> Hi Dave: > It would be interesting to know the definition of a Scoville Unit and > how it is tested. Can you tell us? Most Chile Pepper books have some information on Scoville Units, but this one from "The Whole Chile Pepper Book" by Dave DeWitt and Nancy Gerlach, published by Little, Brown and Company does a pretty good job. The book is available from Amazon.com which can be reached from my bookstore at: http://www.tough-love.com/page7.html "Determining the precise pungency of the varieties of chiles and the foods prepared with them has long been a goal of cooks and researchers alike. In 1912, Wilbur L. Scoville, a pharmacologist with Parke Davis, the drug company using capsiacin in its muscle salve, Heet, developed the Scoville Organoleptic Test." (I also have read that he was a food chemist with Campbell Soup Co. but tend to doubt this story as I don't think Campbell ever made anything spicy.) "This test used a panel of five human heat samplers who tasted and analyzed a solution made from exact weights of chile pepper dissolved in alcohol and diluted with sugar water. The pungency was recorded in mutiples of one hundred "Scoville Units" A majority of three of the tasters had to agree before a value was assigned to a given chile or food; however, it is evident that the Scoville Test was highly subjective, and that is why the test was replaced with high technology." It then goes on to explain HPLC testing and then has this important paragraph: "Despite the accuracy of HPLC testing, we should remember, as Dr. Ben Villalon of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station points out, "Capsaicin can and is quantitatively measured by high-pressure liquid chromatography, to exactness for that particular pod only, that particular plant, that particular location, and that particular season only." Thus, chiles will sometimes deviate from one heat scale because of local conditions. The book then goes on to show an "Official Chile Heat Scale" which rates Chiles from 0 (no heat) to 10 (hottest). As the hottest is listed at 100,000 to 300,000 Scoville Units, we may need to add an 11 and 12 go get as high as some Chiles like Red Savina and Caribbean Red have been tested. I think Red Savina's world record is 577K SU and Caribbean Red tested at 472 SU. Dave Anderson Tough Love Chile Co. http://www.tough-love.com