TKWoody
Well-Known Member
A couple summers ago, a friend gave me some carolina reaper peppers he had grown. These are some of the hottest peppers ever. For comparison, there is a measurement of how hot peppers are called the Scoville scale. Jalapeno's are 5,000. Habaneros are 150,000. Carolina Reapers are 1,500,000. When I was trying to figure out what to do with them another friend who is a chef, told me when working with something like that it's important to wash your hands BEFORE you go to the bathroom.
I tried using some in an IPA I was brewing. I dry-hopped 0.1 ounces in one of my test 50 oz. carboys. The beer turned out good. It was drinkable, but you could feel the heat as it went down your throat.
Last summer I got another pepper and decided to make another batch. But i thought maybe a little more heat would be ok. I figured a tenth of an ounce is 2.8 grams, so I'll change the scale to grams and use 3 grams.
The beer turned out to be tremendously hotter. Looking back I realize that my scale is probably rounding. So, the first batch where I thought it was at 0.1 oz. it was really at 0.05 oz. So by switching to grams I had used 1.42 grams. By rounding 3 the new batch was really at 2.5 grams or 0.088 oz.
That got me thinking if there was a measurement of how hot a beer is. So, in addition to IBUs, we could also use International Heating Units (IHUs). I figured ounces used times the scoville scale divided by the batch size in ounces.
My IHU for the first beer was 1,500 (0.05 x 1,500,000 / 50) for the second beer it was 2,640 (0.088 x 1,500,000 / 50). So, in order to make a 5 gallon batch with the same IHUs with jalapenos I would have to dump in a little over 21 pounds. Maybe, my formula needs some work.
I tried using some in an IPA I was brewing. I dry-hopped 0.1 ounces in one of my test 50 oz. carboys. The beer turned out good. It was drinkable, but you could feel the heat as it went down your throat.
Last summer I got another pepper and decided to make another batch. But i thought maybe a little more heat would be ok. I figured a tenth of an ounce is 2.8 grams, so I'll change the scale to grams and use 3 grams.
The beer turned out to be tremendously hotter. Looking back I realize that my scale is probably rounding. So, the first batch where I thought it was at 0.1 oz. it was really at 0.05 oz. So by switching to grams I had used 1.42 grams. By rounding 3 the new batch was really at 2.5 grams or 0.088 oz.
That got me thinking if there was a measurement of how hot a beer is. So, in addition to IBUs, we could also use International Heating Units (IHUs). I figured ounces used times the scoville scale divided by the batch size in ounces.
My IHU for the first beer was 1,500 (0.05 x 1,500,000 / 50) for the second beer it was 2,640 (0.088 x 1,500,000 / 50). So, in order to make a 5 gallon batch with the same IHUs with jalapenos I would have to dump in a little over 21 pounds. Maybe, my formula needs some work.