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Australia Biotech Idle Science

New Chili Is World's Hottest 201

Posted by samzenpus from the it-tastes-like-burning dept.
bazzalunatic writes "The Trinidad Scorpion Butch T chili is grown and harvested by an Australian company, and not by the inmates of an Australian insane asylum as rumored. The chili is claimed to be the world's hottest (1,463,700 SU), surpassing the current Naga Viper chili at 1,382,118 SU. From the article: '"They're just severe, absolutely severe," says Marcel de Wit, The Chili Factory co-owner. "No wonder they start making crowd-control grenades now with chilies. It's just wicked." The chili is so scorching that Marcel and his team have to wear protective gear when handling the new variety. "If you don't wear gloves your hands will be pumping heat for two days later," he says.'"

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New Chili Is World's Hottest More

New Chili Is World's Hottest

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  • COME ON ICE CREAM!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Spritzer ( 950539 ) * on Tuesday April 12, 2011 @12:00PM (#35794712) Journal
    Someone better find a better ice cream to start chasing these chilies with.

    • Re:COME ON ICE CREAM!!! (Score:5, Informative)

      by wierd_w ( 1375923 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2011 @12:11PM (#35794898)

      It's hard to beat liquid nitrogen frozen icecream; [wvu.edu] It produces extremely fine grained ice crystals in the icecream, resulting in superior creaminess.

      Can be made in any number of delicious flavors.

      • That's great, but will it cool the ring of fire the next day.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by TheLink ( 130905 )
        How about chili pepper ice cream?

        When you eat it, it's "hot", but cold at the same time. When you stop, the "heat" lingers. The more you eat the more the "heat" builds up, so you could eat more ice cream to numb the pain temporarily ;).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hatta ( 162192 )

      If you're just going to kill the heat with ice cream, why bother? I eat spicy food because I like the heat. If I didn't want the heat, I wouldn't do it. There is such a thing as too hot, but in those cases I just don't eat it, rather than cutting the heat with dairy. If it's so hot that you need something to kill the pain, it's too hot to be reasonably enjoyed.

      • Re:COME ON ICE CREAM!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2011 @01:15PM (#35796042) Homepage

        If it's so hot that you need something to kill the pain, it's too hot to be reasonably enjoyed.

        Which is why as I've gotten older I've more or less decided that anything beyond a banana pepper or a jalapeno is pointless.

        I just don't enjoy it anymore, and my first encounter with habaneros pretty much showed me that things like a mouth that stays on fire for hours and burning hoop just aren't fun. I've just never been able to enjoy super spicy foods as much anymore -- at least not at the endurance end of the spectrum.

        The dairy is nice because it's kind of an off-switch -- and, really, all the cultures that have the spicy food use dairy to quench the heat, so why is it cheating? It's not like it's some manly endurance test to take the full heat without any relief ... well, I guess to some it might be.

        I'm sure some people really do enjoy these things, but I've more or less given up. I know someone who has used so much spices over the years, and smoked for long enough that she has no taste buds left ... if it's not spicy as hell, and/or salty as hell, she can barely taste it.

        Mostly, however, this article makes me think of Guatamalan Insanity Peppers from the Simpsons. :-P

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Hatta ( 162192 )

          I mostly agree. I use habaneros very sparingly. One habanero in a 9x13 casserole is plenty. When used in small amounts the heat isn't overpowering and you can still taste the sweet fruitiness of the pepper.

          And sure, dairy is fine if you just use it to titrate the heat. My point is that eating something way too hot just because you can dull the pain with dairy is silly. If it hurts, don't do it, there's nothing really to be gained. Better to use one pepper to season a pot of chili for several dozen pe

          • My point is that eating something way too hot just because you can dull the pain with dairy is silly. If it hurts, don't do it, there's nothing really to be gained.

            Yeah, at that point it's something of a frat boy competition to see who can eat the most absurdly hot item and survive. I used to really gravitate to things like this until a friendly pub owner offered to make me some wings with his secret "stupid sauce" recipe -- full blast habaneros plus some kerosene, formaldehyde and lighter fluid for some e

        • It's the burning hoop that gets me. As someone said above, Ice Cream only cools the pain if you put it in your ass.

          There are 2 places Haberneros are edible that I've found: A piece of raw pepper eaten in the same mouthful as a piece of meatball, and when made into saurkraut. When made into saurkraut, they really aren't hot at all. I'd put them way under the hotness level of a jalapeno. I don't know why. Maybe it's because all the capsaicin gets leached out? But then the kraut would be too hot you'd

      • Maybe THIS [zazzle.com] will explain the "ComeOn Ice Cream!!!" concept for you.

  • the world's hottest chilli (1,463,700 SU), surpassing the current Naga Viper chilli, at 1,382,118 SU

    But how much is that in Quetzlzacatenango peppers?

    • Sorry, that is not an accepted slashdot unit of measure. Please restate the question in the form of Libraries of Congress.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jd ( 1658 )

        Assuming the Library of Congress to be at STP, how many LoCs is this new chilli?

        • 15 scovilles is approximately 1 ppm capsaicin. A library of congress is approximately 0.001 ppm of the data universe. This pepper should be about 1000 LoCs. Admittedly, there are significant roundoff errors in that calculation, but it should be good enough for the layman.

      • Nothing involving Congress is ever hot.

    • To measure it properly, basically it's going to be 7 tequilas to get over a Trinidad Scorpion Butch T chili. Quetzlzacatenangos are only 5.

  • Sissy units (Score:3)

    by Omega Hacker ( 6676 ) <omegaNO@SPAMomegacs.net> on Tuesday April 12, 2011 @12:07PM (#35794824)
    Let me know when you have something to measure in terabecquerels.... ;-)
  • I don't get it - what's the point? With a chili that hot, even if it's diluted in a sauce you're not going to get anything resembling a nice flavour or taste, just fire in your mouth. I'd much rather eat something that packed a moderate punch along with decent flavour.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by osgeek ( 239988 )

      The point is Youtube.

      Go to Youtube and search for "ghost pepper". You'll come up with an assortment of fools proving their machismo on camera.

      Some of the videos are hilarious.

      I welcome these new all-powerful chili pepper overlords and the Internet hilarity they bring with them.

      • "It doesn’t matter who you are, or what you’ve done, or think you can do. There’s a confrontation with destiny awaiting you. Somewhere, there is a chilli you cannot eat."

        -- Daniel Pinkwater, A Hot Time in Nairobi

      • My favorite video of that sort is where a guy gets his (soon to be ex) girlfriend to eat a tablespoon of chili powder by telling her it's cinnamon. Hilarity, and a really pissed off chick, ensues.

    • I don't get it - what's the point?

      It releases quite pleasurable natural drugs in your brain.

      Endorphins

      It's a legal drug, for now.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ackthpt ( 218170 )

        I don't get it - what's the point?

        It releases quite pleasurable natural drugs in your brain.

        Endorphins

        It's a legal drug, for now.

        Want to try something fun? Half a bunch of hot peppers - habaneros, scotch bonnets or hotter and place on one of those fan driven dehydrators inside your house. Hours of fun as your eyes, sinuses and lungs encounter airborne capsaicin. It's almost like swimming in caffeine.

        Took hours to air out the house...

    • Riot control. Imagine if even a diluted version of that pepper were to get sprayed at you. You'd be face-down in the dirt, crawling at your eyes in seconds.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        And they are not controlled (yet) so perhaps we can start growing and harvesting them to use against the government oppress^H^H^H^H^H^H^H law officers.

    • It's the same point as putting linux on your [toaster|vacuum|console]. Bad experience, limited use, but you do it anyways.

      I don't know about this new one but Bhut Jolokias are difficult to grow, much more finicky than most peppers, so it's a challenge and if successful a chemical weapons plant.

      • I have never had a problem growing Bhut Jolokias up here in Minnesota in the summer. We have some nice hot humid days and it still can get cool in the night. I do have to start them inside each year since it is still possible to get some hard freezes even now. I love these peppers since these are what I consider a hot pepper, I grow also grow jalapeños, bell, cayenne, habanero and can eat all of them fresh off the plant like candy. Fresh ones are always better and hotter than the ones from the store

        I

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by marsu_k ( 701360 )
          Which is why gloves are recommended when handling the hottest varieties. It does stay on your skin for quite some time (remember not to get too friendly with your SO for a while, or not to pick your nose/rub your eyes - yes, been there, done that on all counts). Alternatively, "wash" your hands with vegetable oil first, then with soap and water - as capsaicin is soluble in oil, this removes most of the nastiness.

  • Does not fempute? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by uberjack ( 1311219 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2011 @12:12PM (#35794924)
    You have to wear protective gear, yet in TFA photo, they aren't?

    • I doubt you would need protective gear until you cut them up and got the juice on your skin. That's when you would have issues.

    • Re:Does not fempute? (Score:4)

      by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Tuesday April 12, 2011 @12:22PM (#35795116) Homepage Journal

      They were experimenting to see if it causes mutations.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ackthpt ( 218170 )

        They were experimenting to see if it causes mutations.

        Pretty much all capsicums (peppers) are cultivars or mutations of the original plants from Central America. What is interesting is to seek out the original plants.

        • Which has exactly nothing to do with something causing mutations.

        • They were experimenting to see if it causes mutations.

          Pretty much all capsicums (peppers) are cultivars or mutations of the original plants from Central America. What is interesting is to seek out the original plants.

          And here I thought peppers had been grown in India for much longer than that, because they are so prevalent there, but it turns out you are correct. India produced black pepper (and other spices) for thousands of years, but the capsicums were not introduced there until the 17th century. The name pepper (like many "mistaken identity" names to blame on Columbus' voyage to America) was coined when he brought dried chilis back to Isabella, supposedly since he wasn't able to bring back the Indian pepper like

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 )

      You have to wear protective gear, yet in TFA photo, they aren't?

      Skin of the pepper isn't the hot part. When you halve a pepper look for the white fleshy bit around where the seeds are located. That's the hottest part of the pepper. If you are looking for the most intense experience, trim that bit from your peppers and toss the rest.

    • You have to wear protective gear, yet in TFA photo, they aren't?

      They only wear the gear while cooking them. From TFA:

      "We went to Melbourne to cook our first batch of the sauce, the Scorpion Strike, we all had to wear full chemical masks and suit-up with full protection suits and gloves to cook these up." Marcel says. "Imagine, when you start cooking with it - those fumes that come out of the pot."

  • Given the protective gear necessary to handle these peppers, I'm assuming they aren't going to be available to the home consumer at the local co-op. Even if the home consumer got ahold of one of these, it seems like its mere presence in the kitchen would render chili and salsa essentially inedible; what would I do with one of these, really?

    • I can see this finding its way into some restaurant's food challenge. The Phaal challenge of Man vs. Food comes to mind:

      http://www.eatmedaily.com/2009/01/the-phaal-challenge-at-brick-lane-curry-house-on-man-v-food-video/

      Any time a gas mask is required for cooking, you can tell the food will be spicy!

  • Why not just make chili with 12 Molar Hydrochloric Acid? Let's see you top THAT with some lousy chili pepper!

    • Because HCL tastes too much like lemonade and would clash with the other flavors in the chili?

      In fact, the effect on skin (and tongue) is much less with the HCL. Now, if you were talking sulfuric or nitric.... But you wouldn't want to become flammable yourself - that's how you make guncotton.

  • Like Hotdog eating contest (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2011 @12:19PM (#35795028) Homepage Journal

    I like hot food, very hot food, but I don't see any of these hottest chilies making it to my pantry any time soon.

    Outside of the curiosity of how much Capsaicin we can get a capsicum to produce, these don't appear terribly useful in dietary circles. Though I suppose someone could host a contest of gastonomic masochists to see who can eat the most.

    For painkiller they might be useful. I grew Habanero peppers and a woman at work asked if she could have some for her grandfather. A day after I gave her bag of a dozen she said he really appreciated them - could he get some more. I was awestruck - "He ate all of them already?" No, he mashed them up and applied them to his arthritic hands to take the pain away. Aha. Well done, him. I had more than I needed and gave them as many as they could take - the plants really went to town from mid July to late August in Michigan heat and humidity.

    • You simply use less of them. Where I might use 7 to 10 super-market bird eye chilis, I'd use 1 jolokia - and still get a significantly hotter meal. I have some 8% b.w. Jolokia chili paste and that's quite easy to use in meals. Jolokia has a nice fruity taste too, nicer than the bird eyes. Also, after eating it fades to a background level heat that lasts a good bit longer than other chili too, which is nice.

      The Jolokia is definitely very hot (you do need to be careful handling them once cut) but it's still q

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ultramk ( 470198 )

      I use a 600k scoville-rated ghost pepper sauce on a daily basis. I'm a "non-taster" on the old scale, so I require a lot of stimulation in my food to find it enjoyable. The endorphin rush is significant and pleasurable.

      In soup for example, I use a few drops, which gives me the effect of adding a ton of some milder hot sauce. The advantage is that I get a tiny fraction of the sodium that I would from Tabacso or something similar--and sodium's something I'm trying very hard to keep a lid on.

      The interesting th

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by garcia ( 6573 )

      I eat foods laced with the ghost pepper often wings [lazylightning.org] and Caribbean [lazylightning.org] to name two of my most favorite) simply because I enjoy eating spicy foods.

      The problem with spicy foods is that you apparently gain tolerance to the effects. The first few times I had ghost wings I got an endorphin rush (light headed, arms went numb, etc) but subsequent tastings have provided much less response.

      While I know there are plenty of extracts available which will permit me to add up to 15+ million Scoville units, I prefer to keep th

      • The problem with spicy foods is that you apparently gain tolerance to the effects.

        You do. I used to eat habaneros all the time - raw (yes, just eating them whole, seeds and all), stir fried with chicken, etc. but now I rarely eat chilis, so the little red peppers you get in vietnamese or thai dishes are very hot to me, and so is even the lowly jalapeno. I had a tolerance for it before and was quite addicted to hot peppers but after years of eating chili peppers infrequently I have near zero tolerance for th

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ackthpt ( 218170 )

          The problem with spicy foods is that you apparently gain tolerance to the effects.

          You do. I used to eat habaneros all the time - raw (yes, just eating them whole, seeds and all), stir fried with chicken, etc. but now I rarely eat chilis, so the little red peppers you get in vietnamese or thai dishes are very hot to me, and so is even the lowly jalapeno. I had a tolerance for it before and was quite addicted to hot peppers but after years of eating chili peppers infrequently I have near zero tolerance for them.

          I hadn't eaten hot food for a while and visited the Pho King for lunch. Those little red chilies were HOT! Now after months of eating curry all the time I pop them into my mouth like candy.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mbrod ( 19122 )
      Yah, I grew two habanero's in pot's here in the NE. Got more than I could eat in a lifetime. Surprised me. Great to hear it helped ease someones pain.
  • Amazing, something that seems so painfully hot when eaten can be used as an analgesic.

  • Best comment ever (Score:3)

    by Saija ( 1114681 ) on Tuesday April 12, 2011 @12:34PM (#35795338) Journal

    and not by the inmates of an Australian insane asylum as rumored

  • The chili is so scorching that Marcel and his team have to wear protective gear when handling the new variety.

    Seriously, what is up with the ever hotter chilis? The hottest ones are long past the point of being edible. Even the first generation habanero extracts from way back in my college days would burn all the taste buds off one's tongue AND scorch one's rectum leaving a toilet full of blood.

    Escalating the heat in one's food is an addictive thing, but when one gets to the point I describe above, one would generally--I did anyway--realize that it is not good for one and one is not really enjoying it anymore.

    I'

    • Chili tolerance doesn't last very long fwiw. Unless you just left, your college chili experiences won't make that much difference to your current tolerance level. ;)

  • Meh. (Score:2)

    by PPH ( 736903 )

    Try the Fukishima Dai-ichi chilli some time.

  • Happened to a friend - didn't wash well after eating a bunch of (very) hot wings, then went to recycle that pitcher of beer. Couldn't sit still the rest of the evening.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 )

      Happened to a friend - didn't wash well after eating a bunch of (very) hot wings, then went to recycle that pitcher of beer. Couldn't sit still the rest of the evening.

      I've burned my face a few times. Takes practice to remember that capsaicin will soak into skin while cutting up habaneros with bare hands.

      Don't rub eyes. Don't pick nose. Done stick finger in ear. If you have shaved your face that morning, don't rub fingers across face.

      It goes away after a while, but can feel much worse than a severe sunburn.

      • I scratched an itch near my eye once after eating a cayenne just before leaving to teach a class at the community college. All of my students thought I was really upset over something.

      • Yes, it can.
        I managed to burn myself in some sensitive areas twice.
        damn that's not fun. I've started 12 Chocolate Habanero plants this year. One of my standing offers will be to take the finely ground powder and snort a line of it.
        I will pay $100 to whomever is foolish enough to do it (on video).
        On a related note, it does make a beautiful salsa or rack of ribs if done right.
        -nB

    • That's probably the least-pleasurable way of getting a burning sensation in your privates from Hooters.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zebedeu ( 739988 )

      We were having a alcohol-induced macho match to see who could eat one of the small dried chillies on the table.
      We didn't know what kind the chillies were, or how strong they would be, so me and 2 more friends took one chilli in our hands and counted to three.

      One of the guys wussed out while me and the other ate our chillies. Relatively speaking they weren't that hot, but we're not used to spicy food, so we suffered quite a bit.
      In the midst of our struggling the 3rd guy threw his chilli back into the bowl an

  • I can appreciate that, for the horticulturally interested, seeing how high a Capsaicin concentration you can get out of something that will actually grow might be an interesting hobby/challenge.

    Beyond that, though, it seems sort of pointless. We know what the active ingredient is, we have techniques both for extraction and purification and for synthesis. It would be a modest effort in benchtop chemistry to produce Capsiacin at 90+% purity from even the comparatively mundane peppers, and 100% pure provide

    • You're missing the point. That point being that different peppers not only have different levels of capsaicin concentration, they also have different flavors.

      Although scotch bonnet, and a habenero peppers have similar scoville ratings. The way they effect the taste of what you put them in is different. Just like bourbons that have the same ABV taste different because of the differences in the mashes used by the distillers.

  • we already know that Capsaicin has applications in modern medicine. This should be a great boost in the production yields for medical use. That is, if the company doesn't try to patent a plant.

  • When does it cease being food and instead get classified as a chemical weapon or simply toxic waste?

  • I'm growing a naga jolokia this year - for some reason I cannot get most peppers to grow hot in my garden so I figure if I start off with something that overexpresses capsaicin like a mofo I might end up with an acceptable jalepeno-ish level of heat. I'm trying to cut sodium out of my diet as much as possible and hot sauce is a very nice way to provide an edge similar to salt to your food for those days you get tired of garlic or lemon..

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

      Have you tried potassium chloride?

      You might also want to examine your reason for cutting out sodium. In a normal healthy human sodium levels are self regulating if you get enough water.

      • My cardio hasn't yet felt a need to put me on KCl and I'd rather avoid it if I could. First we're trying diet, then if needed I'll go off my birth control pills, and only if that doesn't work will we move on medications. Right now it appears the diet changes are working. I really, really don't like bananas, but they're starting to grow on me... a bit like mold, but still. It's easier to eat a plain raw banana than a plain raw potato :-)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

          I meant using it as a salt replacement for food. It is sold this way in pretty much every supermarket. I take a bunch of it for other reasons, but it does taste vaguely salt like.

  • Hotter vegetation is what causes global warming! ;)

  • Yet another neurotoxin to which stupid people voluntarily subject themselves. Amazing. At least this one apparently does no real physical harm, it just feels like it does (and that being the point because it stimulates endorphins).

    Me, I love the acidic flavor of good peppers, but I wish they'd engineer one WITHOUT the capsaicin.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

      That would make them totally pointless. Lots of things are neurotoxins. Guess what? No matter what you do you will die, so we might as well have fun while we are here.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by macraig ( 621737 )

        So capsaicin is "fun"? It has alternate uses for dog and crowd control, fer chrissakes!

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

          Indeed it is, its use releases endorphins.

          It may well be used for those purposes, the dose makes the poison.

  • I prefer the merciless peppers of Quetzlzacatenango! Grown deep in the jungle primeval by the inmates of a Guatemalan insane asylum.

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