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> Soleh et al. tested the device on six samples of dried chilies dissolved in an ethanol-based solution. They placed a drop in the detection chamber and found t

> Soleh et al. tested the device on six samples of dried chilies dissolved in an ethanol-based solution. They placed a drop in the detection chamber and found that the device could accurately measure concentrations of capsaicin in all six samples. So in order to use this right now, you need to dry and dissolve the chili? This definitely doesn't sound like something a normal consumer could use by e.g squeezing a chili and putting a few drops into the device... or does it? From the abstract https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsanm.0c02079 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acsanm.0c02079 > Thus, this platform shows excellent potential for the development of portable sensors for capsaicin and future extension to different analytes. Maybe that means the delivery method still has to be improved.

CydeWeys 6y ago
Most chiles used by consumers, especially the really spicy ones, come dried? The only fresh chiles I regularly see at grocery stores are jalapenos, whereas I often see up to a dozen varieties of dried ones.
- cerebellum42 6y ago
  I think a hotness measuring device would be more likely used by enthusiasts who grow their own chilies and want to find out how hot thy turned out - especially since the same breed may be significantly hotter or milder depending on when you harvest and what conditions they grew in.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    That makes sense, if it's targeted for gardeners. However, I suspect that the reason it uses dissolved dried peppers is because that's the easiest way to do it, as the capsaicin would dissolve into solution and be measurable that way. I'm not seeing how you could as easily measure the capsaicin content in a fresh chile pepper; you're not gonna get the capsaicin to go into concentration so that eliminates most of the typical measuring methods. Separately, I do suspect that a lot of the serious gardeners growing chile peppers are already drying chiles anyway, as you get a lot more in a harvest than you'd want to eat immediately and the dried form stores and travels better. You can air dry them, oven dry them, use a dehydrator, etc. So I think the biggest problem here is the time lag before being able to make the measurement, depending on your drying method.
- mdpye 6y ago
  In a typical London grocery store (not supermarket) there will be anything between 2 and 7 varieties of fresh chilli, plus 2 or more sweet peppers and probably just one bag of "chilli flakes" of unspecified origin...
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    The big spice store near me in NYC (Kalustyans) sells well over a hundred varieties of dried, flaked, and powdered chiles. This photo shows roughly one-third of their chile section: https://goo.gl/maps/o3B4nZBikZCTmHFXA https://goo.gl/maps/o3B4nZBikZCTmHFXA There's no way they could possibly stock that much fresh chiles because of shelf longevity issues. Also, anecdotally, I tend to cook a variety of cuisines from around the world, and the good majority of recipes use powdered, flaked, or dried chile peppers. When raw peppers are called for it's generally commonly available stuff like jalapenos, cayenne, and habanero. All of that is to say that for the serious chile head, the kind of person who is the target market for this device, the vast majority of the chile peppers they're gonna have access to, especially the mail-ordered ones, are gonna come in dried form, so it makes sense to optimize the device for analyzing dried chiles. I'm a bit of a chile head myself and I wouldn't need to bother measuring the common fresh chiles that are available in grocery stores; I already have a good understanding of them (and frankly none of them are really that spicy in the grand scheme of things; this bag of dried ghost chilis that I have, on the other hand, I'd like to see a measurement on).
- Semaphor 6y ago
  I regularly buy fresh habaneros and bird’s eye. The larger store outside the city even has fresh ghost peppers (tried them once, spicier than habanero, but lacking all their flavor). Outside of specialty online stores I haven’t even seen dried ones.
- Agentlien 6y ago
  I live in Sweden and grocery stores here don't usually have a lot of chilli peppers and certainly not many hot ones. But the hot ones I have found here (mainly habanero and ghost peppers) have been fresh. The only dried chilies I've come across are ancho.

CydeWeys 6y ago

Most chiles used by consumers, especially the really spicy ones, come dried? The only fresh chiles I regularly see at grocery stores are jalapenos, whereas I often see up to a dozen varieties of dried ones.

cerebellum42 6y ago
I think a hotness measuring device would be more likely used by enthusiasts who grow their own chilies and want to find out how hot thy turned out - especially since the same breed may be significantly hotter or milder depending on when you harvest and what conditions they grew in.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  That makes sense, if it's targeted for gardeners. However, I suspect that the reason it uses dissolved dried peppers is because that's the easiest way to do it, as the capsaicin would dissolve into solution and be measurable that way. I'm not seeing how you could as easily measure the capsaicin content in a fresh chile pepper; you're not gonna get the capsaicin to go into concentration so that eliminates most of the typical measuring methods. Separately, I do suspect that a lot of the serious gardeners growing chile peppers are already drying chiles anyway, as you get a lot more in a harvest than you'd want to eat immediately and the dried form stores and travels better. You can air dry them, oven dry them, use a dehydrator, etc. So I think the biggest problem here is the time lag before being able to make the measurement, depending on your drying method.
mdpye 6y ago
In a typical London grocery store (not supermarket) there will be anything between 2 and 7 varieties of fresh chilli, plus 2 or more sweet peppers and probably just one bag of "chilli flakes" of unspecified origin...
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  The big spice store near me in NYC (Kalustyans) sells well over a hundred varieties of dried, flaked, and powdered chiles. This photo shows roughly one-third of their chile section: https://goo.gl/maps/o3B4nZBikZCTmHFXA https://goo.gl/maps/o3B4nZBikZCTmHFXA There's no way they could possibly stock that much fresh chiles because of shelf longevity issues. Also, anecdotally, I tend to cook a variety of cuisines from around the world, and the good majority of recipes use powdered, flaked, or dried chile peppers. When raw peppers are called for it's generally commonly available stuff like jalapenos, cayenne, and habanero. All of that is to say that for the serious chile head, the kind of person who is the target market for this device, the vast majority of the chile peppers they're gonna have access to, especially the mail-ordered ones, are gonna come in dried form, so it makes sense to optimize the device for analyzing dried chiles. I'm a bit of a chile head myself and I wouldn't need to bother measuring the common fresh chiles that are available in grocery stores; I already have a good understanding of them (and frankly none of them are really that spicy in the grand scheme of things; this bag of dried ghost chilis that I have, on the other hand, I'd like to see a measurement on).
Semaphor 6y ago
I regularly buy fresh habaneros and bird’s eye. The larger store outside the city even has fresh ghost peppers (tried them once, spicier than habanero, but lacking all their flavor). Outside of specialty online stores I haven’t even seen dried ones.
Agentlien 6y ago
I live in Sweden and grocery stores here don't usually have a lot of chilli peppers and certainly not many hot ones. But the hot ones I have found here (mainly habanero and ghost peppers) have been fresh. The only dried chilies I've come across are ancho.