Scoville or a measurement of spicy
Scoville was an American pharmacist. He wrote the famous books The Art of Compoundingas well as Extract and Perfumes. But few people remember him for this today.
He is known for the measurement of heat, which measures the spicy heat generated by foods.
It was while working for Pfizer on hotness in different types of chili peppers that he came up with his Scoville Organoleptic Test in 1912. For this a specific amount of dried pepper was mixed with alcohol. This mixture was given in increasing concentrations to a panel of 5 tasters. Hotness levels were defined when three of the five detected the heat. The result was measured in what became Scoville heat units.
Even Scoville realised that the human tongue get used to the active ingredient of chili peppers – capsicum. This makes the hotness relative to consumption. In his testing, Scoville adjusted for this by allowing his testers only six samples in an 8-hour testing period.
The range is from zero which means that no heat can be detected e.g. normal sweet peppers. Tabasco pepper has around 40,000 Scoville heat units ,but bhut or naga jolokia can generate a SHU over a million. Pepper sprays can also be measured in SHUs, with figures ranging between half a million to 5 million.
