r/HotPeppers • u/Plane-Butterscotch34 • 10h ago
Hottest Alternative Peppers ?
Recently I have seen some debate over what the hottest pepper is... Some say pepper x (although we can't try that) some say the Warthog by Mathew Arthur and others say the Chocolate Primatolli, I presume this means these 3 peppers are the hottest 3 there are, but what other peppers would you say are up there with them (if any)?
So what are your top hottest peppers according to heat level (SHU) that aren't these top 3?
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u/twoscoopsofbacon 10h ago
Pepper x is not a thing outside the realm of marketing or religion. We can't rank bullshit rumor.
Also, growing conditions hugely matter. So just because I personally have eaten some contenders, some I grew in the specific conditions here. Some were sent to me. So most people don't have enough personal data to know (and I mean from eating pods, not hplc - and I say that as an analytical chemist).
In my, as noted not mattering tiny personal dataset, the hottest have been 7 pot primo chocolate peppers that somehow survived the peak summer heat here (over 110f some days, over 100f most days for months). Notably they didn't look nearly as scary as the primotellis and some other competitors that were also real hot but not as bad.
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u/AjiAmigo 9h ago
Agreed. Chemotype is vastly ignored, if not completely unknown to growers of specific plant subspecies. It's good to see someone acknowledge this. Which can make things difficult with data, if conditions can't be replicated.
Only place I disagree is on the scientific side, as opposed to eating the pods. If pheno, geno, and chemotypes are accounted for, and testing is done from at least 7 different places (be it different states, or different countries), from multiple growers, the results would then be conclusive enough to measure and be reliable. Especially if it's repeated multiple times, with the same outcome.
Personal data is great. I won't deny that. But imperial data, paired with peer reviewed data will always win for me when available.
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u/twoscoopsofbacon 9h ago
Current reported results are nowhere near peer-revIewed journal standards.
(I'm a PhD, lots of publications and patents, and was on the editorial board of a mid-level journal from a decade)
Basically what we have now are paid for test results, mostly hplc that treats capsaicin as a single molecule. I'm not saying it is useless data, but we are not talking about real science, which involves replication and blind sampling, to say nothing of statistics. It could be better.
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u/AjiAmigo 8h ago
Fully agreed. What's wild to me is, cannabis wasn't able to be studied for decades, yet there's far more conclusive data on it than there seems to be thought of about chiles. Don't get me wrong, there's some people doing rock solid research into the various compounds chiles hold, just not near the scale of many other plants.
I feel I may have done an injustice to a lot of people thru the years who have dedicated thier lives to chiles, and that wasn't my intent. As stated, there is some solid research, it's just underwhelming in comparison to other species and subspecies.
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u/baileystinks 8h ago
Well, peppers do't generate that much money :) But yes, the ammount of research on cannabis is crazy!
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u/unapologeticallyMe1 1h ago
You are very wrong about cannabis. It was studied and grow by the government for a long time before it was ever legal.
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u/_YellowThirteen_ CA, USA 9B 7h ago
Don't take too much stock in world record holding. Ed Currie is a hack and the records are paid for.
The genetic waters are so muddy at the top of the scoville scale that it doesn't really matter honestly. People have crossed just about everything there is at the top. Peppers in that ballpark can vary wildly plant to plant and even fruit to fruit, so there's really no telling what's truly hottest.
When you get to growing primotaliis and death spirals and gator jigsaws, you might as well be growing the hottest pepper in the world. The difference is minimal.
That being said, hottest things I've ever eaten were a chocolate primotalii, and one particular pockmark peach I grew last season. The pockmark peach isn't supposed to be quite on par with primotalii and the like, but this one fruit was built different. Like I said, it can vary wildly. I'll never forget the feeling of that one.
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u/Rockoftime2 6h ago
I have eaten many different superhots and lots of them are similar in extreme scoviilles. There comes a point where they’re so hot that it’s tough to distinguish with taste buds what the “hottest” one is. Also, in the pepper world, size does matter. If you eat a huge Chocolate Bhutlah you’re getting a lot more capsicum oil than if you eat a smaller superhot.
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u/Obi_Vayne_Kenobi 9h ago
According to Johnny Scoville, the RB003 can sometimes keep pace with red Primotalii.
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u/Anxious_Hedonista 9h ago
I’ve read Dragon’s Breath is right up there as well, although not officially so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon%27s_Breath_(chili_pepper)
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u/Round-War69 8h ago
Idk who downvoted you but these are very very hot peppers not alot of people also make sauces out of them hard to find I have one and it's my favorite sauce.
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u/Anxious_Hedonista 7h ago
I just got Dragon’s Breath seeds in the exchange, and I’m looking forward to growing them. Is your sauce homemade or commercial? I’d like to try it.
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u/WillemDafoesHugeCock 3h ago
The issue here is that tons of places are now selling "dragon's breath" seeds and they very obviously are nothing to do with this ancient rumored-but-never-released pepper.
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u/Anxious_Hedonista 3h ago
Ah, fair enough. I got 60-some varieties of seeds in the pepper exchange, so my research on the varieties I am unfamiliar with has been cursory so far to whittle the list. I haven’t yet read much more about DB than SHU and taste notes. I’ll have to look into it further, as now I’m intrigued.
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u/AjiAmigo 10h ago
Highly debatable, and you'll likely get zero scientific evidence of claims made. Let's face it, even when companies pay for the testing, people doubt and question the results for various reason. For this alone, I'd never pay to have a chile tested. The chile community is too full of haters, and wannabes
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u/Round-War69 8h ago
Dragons Breath. Idc what anyone else says. These peppers are tasty and fucking hot as fuck.
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u/UnluckyCustard8130 10h ago
Red Hot Chili Peppers are probably one of the hottest alternative bands like ever