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Testing for SHU

LawrenceJ2007

LawrenceJ2007

With all the new varieties of peppers coming out these days and different crosses that are out there it got me thinking about the SHU scale itself. Everyone knows that officially the Carolina Reaper is the hottest pepper right now, but most of us have tried peppers that seemed hotter, or very likely were hotter. Take the Jays Ghost Scorpion, that's one hot pepper, no matter who eats it, but yet it only scores around 900,000 SHU. 
 
I personally find the Jays hotter than the Reaper, and a Primo hotter than them both, even when the Primo scores at around 1.45 million SHU. We all know there are different types of Capsaicinoids in peppers and many types of casaicinoids out there.   
 

Capsaicin

C

69%

16,000,000



Dihydrocapsaicin

DHC

22%

15,000,000



Nordihydrocapsaicin

NDHC

7%

9,100,000



Homodihydrocapsaicin

HDHC

1%

8,600,000



Homocapsaicin

HC

1%

8,600,000



Nonivamide

PAVA

 

9,200,000


Those are the most common Capsaicinoids. So I wonder if when peppers are tested for SHU, do they also test for the different percentages of capsaicinoids? I'm having some stuff sent of for testing later this year I need to ask them if they can test for the percentages as well! 

But what do you guys think. We know which peppers cause which kinds of burns or have a decent idea and we know the SHU's of the differing capsaicinoids so with crossing peppers if we had their percentages of capsaicinoids we could make some cool crosses or go for hotter crosses by these values?

What do you guys think?

Anyone who has had peppers tested your input would be awesome to hear!
 
I can't give any help or input on the testing but I know exactly what you mean by experiencing a hotter pepper hen the said record holder ...for me personally the hottest one I have ever had was a Trinidad douglah...and I have had a few reapers ...

Great post btw...very informative as far as the common caps..
 
Douglahs are hot peppers, they hurt really bad as well. See that's what interests me, do these peppers all have differing amounts of caps in them, and different caps in them all together that make up their flavor profiles and distinct burns. I'm sure they do, but wonder if when tested do they test for the differing caps. 

I found an article that said that habaneros have around 60% Capsaicin in it and the rest of the caps were different percents. So I'm assuming that peppers like the reaper would have higher percentages of the hotter caps, thus making them really really hot and high on the SHU scale. As where the Jays Ghost is lower in percentage or total Cap levels but higher in levels of caps that cause the more extreme pains?
 
This is what I was thinking yesterday as well. If we would know exactly the rates of these capsaicinoids in the peppers, we could compare whats on paper with our experiences.
Then we could cross peppers according to, how cool is that? Even if the results won't be what we were looking for, maybe someone else wants exactly that.
Maybe the ratio of the 6 capsaicinoids are in relationship with pod shape. I bet if this would be studied better we would know even more about its medicinal properties.
Commercially it would still be enough to state a single total rating like now, but there would be charts comparing peppers in depth, properly, for us obsessed people  :P 
 
They only test for pure capsiacin as far as I know. That being said, conditions also influence it. Jays ghost is brutally hot, I've seen people throw up from a piece of one when they'd eaten a full brain strain the next day and where fine.
 
i find douglahs to be painless, but douglah crosses to be unbearable.
 
think it will be nearly impossible, just a guess really
 
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