Brno chemists uncover real heat behind mislabeled chilli peppers
Chilli peppers may not always be as spicy as the label says. According to experts, manufacturers often do not even know how to measure the spiciness of their products correctly and sometimes quote values twice as high as the real strength. Chemists from the Brno University of Technology have therefore started testing chillis and trying to find out the exact value of their hotness.
Pavel Diviš, from the laboratory of the Institute of Chemistry, Food and Biotechnology of the University of Technology in Brno, goes through the means of measuring the spiciness of chilli peppers with Czech Radio.
"Because we'll be working with chilli powder, that's definitely not good to get on our mucous membranes. The fundamental problem is that when you want to buy a chilli, the manufacturers give a hotness value, but it may not be what they say."
When you purchase a chilli pepper at the shop, for example, the package might say that its spiciness is indexed at 2.5 million SHUs, which are units on the Scoville hotness scale. It turns out that these estimates are not as accurate as many presume. Mr. Diviš comments on their accuracy:
"That estimate may or may not be true. The Carolina Reaper variety can have a rating ranging from 1.2 million to about 2.5 million. Quite often, producers don't know the actual strength, so they automatically quote what is in the literature, which is 2.5 million SHU.
“One of the chilli farms in South Moravia is interested in accurately stating the hotness value of its products, so they approached us to see if we could help them with this problem."
According to Mr. Diviš, SHUs indicate how much the powder needs to be diluted with water for the hotness to disappear completely. Traditionally, this was done by simply tasting it. Now, you pack the dried habanero pepper, pour it into a mortar, grind it, weigh it, and add water. He continues:
"We add a specific amount of water so we can calculate the exact ratio of how many times we diluted it at the beginning. We stir it up and we have it ready, diluted."
The scientist explains that when you use this method, you are able to calculate the strength, but also that the taste measurement cannot be completely accurate.
That's why scientists from the Faculty of Chemistry at Brno University of Technology measure the hotness of peppers on a large scientific instrument, which looks like a HiFi tower from the 1990s.
Eva Vítová from the Faculty of Chemistry College of Brno measures the chilli sample in the device.
"This is the so-called liquid chromatograph, which is able to specify the concentration of substances. Each of the peaks corresponds to one of the hot substances. According to this result, it looks like the pepper has a strength of about 800,000 Scoville units and we are able to issue a certificate confirming the accuracy of this result.”
However, the Brno scientists do not only test chilli peppers, but also chilli products. In addition to the strength and duration of the hotness, they also test the smell and the attractiveness of the chilli’s color.
