where it burns like hell.
I usually ignore sauces which tout their SHU rating because for the most part because if that is their major selling point, it usually lacks in the taste department, and because of the dilution factor that chilliman talked about. Unless you are drinking it straight from the bottle, its best to just find a flavor you like and get it in a ballpark. If you don't want a lot of chili flavor and want to add heat, a little of a hotter sauce is the way to go, but if you want the chili flavor to dominate, than just concentrate on finding a sauce with a flavor you like and add until you are happy.
When a producer gives a SHU number, remember it isn't accurate. Chances are it is rounded up from the hottest test sample, and not indicative of the product as a whole. Not all chilis, even from the same plant, are identical.
Also remember, that as you increase in SHU units, your tongue has less of a gauge of how hot it is. Eventually, you just reach a point where it burns like hell.
dreamtheatervt said:
agreed!
Well said all. SHU is definitely an inexact science. Many people fall into the SHU trap, don't let yourself do it. People's mouth's register different things. There are certain things I find very hot that others don't and certain things I don't find hot at all and people around me are coughing and sweating. Don't concentrate on the SHU amount, concentrate on the flavor first.
Thanks for the replies. I was just curious as to how a bottle as rated, or a pepper for that matter. Like if its 50,000 SHU for a pepper is that the entire pepper and one bite, say a 1/10 of the pepper, would give you 5000 SHU in your mouth. I definately care more for flavor than just how hot something is.
Necro, think of SHUs like the alcohol content in, say, bourbon. if it is rated at 75% alcohol, it is 75% for the bottle as well as a single shot. do you get more alcohol if you have two shots instead of one? - yes, more by volume.
chilliman64 said:
Alcohol - the cause of and solution to all of lifes problems!
Mmmmmm, beer.
chilliman64 said:
Cool. Thanks for the info. That answered one of my questions. The other is is the entire bottle 500,000 or part of it? I think its a rating for the entire bottle but one little drop of say Blairs MegaDeath is alot hotter than one little sliver of a Habanero and they are both rated right at 500,000.
so simple LOL ....shu mean there is X units of pure caps in 1kilo of pepper or sauce or what ever ...this is a ratio of caps by volume ...