Scoville Units - measureing at home

Flame is exactly correct.......this is how you test your SHU
 

Scoville Organoleptic Test or Scoville Scale
To perform the Scoville Organoleptic Test, an alcohol extract of capsaicin oil from a dried pepper is mixed with a solution of water and sugar to the point where a panel of taste-testers can barely detect the heat of the pepper. The pepper is assigned Scoville units based on how much the oil was diluted with water in order to reach this point. As an example, if a pepper has a Scoville rating of 50,000, that means capsaicin oil from that pepper was diluted 50,000 times before the testers could just barely detect the heat. The higher the Scoville rating, the hotter the pepper. Tasters on the panel taste one sample per session, so that they results from one sample don't interfere with subsequent testing. Even so, the test is subjective because it relies on human taste, so it is inherently imprecise. Scoville ratings for peppers also change according to a type of pepper's growing conditions (especially humidity and soil), maturity, seed lineage and other factors.
 
this is an older post so idk if this would help anyone but so far from just thinking it through I think the best way to measure scoville units at home would be a longer process and definitely not easy or that cheap. 
first i would extract the capsaicinoids from peppers, then test by putting one drop in a solution of sugar water. for every drop of sugar water solution that it takes to get rid of the spice is one heat unit. 
there are many videos on exctracting capsaicinoids but this one is "safe" to consume. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh1eOTZr0jI
as for the solution i would have to test what ratio of water to sugar works before I has a solid answer. but just assuming i would do a max sugar solution where the water is either 100% saturated with sugar or just below. 
considering this is not done in a lab and everything is done at home, this test most likley wont be perfect but then again even the scoville scale is based on taste so that's technically not accurate either. 
 
A simpler method I use, take one of the pods from the batch or a spoonful of the hot sauce and eat it.
 
Think about my life choices
 
Back
Top