These pungency units can be converted to SHUs (which are more commonly used) by multiplying the parts-per-million by 16. So, for example, a shishito pepper can have anywhere between 100 and 1,000 SHUs, meaning, it would need to be diluted 100 - 1,000 times before no spiciness could be detected.Īlternatively, HPLC, the primary test used today, measures the concentration of capsaicinoids in a pepper in pungency units, which are considered one part capsaicin (the most common capsaicinoid) per one million parts of dried pepper mass. In Wilbur’s original Scoville organoleptic test, SHUs measured how many times the capsaicinoid solution needed to be diluted for the taste testers to no longer detect heat. Capsaicinoids are the components that give peppers their spiciness, and capsaicin is the most common capsaicinoid in chili peppers. If you want a more scientific explanation of how peppers are measured on the Scoville scale, you’ll need to understand what exactly is being measured. This is why a bell pepper, which is not spicy at all, has 0 SHUs, while an incredibly spicy habanero pepper can have anywhere between 100,000 - 350,000 SHUs.Ĭheck out the chart below for an overview of how many Scoville units designate different spice levels. The simplest way to think about Scoville scale measurement is that the higher the SHUs of a pepper, the spicier it is. HPLC measures spiciness in “pungency units,” but these units can be converted to SHUs. This process divides the pepper into its separate components and measures the concentration of capsaicinoids (the compounds that create heat in fruits and vegetables) to determine how spicy a pepper is. In the organoleptic test, an SHU represented the highest dilution of the pepper extract in which the panel could still detect heat.īecause the organoleptic test relies on human subjectivity, pepper spiciness is now measured quantitatively via high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The solution would then be continuously diluted and served to a panel of five taste testers until at least three of them could no longer detect any heat. The modern Scoville scale is based on Wilbur Scoville’s Scoville organoleptic test, in which dried peppers were dissolved in alcohol to make an extract and then diluted in sugar water. The Scoville scale is named after Wilbur Scoville, the pharmacist who created the scale in 1912. The Scoville scale is a measurement of pungency (or spiciness) of chili peppers, measured in Scoville Heat Units (SHUs).
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