Pellet Fan
All Things Considered => General Discussion--Food Related => Topic started by: Kristin Meredith on August 24, 2017, 02:56:59 PM
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pmillen posted this in another thread:
How hot is [hot]?
It's difficult to gauge that for someone else...maybe there should be a PF standard scale posted somewhere for reference. I ask because I am not experienced enough to gauge "Hotness" (is that a word?) from reading the recipe.
Here's starter scale—1 to 10. One is no heat (soda crackers). Six is nose running. Ten is red face, sweat and eyes watering.
Maybe a group-think can fine-tune the scale.
I like this idea because we have a real problem with hotness in this household. A jalapeno is borderline too hot for me and Bentley thinks that something is not hot unless it is a Scotch Bonnet. So I like a hotness scale.
I can accept the 1 -- crackers and 10 -- blow your head off. Not sure about the 6, my nose probably runs at about a 4, but I am a sissy, so I would like some more input
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So I made some wings a few weekend ago. Made my usual Frank's, a stick of butter, dry ranch dressing powder, and rosemary in a quart sauce pan. Used about half of it. I then put half a bottle of a Scorpion sauce in the sauce. My buddy said he thought he may bite through his tongue as it went numb. I had never used this sauce before and he was the one who gave it to me a year or so earlier. Well, I checked the bottle a few days ago. It is 780,000 scoville units. Oops! They had great flavor though. ;D
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Serves him right...Maybe a bit to much for me.
I enjoy the spice flavor more then the heat, almost impossible to have one and not the other. But at ratings like that, I do wonder if the endorphins possibly do start kicking in. I have had Scotch Bonnet...I think they are around 400 to 500K, but they are about it. seednpiggy from Minnesota gave me some bhut jolokia, (ghost chili) powder. We got it home after the 2010 American Royal and I was foolish enough to think there would be no issue with smelling the contents...that was an experience I hope to never experience again!
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I didn't think they were as hot as he was claiming and he has been know to eat a lot hotter food than me. It must have been the spicy beef jerky I ate prior to the wings or too many beers as to why I didn't feel the extreme heat.
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I haven't thought this through very carefully, but it still seems to me that we should be able to establish a PelletFan Heat Rating so we can gauge published recipes.
It occurs to me that we can assign a numeric heat value to a commercial sauce, like Sriracha. Let's say we call it 8 on a scale of 10. We might assign Taco Bell Hot a value of 4 (it comes in three levels, Mild, Hot and Fire). Based on this information I can rightfully decide that a PF Heat Rating of 5 is my comfort limit.
We might select easily obtainable sauces and eat four drops on a soda cracker and decide that a given sauce is somewhat hotter than Taco Bell Hot but certainly not as hot as Sriracha and give it a PF Heat Rating of 6. Doing this a few times may produce a usable scale.
Of course I'm assuming that the heat in nationally sold sauces is consistent. AND, I'm assuming that there's interest in doing so. The dearth of posts may indicate that there's little interest.
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Hotness is to hard to put a scale on. A 3 or 4 on my scale is a 7 to 8 on my wife's. Jalapeños are a wild card at any point. I grow my own, and some for hotness are like green peppers, and others are will blow your socks off when picked at the same color.
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That is funny. I use tobasco like candy, but some jalapeños about kill me while others do not. The Scoville scale has tobasco as higher.
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Hotness is to hard to put a scale on. A 3 or 4 on my scale is a 7 to 8 on my wife's. Jalapeños are a wild card at any point. I grow my own, and some for hotness are like green peppers, and others are will blow your socks off when picked at the same color.
I agree completely. I had the feeling that I wasn't explaining it well.
I was thinking that we all decide to call Sriracha an 8 (or whatever). Now we have a benchmark from which to label everything else. Then, my four will be the same as your four and your wife's limit is a two.
The scale isn't intended to be a percent of someone's tolerance
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I think the scale would have to be for what the "average PF" could tolerate as pmillen indicates, not a heat sissy like me. So let's start with his example and see what can be built.
On a scale of 1 (cracker/no heat) to 1o (blow your head off) what number would you assign sriracha sauce? (If need be, I can do a poll, I love polls ;D)
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I have had some 750k scoville and 1.2mm scoville hot sauces in the last month and sriracha is like candy compared to them. I had some "hot" sauced wings at a local restaurant on Friday. What used to be hot to me a few months ago is barely spicy now. I may have killed my taste buds. :rotf:
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I hate to be the "dirty old man" in the group but when I first read the subject line - I was not thinking of scoville heat units
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I hate to be the "dirty old man" in the group but when I first read the subject line - I was not thinking of scoville heat units
Sorry...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rdF7o08KXw
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Since "hotness" is even more subjective than BBQ judging
I doubt any accurate scale could be established or agreed upon.
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This is what my cabinet consists of at the moment, will add more when I get done drying peppers from this year’s growing season. I like things HOT!
L-R
Jalapeño (2500-8000 SHU), Orange Habanero (100k-350k SHU), Chocolate Habanero (425k-577k SHU), White Ghost (800k-1.04M SHU), Carolina Reaper (1.4M-2.2M SHU)
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20181203/f244e58889c1f736f8c993363cae14b0.jpg)
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All I know... is that anything hotter than a Habanero is just too hot for any real good... In fact Habenaros are too hot.
for me anything above a really hot Jalapeno, is just too hot for the most part. So, i'd put a really hot Jalapeno as a 9, and anything hotter, as a 10. Where 9 is I don't totally regret biting it... but almost do. 10 is effectively... " why am I so stupid "
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I've come to the conclusion that I do not like the flavor of habanero, ghost, or reaper. I do like the flavor of Scorpion peppers though.
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I am in the 'Lowslowjoe" camp, anything hotter than a jalapeno is more than I would ever need.
We will watch cooking shows sometimes and see the hottest this or that and I think...Why? Too dang hot to enjoy for me anyway.
Our Son and my B-I-L loves hot, some of the things they eat I am convinced could power a space shuttle, NOPE.
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I've come to the conclusion that I do not like the flavor of habanero, ghost, or reaper. I do like the flavor of Scorpion peppers though.
Not all types of peppers are created equal, or with the same flavor within the same type of pepper. The White Ghosts and Chocolate Ghosts to me are way better than your traditional Red Ghosts. The Chocolate Hab is probably my favorite chili pepper as far as flavor is concerned, it is leaps and bounds a better and different flavor than the Orange Hab. I have also grown to like the Caramel Moruga flavor better than the Carolina Reaper, which are similar in heat level (both top out above 2M SHUs).
With peppers it is worth it to experiment, with all the options available!
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I am at about the Serrano level myself...
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My buddy grew some peppers again this year, dehydrated them, and ground them up. He gave me a sample of the powder. We put some kettle cooked chips in the air fryer yesterday and then seasoned them with the powder. They were delicious. Not sure I could sit down and eat a lot at a time though.
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I am finding this thread interesting. We grow chlil’s every year. The majority are jalapeños and serrano’s. Beginning of the season this year neither had any heat at all, more like a green bell pepper with jalapeño or Serrano flavor. End of season they would burn a whole through your tongue. We had several hundred to harvest after the first frost. Used as many as we could fresh, then I turned the rest into hot sauce.
My experience has been habanero have an excellent flavor when used in moderation. I’ve had a mango habanero salsa that had very little habanero in it, there was only a tiny amount of heat, but you could taste the chili’s flavor.
Years ago we were in Barbados and their local hot sauce is made with scotch bonnets. It is delicious with a tolerable heat level. We liked it so much we brought a half dozen bottles home with us.
So I think a hotness scale would be difficult because how a pepper is used creates a wide range of hotness. I am old enough to know better than to pop a high scoville unit pepper into my mouth to see if I can take the heat. I’ll leave that to the younger folks.
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So I think a hotness scale would be difficult because how a pepper is used creates a wide range of hotness.
It seems to me that we could set a benchmark or two and create a heat scale that is familiar to all of us. It wouldn't take much. Three drops of some standard hot sauce (Tabasco or Sriracha) on a saltine cracker would be one reference point and given an arbitrary number (say 6). Then any heat that is not as strong would have a lower number. Heat level stronger would be assigned a higher number. A couple more reference points would fine-tune the evaluations.
Then, if I told you that a certain recipe produced a heat level of PF-8, you could decide to adjust the heat up or down. You'd say, "Oh, it's hotter than three drops of Sriracha, I'll adjust for my taste."
As soon as you know your preferred PF heat level you can look at a recipe's heat level and adjust.
Why isn't this a simple thing to accomplish? What am I not understanding?
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Keith, what was the name of the sauce you bought in Barbados?
pmillen, I think it would be a challenge because what you may feel is a heat of 6 I may feel is a heat of 2 or vice versa.
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pmillen, I think it would be a challenge because what you may feel is a heat of 6 I may feel is a heat of 2 or vice versa.
But that's exactly my point. Forget your rating of 2 when evaluating on the PF Heat scale. If three drops of Sriracha on a soda cracker has a rating of PF-6, then you would say, "PF-6 is mild for me. I prefer food at PF-9, so I'll add heat to this recipe."
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Wonder if we could pick a day, and anyone interested gets on the site. After establishing the parameters, you come on, you do a test and come back and post results, I will compile as folks post, and we continue till we have are scale. Anyone interested?
So I think a hotness scale would be difficult because how a pepper is used creates a wide range of hotness.
It seems to me that we could set a benchmark or two and create a heat scale that is familiar to all of us. It wouldn't take much. Three drops of some standard hot sauce (Tabasco or Sriracha) on a saltine cracker would be one reference point and given an arbitrary number (say 6). Then any heat that is not as strong would have a lower number. Heat level stronger would be assigned a higher number. A couple more reference points would fine-tune the evaluations.
Then, if I told you that a certain recipe produced a heat level of PF-8, you could decide to adjust the heat up or down. You'd say, "Oh, it's hotter than three drops of Sriracha, I'll adjust for my taste."
As soon as you know your preferred PF heat level you can look at a recipe's heat level and adjust.
Why isn't this a simple thing to accomplish? What am I not understanding?
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Wonder if we could pick a day, and anyone interested gets on the site. After establishing the parameters, you come on, you do a test and come back and post results, I will compile as folks post, and we continue till we have are scale. Anyone interested?
We may not have to go through that much effort. It's much like measuring pain on a scale of one to ten. If we all have an understanding of one or two reference points we can scale everything else.
No pain is a zero. If you were making love and all you could think about was the pain...that would be a ten.
So, it seems to me that all we need to do is pick one or two standard, easily reproducible, reference points, and we have our scale.
Hot sauce on a cracker. A ½ teaspoon of cayenne in a cup of water (take a sip)...that's another reference point. How well we each tolerate that heat isn't important. What's important is that we all know where they sit on the scale. So we can say, "That recipe is PF-9. I'll adjust the heat to meet my taste."
I may be the only person who finds this important. If so, I'll figure out some other way to accommodate Marcia's heat intolerance. I'll leave out all heat generating ingredients and add them in after the entrée is on the dinner plate. As it is, she's said, too many times, "Don't cook that again. The people who gave you the recipe like their food too spicy."
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I guess I am not understanding if you use multiple peoples input for the scale or not?
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I guess I am not understanding if you use multiple peoples input for the scale or not?
Oh, I now see your point. We probably need a consensus from multiple people on how much hotter (or less hot) something is from one of our established reference points. That would be useful.
As an example, if we decided that Original Cholula sauce is not as hot as Sriracha then we would need a way to gather opinions and place it on the scale (say, at 4). Then, if I thought that my recipe was about that spicy I would post it as PF-4.
See Chicken or Turkey Casserole (https://pelletfan.com/index.php?topic=3349.msg40429#msg40429) for my attempt at advising readers on the heat level.
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I'm beginning to question if this is work worth doing.
Probably, most members can look at a recipe and have a good idea of the heat level. I may develop that skill as I gain experience.
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Keith, what was the name of the sauce you bought in Barbados?
pmillen, I think it would be a challenge because what you may feel is a heat of 6 I may feel is a heat of 2 or vice versa.
That was 25 years ago and I don’t remember the name. It was for sale almost everywhere there and our hotel used in a lot of the dishes and it was always on the table.
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I'm beginning to question if this is work worth doing.
Probably, most members can look at a recipe and have a good idea of the heat level. I may develop that skill as I gain experience.
I guess I missed the point that you were only talking about commercial products. Don’t know about anyone else but I only have 2 or 3 on hand at any given time. They would be Huy Fong Siracha, Frank’s and Tabasco. I have had other brands of siracha and they had a different flavor and heat profile.
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I have a few more than 3 sauces not including a few in my basement or in the fridge.
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4811/44374800480_0be2dbdf5d_c.jpg)
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I guess I missed the point that you were only talking about commercial products.
That wasn't very clear.
Don’t know about anyone else but I only have 2 or 3 on hand at any given time. They would be Huy Fong Siracha, Frank’s and Tabasco. I have had other brands of siracha and they had a different flavor and heat profile.
:) I didn't know that there are other brands. Huy Fong is the only one I see around here.
(https://wjbgvw.ch.files.1drv.com/y4m5LNyxxuO58uUpnHy-vGATTl3HFYkcoQ_ft0Tg-gs8_BFL-P4OWxiLG0uU_THHFPx6Sra80qi5EkJERvMa7IfHW9mENM-LcakGcXTEaSv656gtlOdLH6N51SGk7mYx7izAA8umHKYg-2Dq-ogUP2nKUAx_d4ubQXbERaou7WEHlhDi-e9QO7MB3Mp1EbuTlMLcJTg6ZaBCJL5COvOUKWUlQ?width=660&height=439&cropmode=none)
Although I did see this on a High Zoot car.
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Like KiethG said jalapeño heat is a xxxx shoot, you never know what you're gonna get from pepper to pepper. I've had jalapeños that were more like green peppers and I've had some that were more like habanero's. The hottest I've grown personally were Fatali's. Picked one in the greenhouse and almost took a bite out of the tip but decided to wait till I was in the kitchen where the milk was. Good plan!!! Was talking to my cousin sometime later and she told me Fatali was Moroccan for "fatal". Believe I'll stick to habanero's myself. :P
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I have a few more than 3 sauces not including a few in my basement or in the fridge.
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4811/44374800480_0be2dbdf5d_c.jpg)
Holy cow, I'm a thinking you like the hotter side of things.
That'd last me 20 years.
I do have to ask though, while I was snooping in your cupboard I noticed the Franks Stinging Honey Garlic, is that worth a darn?
I do like Franks regular.
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The Frank's stingin honey garlic worked great as a marinade for jerky.
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The Frank's stingin honey garlic worked great as a marinade for jerky.
That is exactly what I was thinking and why I asked.
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pmillen,
During a power outage at our house last year we were staying with my sister in-law. Since my wife was bringing home fish fries with sweet potato fries I offered to make up some of my dipping sauce for sweet potato fries that includes siracha. I asked my sister in-law if she had any and she pulled out a bottle of green sauce labeled siracha. Didn’t taste like Huy Fong, almost no heat and gave the dipping sauce a funky taste that wasn’t pleasant.
Bar-B-Lew most stores around here carry fewer brands than you have!
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Lol...I would use 2 tbsp in a taco!
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I travel to some different states sometime and try to go to local grocery store to see what spices, marinades, BBQ sauces, and hot sauces they have that are different and look interesting. I also have other friends and family members who like to experiment like I do and we are always on the lookout for something new and different or on sale. Thus, when I get stuck traveling and don't get to cook for a while, I end up with a pantry full of stuff. I hope 2019 is a better year for having time and desire to cook more frequently.
BTW, that Frank's stinging sauce was only about $1 after the sale price and coupon attached to the bottle which is why I have about 5 bottles. I won't use it on anything but jerky as I am not a big fan of the Asian flavors.
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I guess I am not understanding if you use multiple peoples input for the scale or not?
I see another use for your suggestion—a consensus on where to place the the benchmark(s) for placing recipes or other products.
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I am finding this thread interesting. We grow chlil’s every year. The majority are jalapeños and serrano’s. Beginning of the season this year neither had any heat at all, more like a green bell pepper with jalapeño or Serrano flavor. End of season they would burn a whole through your tongue. We had several hundred to harvest after the first frost. Used as many as we could fresh, then I turned the rest into hot sauce.
My experience has been habanero have an excellent flavor when used in moderation. I’ve had a mango habanero salsa that had very little habanero in it, there was only a tiny amount of heat, but you could taste the chili’s flavor.
Years ago we were in Barbados and their local hot sauce is made with scotch bonnets. It is delicious with a tolerable heat level. We liked it so much we brought a half dozen bottles home with us.
So I think a hotness scale would be difficult because how a pepper is used creates a wide range of hotness. I am old enough to know better than to pop a high scoville unit pepper into my mouth to see if I can take the heat. I’ll leave that to the younger folks.
My early season peppers are always mild, that is usually because the first round of peppers are usually babied and tend to get plenty of water and very little stress. Putting pepper plants under stress is what will make your peppers hot. On into the summer, I will wait until my pepper plants start to just slightly wilt from lack of water, putting them under a slight stress, then I will water them as usual. This makes for some great hot peppers.
On you note about the flavor of Habaneros, I bought some Habanada seeds to grow this next season. Habanadas were developed at Cornell University, they are a Habanero with zero heat, but all of the Habanero flavor. Should be great for boosting the flavor of salsas without the added extra heat.
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I saw those heat less habaneros were available. Be interested to hear how they work out.
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I read that sauces made with ghost peppers from India are the hottest, up to 3 million scoville units. :P
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I read that sauces made with ghost peppers from India are the hottest, up to 3 million scoville units. :P
The Carolina Reaper is currently ranked as the hottest pepper. However, the guy that developed it already has another one he has made but has yet to release that is significantly hotter than the Reaper from what I have read. He doesn't want to release his pepper until someone else makes something hotter than the Reaper. It has turned into quite a game of cat and mouse over the years. I don't eat raw peppers above a jalapeno fresh, but will try hot sauces up to around the 2 million scoville levels. Have not found much of anything that has ghost pepper or carolina reaper that I like the flavor of and when combined with the extreme heat it is horrible to me.
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Hey BBL based on your pic I like how you roll. Also agree, using reapers or ghost to create a hot sauce just to be hot is mostly unpleasant to me. I like the heat peppers bring until the heat no longer matches to an enjoyable flavor (enjoyable of course to those of us who do like to bring a little heat).
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I suppose i could do my own research, but i'm feeling lazy...
Just how do they actually test for these bazzilion level hotness ?
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By how loud the sampler screams when he tries them. :rotf:
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I thought maybe it's by how close you can get it to your eye, before you start crying.
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The Scoville unit is determined by the concentration of capsaicinoids, and that process is made possible by high-performance liquid chromatography.
Just how do they actually test for these bazzilion level hotness ?