Scoville Organoleptic Test

[Guest guest]

This (below) came from a link in the group's link section. Can you

imagine being one of the " testers " . I can only imagine that is where,

" YEEEEEHAWWWWWWWWW " came from.

 

I like Alton Brown, Amy. He grew on me - I started appreciating the

technical side to food and cooking.

 

Shawn

 

----

 

In 1912 a chemists by the name of Wilbur Scoville, working for the

Parke-Davis pharmaceutical company, developed a method to measure the

heat level of chile peppers. The test is named after him, the

" Scoville Organoleptic Test " . It is a subjective dilution-taste

procedure. In the original test, Wilbur blended pure ground Chiles

with sugar-water and a panel of " testers " then sipped the solution, in

increasingly diluted concentrations, until they reached the point that

the liquid no longer burned their mouths. A number was then assigned

to each chile pepper based on how much it needed to be diluted before

they could no longer taste (feel) the heat.

The pungency (or heat factor) of chile peppers is measured in

multiples of 100 units. The sweet bell peppers at zero Scoville units

to the mighty Habanero at 300,000 plus Scoville units! One part of

chile " heat " per 1,000,000 drops of water is rated at only 1.5

Scoville Units. The substance that makes a chile so hot is called

Capsaicin. Pure Capsaicin rates between 15,000,000 and 16,000,000

Scoville Units! Today a more scientific and accurate method called

liquid chromatography is used to determine capsaicin levels. In honor

of Dr. Wilbur the unit of measure is still named Scoville.

 

http://ushotstuff.com/Heat.Scale.htm

 

On 10/7/05, Amy wrote:

 

> The Scoville scale of heat units was based on the number of squirts of

> sugar water it took to calm the heat on a taster's tongue (at least,

> that's what Alton Brown said! :-)

>

[Guest guest]

> This (below) came from a link in the group's link section. Can you

> imagine being one of the " testers " . I can only imagine that is where,

> " YEEEEEHAWWWWWWWWW " came from.

>

> I like Alton Brown, Amy. He grew on me - I started appreciating the

> technical side to food and cooking.

 

 

What a cool link. :-) And yeah, Alton makes the technical side fun!

 

You wouldn't catch me being a tester though - I don't even eat

jalapenos by themselves!

 

have a great day Shawn,

Amy