where does the hottest chilli come from?

[Little Chuchok]

You might be surprised,but it is grown in England,Dorset actually.

The chilli so hot you need gloves

By Simon de Bruxelles
THE world’s hottest chilli pepper does not come from a tropical hot spot where the locals are impervious to its fiery heat but a smallholding in deepest Dorset.

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Some chillis are fierce enough to make your eyes water. Anyone foolhardy enough to eat a whole Dorset Naga would almost certainly require hospital treatment.

The pepper, almost twice as hot as the previous record- holder, was grown by Joy and Michael Michaud in a poly- tunnel at their market garden. The couple run a business called Peppers by Post and spent four years developing the Dorset Naga.

They knew the 2cm-long specimens were hot because they had to wear gloves and remove the seeds outdoors when preparing them for drying, but had no idea they had grown a record-breaker.

Some customers complained the peppers were so fiery that even half a small one would make a curry too hot to eat. Others loved them and the Michauds sold a quarter of a million Dorset Nagas last year. At the end of last season Mrs Michaud sent a sample to a laboratory in America out of curiosity. The owner had never tested anything like it.

According to Mrs Michaud, the hottest habañero peppers popular in chilli-eating competitions in the US generally measure about 100,000 units on the standard Scoville scale, named after its inventor, Wilbur Scoville, who developed it in 1912. At first the scale was a subjective taste test but it later developed into the measure of capsaicinoids present. The hottest chilli pepper in The Guinness Book of Records is a Red Savina habañero with a rating of 570,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU).

Mrs Michaud was stunned when the Dorset Naga gave a reading of nearly 900,000SHU. A fresh sample was sent to a lab in New York used by the American Spice Trade Association and recorded a mouth-numbing 923,000SHUs.
Mrs Michaud said: “The man in the first lab was so excited — he’d never had one even half as hot as that. The second lab took a long time because they were checking it carefully as it was so outrageously high.”

The Dorset Naga was grown from a plant that originated in Bangladesh. The Michauds bought their original plant in an oriental store in Bournemouth. Mrs Michaud said: “We weren’t even selecting the peppers for hotness but for shape and flavour. There is an element of machismo in peppers that we aren’t really interested in. When the results of the heat tests came back I was gobsmacked.”

The couple are now seeking Plant Variety Protection from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which will mean that no one else can sell the seeds.
Mrs Michaud, 48, has run the company with her husband at West Bexington, near Dorchester, for ten years. Mr Michaud, 56, has been a regular on the television chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage series, advising on vegetable growing.

Anyone wanting to try the Dorset Naga will have to be patient as chillis are harvested only from July on. In Bangladesh the chillies grow in temperatures of well over 100F (38C) but in Dorset they thrive in polytunnels.

Aktar Miha, from the Indus Bangladeshi restaurant in Bournemouth, said that even in its home country the naga chilli was treated with respect. “It is used in some cooking, mainly with fish curries, but most people don’t cook with it. They hold it by the stalk and just touch their food with it,” he said.

“It has a refreshing smell and a very good taste but you don’t want too much of it. It is a killer chilli and you have to be careful and wash your hands and the cutting board. If you don’t know what you are doing it could blow your head off.”

[friscofrankie]

They hold it by the stalk and just touch their food with it,” he said.

buncha pussies...

[El Gibbon]

^Assuming your moniker relates to N. Ca. I'm sure you know Dave's Insanity Sauce. The label reads.... good for cleaning tar off of your driveway.

Should send a bottle to Dorsett\... then they would have a comparison.

I took a bottle to Malaysia, where everything they eat is smoking hot. Put it on the "lunch" table and a couple of the Malay engineering staff went for it....

Splat, splat, they really doused their noodles..... Too funny watching watching the faces....


E. G.

[Bung]

Daves Insanity sauce is the hottest stuff I have come across ever. One or two drops is too much for a whole meal.

I work with a guy from Grenada who makes his own similar stuff which I thought was comparable to Daves but then I tried his sisters stuff!

I think they use a scotch bonnet chilli which is extremely hot.

Isn't the seeds the hottest part? I always avoid them and if you just use the flesh like I tell Mrs Bung to do it has a great flavour without burning.

[friscofrankie]

The hottest part is the membrane inside, usually removed along with the seeds.

Dave's Insanity is a mixture of pepper extract and some other peppers and other, spicey stuff; pretty good on a Noah's garlic & onion Bagel with Jalapeno schmear. Along with a big cup of Peets coffee, or two, my morning wake up back when.

[El Gibbon]

Urban Myth?????

I was lead to believe that Dave's uses the oils from various chillies. Then its distilled to the "correct" intensity.

Really have no idea, but seems logical.

E. G.

[man with no head]

That couldn't be possible since capcasin is a nonpolar molecule. Mostly the sauces use capcasin in its pure form to boost the heat factor (along with pepper parts and extracts).

This is why drinking a nonpolar beverage (water, tea, beer) only makes the burning worse. If I'm on fire the first thing I grab is a glass of cold milk.

[friscofrankie]

Urban Myth????? I was lead to believe that Dave's uses the oils from various chillies. Then its distilled to the "correct" intensity.

An in accurate description of using "pepper extract" or capsaicin dunno how it extracted from the chilies though.

This is why drinking a nonpolar beverage (water, tea, beer) only makes the burning worse. If I'm on fire the first thing I grab is a glass of cold milk.

Anothe bite of the "hot stuff" works for me...

[man with no head]

The guys at work barely can tolerate Frank's on their wings. I brought some of mine in the day after I posted the recipe and it took the breath away of several of them. Even my wife says they're too hot to eat.

It's rare now that I'm ever on fire. It's actually a great sensation.

[Marmite the Dog]

Daves Insanity sauce is the hottest stuff I have come across ever. One or two drops is too much for a whole meal.

We call that "Sauce for pussies" in Dorset...

[Little Chuchok]

The hottest chilli pepper in The Guinness Book of Records is a Red Savina habañero with a rating of 570,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU).

Mrs Michaud was stunned when the Dorset Naga gave a reading of nearly 900,000SHU. A fresh sample was sent to a lab in New York used by the American Spice Trade Association and recorded a mouth-numbing 923,000SHUs.

I always thought that you yanks had the hottest.Beaten by the poms eh..

[friscofrankie]

Beaten by the poms eh.

You mean beaten by a Bangladeshi pepper stolen by some pasty faced Brit? Well we'll have to see won't we? Now they wanna what copyright the fuckin' seed? "we stole it first!!!"

[Little Chuchok]

Possession is 9/10ths of the law....

[lom]

We call that "Sauce for pussies" in Dorset...

Must be hardskinned lasses in Dorset, did they ever try Gel ?

[Joe 90]

The Guinness World Records has crowned Pepper X as the hottest chili pepper in the world, dethroning the Carolina Reaper chili pepper after 10 years.

For comparison, a habanero pepper typically hits 100,000 Scoville heat units, but Pepper X registers at 2.69 million units.

Breeder and grower Ed Currie created both record-breaking peppers.

As a proprietary pepper, Pepper X pods and seeds will not be sold.

Mr Currie cultivated Pepper X for a decade on his South Carolina farm, but remained tight lipped about his project to protect his intellectual property.

"This was a team effort," Mr Currie said in a statement. "We knew we had something special, so I only let a few of my closest family and friends know what was really going on."

In lab tests at Winthrop University in South Carolina, Pepper X registered an average of 2,693,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU), which is more than one million units hotter than Mr Currie's previous innovation, the Carolina Reaper which averaged 1,641,183 SHU.

In 1912 pharmacist Wilbur Scoville invented the Scoville Scale, which measures how many times capsaicin needs to be diluted.

Capsaicin is the chemical that gives humans that burning sensation of peppers - which can release dopamine and endorphins into the body.

After overcoming drug and alcohol addictions, Mr Currie started growing peppers as a hobby and says peppers act as a natural high.

Though people tend to believe the spice of a pepper comes from its seeds, capsaicin is contained in the placenta, the tissue which holds the seeds. Because of Pepper X's curves and ridges there is more surface area for the placenta to grow, according to the Guinness World Records.

Mr Currie is one of only five people who has eaten an entire Pepper X.

"I was feeling the heat for three and a half hours. Then the cramps came," Mr Currie told the Associated Press.

"Those cramps are horrible. I was laid out flat on a marble wall for approximately an hour in the rain, groaning in pain."

Mr Currie said Pepper X is a crossbreed of a Carolina Reaper and a "pepper that a friend of mine sent me from Michigan that was brutally hot".

Mr Currie's lawyer said 10,000 products used the Carolina Reaper name, without permission.

In an effort to protect his intellectual property and see profits this time, Pepper X pods and seeds will not be released.

The only way to taste Pepper X will be through sold hot sauces.

Guinness World Records crowns new hottest pepper - BBC News

[Topper]

"I was feeling the heat for three and a half hours. Then the cramps came," Mr Currie told the Associated Press.

"Those cramps are horrible. I was laid out flat on a marble wall for approximately an hour in the rain, groaning in pain."

Just makes you want to go and get a bottle of his hot sauce, doesn't it?

[david44]

I'm sure you know Dave's Insanity

Mr Currie cultivated Pepper

We wonder what did Peter Piper pick?

Having just counted the 37 whole red chillis in the Phad Kraphao at Ois diner I can assure all and sundry that the hottest chilli comes at the exit end of the digestive cycle down our way ,I never ask for super hot just the way the locals who munch a dozen pre prandial and then add the prik pon dried chilli to "Spice it up a bit"


C0=kippers have assured the gale force flatulence lifts the light Autumn sheets , airing th ekipper while sharing the aroma wit those farter afield.

I can assure readers having resided amongst the Wobblers and in pakistan Malaysia Mexico and the Towelhead Riviers the hottest curry I ever had was in Stafford UK prepped b a N Sea roustaboot.

Some goodenss following my discharge ( From Hospital) visited Makro C Rao and they now have the excellent Mothers mixed pickle ad Lime pickle around 114 baht for a big jars I think 340grams I osed to orddr online , Pix to follow once i get bac to my moann kitchen pantry

[happynz]

The hottest I've ever experienced was a Scotch Bonnet Habanero cross from the Cameron Highlands. There were some questioning of life choices and temporary hallucinations, lol.