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Scoville Heat Units (SHU) are the standard scale for measuring the heat of chiles
(also called chilis in the US or chillis in the UK).
The SHU scale was developed in 1912 by Wilbur Scoville, a chemist with the Parke-Davis
pharmaceutical company. The Scoville rating of a chile reflects its heat intensity. The
chemical in a chile which makes it burn is capsaicin - pure capsaicin has a Scoville
rating of 16,000,000 SHU.
The different varieties of chile that are available to buy at the stores vary tremedously
in their heat rating. The common bell pepper is a capsicum and technically a chile - yet
it has an SHU rating of zero. Hot chile peppers vary from a mild 100 for Pepperoncini up to a
massive 570,000 for the Red Savina Habanero.
Measuring the Scoville Rating
When Wilbur Scoville first invented his heat scale the test used was primitive.
Scoville's original "Organoleptic Test" involved diluting an extract of the chile. This
extract was then given to a panel of tasters who reported when they could no longer detect
the heat. The SHU rating reflected the level of dilution needed to achieve this.
This test worked but was obviously inaccurate and - even with multiple tasters -
subjective. More recently High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) has been
introduced to measure the capsaicin content of a chile directly.
Official Chile Pepper Heat Scale
A recent variation of the Scoville rating is the "Official Chile Pepper Heat Scale" which maps
SHU values to a number between 0 and 10. This has the element of simplicity and is used
by a number of food writers. However many of us still prefer to use the orginal SHU
ratings - perhaps because all those zeros look more interesting!
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