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Comment by isoprophlex | Hacker News Reader

From a linked citation on the wiki page:

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."

Haha, what's next, peppers exuding pure capsaicin crystals?

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Apparently the Carolina Reaper, which is significantly weaker than Pepper X, has a capsaicin content of around 100mg/g [1] -- and each one weighs around 5 grams.

10% of the Carolina Reaper, by weight, is capsaicin. I think that this is why all high-capsaicin peppers look so shriveled and stunted -- the capsaicin itself interferes with normal structural development.

To put it into perspective: Your regular jalapeno pepper has a capsaicin content of 0.22mg/g.

[1] - https://mendelnet.cz/pdfs/mnt/2017/01/96.pdf

Most of the capsaicin is in the pith. On some peppers the pith is not really differentiated from the flesh other than the ribs that jut out and where the seeds hang. On the reaper and some of these other hot peppers, the pith is a very noticeable membrane covering the entire inside surface of the pepper. The flesh of the pepper is actually very thin, so you end up with with a lot of pith and not that much more flesh. That's how the percentage can get so high.

Superhots also produce capsaicin in the fruit, unique from non-superhots. Removing the pith from a ghost, reaper, etc., will significantly reduce the heat but still contain a lot of capsaicin from vesicles present in the fruit itself.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/279564263_Novel_For...

Yep, I tried this out with a batch by removing the membrane entirely. It was still extremely hot. Not worth the effort.

from the wikipedia page:

  The extensive curves and ridges of a Pepper X chili create more surface area for the plant placenta and locules to grow and retain capsaicin, adding to the intensity of heat experienced when a Pepper X is eaten.[2].

So it could be an intentionally bred feature

Yep. Scovilles are (roughly) ppm capsaicin x 16, so Pepper X is about 170mg/g.

I find it extremely appropriate that high concentrations of capsaicin in a chili manifest as little pointy spikes, which is why anything from a ghost pepper and up looks extremely mean.

Yes indeed, these things look hilariously inedible and aggressive

Thank god. For once, mother nature didn't pull a polar bear on us.

> laid out flat on a marble wall

Christ, it's so hot it rotates gravity!

I will never understand why people eat these peppers. I can't imagine any food being so good you'd overlook three and half hours of extreme discomfort followed by an hour of agony to eat it.

They get a high eating these

IIRC the Scoville Heat Unit is “equivalent parts per million capsaicin” - so it’s already considerably hotter than pure capsaicin is (there are spicier molecules available).

There is a euphorbia (a hoodia? can't recall reference) with a chemical 500 times stronger than capsaicin. IIRC so strong it destroys the receptor.

Anyone have a ref while I paw through my memory slowly?

Edit: here it is, resiniferatoxin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resiniferatoxin

"Resiniferatoxin has a score of 16 billion Scoville heat units, making pure resiniferatoxin about 500 to 1000 times hotter than pure capsaicin.[...] This stimulation is followed by desensitization and analgesia, in part because the nerve endings die from calcium overload"

"At 16 billion Scoville units, resiniferatoxin is rather toxic and can inflict chemical burns in minute quantities. [...] For rats, LD50 through oral ingestion is 148.1 mg/kg.[13] It causes severe burning pain in sub-microgram (less than 1/1,000,000th of a gram) quantities when ingested orally. "

Bonus: RTX has also previously been investigated as a treatment for lifelong premature ejaculation (PE).. Volunteers for clinical trials, anyone?

Jesus. I hope that's administered while you're in an induced coma.

Someone actually concentrated and taste tested some of this in a fairly scientific process, and it actually didn't end up being as hot as expected. iirc the molecule is too big to properly bind to receptors the way capsaicin can.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPe2bssalOY

Pure capsaicin is 16m Scoville. Not aware of any peppers using chemicals other than capsaicin, though you are correct that other chemicals supersede capsaicin on the Scoville scale.

In the hot ones video the breeder said that there are indeed other capsinoids present and that it is key to the experience.

Obviously he does have an incentive to say that! But when someone says "no, plant chemistry is more complicated than that" I'm normally inclined to believe them!

Does this mean that the highest any new "hot pepper" can ever get to is 16m Scoville?

You’re mistaken. Pure capsaicin is 16 million SHU. I can’t remember the exact details of how the SHU is defined, but IIRC it’s related to the number of times a substance (having been dissolved in alcohol) would have to be diluted in a solution of sugar water before the pungency is undetectable.

It's the dilution until pungency equals that of water / cannot be detected by a taste panel.

As Ed explains at 5:40 in the video [1] above, they use a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) test [2] rather than a subjective taste panel now.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale

I thought it was 16 million, not 1 million, so it's still not quite there yet.

> exuding pure capsaicin crystals

How about shooting them out with force towards any large moving object. I'd have one (kept in an aquarium).

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