How hot is your chilli?

We have all at some point of time bitten chillies in our food and whined that it was very "hot". But not many of us know that the hotness or "Piquancy" (which is the correct term) of pepper or chillies are measured on a certain scale.

It is measured in a scale called Scoville scale. The scale is named after its creator, American chemist Wilbur Scoville, who developed a test for rating the pungency of chili peppers. His method, which he devised in 1912, is known as the Scoville Organoleptic Test.

In Scoville's method, as originally devised, a solution of the pepper extract is diluted in sugar water until the "Piquancy" is no longer detectable to a panel of (usually five) tasters; the degree of dilution gives its measure on the Scoville scale. Thus a sweet pepper or a bell pepper, containing no capsaicin at all, has a Scoville rating of zero, meaning no heat detectable, even undiluted. Conversely, the hottest chilis, such as habaneros, have a rating of 200,000 or more, indicating that their extract has to be diluted 200,000-fold before the capsaicin present is undetectable. The greatest weakness of the Scoville Organoleptic Test is its imprecision, because it relies on human subjectivity.

Pungency values for any pepper, stated in Scoville units, are imprecise, due to expected variation within a species—easily by a factor of 10 or more—depending on seed lineage, climate and even soil (this is especially true of habaneros). The inaccuracies described in the measurement methods above also contribute to the imprecision of these values

An additional trivia for you. Naga Jolokia (naga morich, bhut jolokia), the Indian chili tested hottest in the world at 1,040,000 SHU.

If somebody tells you that he had bitten the hottest chilli in the world, ask them what is the SHu unit.

Mohan Rao.

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell - Confucius