For most of us, a ruddy face with a combination of teary eyes and a silly fanning gesture on the mouth is enough to tell that a fool has just eaten something unbearably hot. However, there is, without sounding geeky, a scientific approach to knowing the piquance or heat of a chili pepper. An inquiry of such nature can only be satisfied through the Scoville Scale, the Richter scale of the chili peppers.
Named after its creator Wilbur Scoville, the scale based on the Organoleptic Test can detect how much spice there is in a chili, and how much of a gastronomic pandemonium it will causeby adding incrementally the alcohol extract of the capsaicin -a colorless, extremely pungent, heat-producing crystalline compound from the chili -to a solution of sugar in water until the “heat” is visibly seen by a panel of professional tasters. The degree of dilution gives its measure on the Scoville scale.
However, numerical results yielded by the scale may not be conclusive. It is prone to inaccuracies and imprecision because specimens have varying cultivation conditions that are dependent of seed lineage, climate (humidity is a big factor for the BhutJolokia; the Dorset Naga and the original Naga have quite different ratings), and even soil (this is especially true of habaneros).
With its upside and downside, the Scoville scale is still the favorite measuring system of many chefs and culinary daredevils around the world. Without it, only the imagination and experience could tell how hot a ghost pepper is. You wouldn’t want to shower your lunch with a glob of edible lava without knowing it, wouldn’t you? Remember, the Guinness Book of World Records in 2007 certified Ghost Pepper or Bhut Jolokia pepper from the rural regions of India as the world’s hottest pepper with a whopping 16,000,000 Scoville units, and 1, 0421, 427 units using HPLC (high performance liquid chromatography). It is more than 500 times hotter than the Tabasco hot sauce. It's believed that the Naga Viper will be the next hottest pepper on the Scoville Scale but scientist believe it will be over 1 year till they can prove the the Naga Viper Chili is the hottest pepper.