Posted on 10/21/2023 6:34:56 PM PDT by nickcarraway
It has an average rating of 2,693,000 Scoville Heat Units.
If you’ve ever choked down a piece of Carolina Reaper pepper or sweated your way through a splash of Carolina Reaper hot sauce because it was “the hottest pepper in the world,” we hate to break it to you, but that’s not the case anymore. Ed Currie, the South Carolina hot pepper grower (and apparently a full-time spice masochist), has just claimed a Guinness World Record for Pepper X, a fiery hot pepper that is so spicy, it makes his Carolina Reapers look borderline harmless.
According to Guinness, Pepper X, which, like the Carolina Reaper, was developed by Currie and his PuckerButt Pepper Company, has an average rating of 2,693,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU). That absolutely incinerates the Reaper, which has an average rating of 1.64 million SHU. (By comparison, a jalapeno can have a Scoville rating of between 3,000 to 8,000 SHU, while hotter habaneros typically clock in at around 100,000 SHU.)
Currie unleashed the Carolina Reaper on the world a decade ago, and he told the Washington Post that he had been working on Pepper X even longer than that. He wanted this pepper — a crossbreed between a Carolina Reaper and one he only described as "brutally hot" — ready in case another pepper breeder developed something hot enough to dethrone the Reaper. That never happened, so he decided that he'd have to be the man who broke his own record.
Pepper X was revealed (and Currie was presented with the Guinness Record) during a recent episode of the YouTube series "Hot Ones." During the program, Currie said "a lot of people" deserved credit for the pepper's development. "People said it couldn't be done, they called us liars, and we proved to them that Pepper X is actually the hottest pepper in the world, officially from Guinness," he continued.
Until Currie brought his peppers to the “Hot Ones” set, he was the only person on earth who had eaten an entire Pepper X. So how bad is it? VERY, VERY BAD. “I was feeling the heat for three-and-a-half hours,” he admitted to the Associated Press. “Then the cramps came. Those cramps are horrible. I was laid out flat on a marble wall for approximately an hour in the rain, groaning in pain.”
So, how can you get your hands on Pepper X? For now, you can’t. When Currie released the Carolina Reaper, he did not protect his intellectual property, allowing thousands of people to grow — and profit from — the pepper he developed. He is not (currently) releasing any Pepper X seeds, and a scrolling warning on the PuckerButt Pepper Company website further emphasizes that. “Pepper X seeds and plants are a patented variety,” the bright red text reads. “It is not available for purchase or use by the general public.”
For now, you can only try the record-setting pepper by purchasing one of PuckerButt’s Pepper X-infused hot sauces, wing sauce, or salsa. “Everybody else made their money off the Reaper,” he told the AP. “It’s time for us to reap the benefits of the hard work I do.”
You're gonna wish you could pucker your butt, but that's going to be out of your control.
Have the YouBoob Pepper X challenges started yet?
We once had an ornamental variety of birds-eye chile that was quite hot, about like chiltepin. I still have a few dried peppers off that plant, so I might see about growing another if the seeds will germinate. All we’re growing this year is jalapeno, serrano, chile de arbol, and of course bell peppers.
These days I won’t eat any fresh pepper hotter than a serrano, and I don’t cook with anything hotter than chiltepin or chile pequin, and not much of that. I don’t want anything to do with the ridiculously hot varieties.
I dunno. The jalapenos we grew this year are much, much hotter than 3000-8000 SHU.
Same here. To me a jalapeño eaten whole with the seeds and the pith is pretty dang hot. Not crazy hot but enough to make me sweat and feel some pain. Chopped up in a dish a jalapeño provides a nice background glow of heat.
It’s just getting stupid now. What’s the point?
If you have to ask....
This year was weird. I plant my really hot stuff in pots on my patio and my peppers of a lesser god in the garden. The Ghosts and Scorpions did squat. 5 off one and 7 off the other. The Reapers did much better. I got 28 peppers. The other peppers in the garden on the other hand went crazy. 123 peppers off one Habanero plant. The 2 Serranos plants produced 210 combined and the 2 Jalapenos produced 154 peppers, but one of the plants was a giant Jalapeno so there were fewer but bigger fruits.
My only suggestions would be good sunlight and don’t overwater. Hot peppers need full sun and take a full summer to produce around here. A lot if these peppers are native to countries that are kind if dry, especially the Mexican ones and overwatering will do them in. The Reapers, Ghost and Scorpions I water when the leaves tell me too. Here in Indiana they are all annuals.
Likely we over watered. Grew them in pots on the lanai in Hawaii, so plenty of afternoon sun.
I grow Tabasco, dog tooth, siete caldos and chiltepin. Once the plants are done fruiting they die off, then you have to start more from seed. Be careful not to over water. The plants seem to do best in the ground in a sunny spot.
Elon should purchase the rights to this pepper.
I am not even positive what mine are… a few years ago, I went looking trying to figure what they were and finally thought they were Birds Eye. After you mentioned chiltepin I looked those up, they seem to be in the same size and heat range, but said they are native to North America. My neighbor gave me the peppers I got the seeds from to start them. She is Filipino, and said she did not know the name of them, just called them Filipino hot peppers. I had this plant going about 6 or 7 years but my plant just died out last summer, so I need to restart a plant next spring. I watered hers this last spring while she was in the Philippines for 3 months and hers look different than mine did now, they were really fat instead of long and skinny, some almost round.
Chile pequin are very small, pointed peppers that apparently look similar to birds eye peppers. They’re pretty hot too. Chiltepin is round and about pea-size.
Well you got me searching again… this time I searched for “hot Filipino chili pepper”. I am not sure what made me think Birds Eye before, but I have now learned there are two different unrelated Birds Eye chilis. The common one is Thai and there is also what is known as a Filipino Birds Eye with a scoville rating of 80,000-100,000. Over the years I had it growing I have had some that were on the low end of the heat range and some that were super hot. The lower heat ones came after we had more rain while they were producing. I really like the flavor they add to dishes when they are fresh and still green.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siling_labuyo
Interesting. I might try growing some Thai chiles one of these years.
A mild pepper we’ve enjoyed in the past has been a hybrid of jalapeno with green bell pepper, called Cajun Belle or Spicy Bell. It looks like a miniature bell pepper, about 2” or so. Just a little warm, as you might expect, and really good in salads. This year we didn’t find any plants for sale, though, and you can’t grow hybrids from seed with reliable results.
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