He brings the heat to cooking
Self-taught chef David Ashley stokes America's appetite for hot sauce.
from the June 27, 2007 edition
Page 4 of 4
How hot is 'hot'?
The Scoville heat unit (SHU) was developed by American chemist Wilbur Scoville in 1912 as a way to compare the 'heat' or piquancy of chili peppers. The perception of heat is a measure of how much capsaicin is present. The original test found how many times a unit of pepper extract had to be diluted in sugar water before its piquancy was undetectable by a panel of tasters.
On the Scoville scale, a sweet or bell pepper, which has no capsaicin, rates a 0. A habanero pepper, though, has an SHU of 200,000 or more, meaning that it has to be diluted by a factor of 200,000 before its heat is no longer detectable.
Some sample ratings (in SHUs):
2,000,000-5,300,000: Standard US-grade pepper spray
350,000-577,000: Red Savina habanero
100,000-350,000: Scotch bonnet
50,000-100,000: Thai pepper, malagueta pepper, chiltepin pepper
30,000-50,000: Cayenne pepper, ají pepper, tabasco pepper
10,000-23,000: Serrano pepper
2,500-8,000: Jalapeño pepper
2,500-5,000: Tabasco sauce
1,000-1,500: Poblano pepper
100-500: Pimento
Source: Wikipedia; The Pepper Encyclopedia
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