The Pepper Hotness Scale is an interesting tool for measuring the hotness of different types of peppers. It was invented by the American pharmacist Wilbur Scoville in 1912.
The method of determining the pungency itself is also interesting. At that time, it was already known that the unit of pungency of peppers was capsaicin. But people did not know why different varieties have different pungency and which one. Scoville was the first to solve this problem.
He took a number of different types of peppers. Soaked them in alcohol for a day (since capsaicin is able to dissolve in alcohol). The next day he took 1 ml. of this solution and added to 999 ml. sweet water. I tried it. And if it burned, then the diluted liquid was again added to sweet water, and so on until the moment when only a sweet taste was felt. The number of dilutions formed the basis for the scale of the hotness of peppers. Then people realized that different types of peppers in their hotness can differ tens or hundreds of times.
Despite all the usefulness of this invention, the scientific community rejected it, but food scientists happily took it. By the way, many scientists tried to invent their own method, they even succeeded in something, but Scoville's method remained the most useful.
Now let's go directly to the scale itself. It is measured in Scoville Units (ECU). It lists the types of peppers, the content of ECU in which is from 0 to 16,000,000. At the very bottom is paprika - 0 ECU, and pure capsaicin (15,000,000 - 16,000,000 ECU) is placed at the top of the scale.
The famous jalapenos (2500 - 8000), Tabasco sauce, Jamaican pepper and Poblano (used to prepare the main dish of Independent Mexico Day) are often eaten. Due to their taste, that is, pungency, they are often used in hot sauces, spicy mixtures and pickles by culinary specialists around the world.
The hottest pepper used in food is the Trinidad Scorpion. Its name fully justifies, it stings, most likely, not like a child, has about 1,000,000 ECU. Even its processing is not complete without chemical protection suits. Honestly, I cannot imagine its use in food - he still has 700,000 ECU, and it would be dangerous to health.
By the way, capsaicin does not dissolve in cold water, so it makes no sense to remove the pungency with cold water after eating pepper. But if you still want to get rid of this burning sensation, then alcohol, bread, citrus fruits are ideal, but the best "medicine" is milk, or rather milk protein.
