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Blazing a trail as maker of world's hottest pepper
Mr Currie with his Carolina Reaper peppers, which have been deemed the world's hottest by the Guinness Book of World Records.
FORT MILL (South Carolina) - Mr Ed Currie holds one of his world-record Carolina Reaper peppers by the stem, which looks like the tail of a scorpion.
On the other end is red fruit with a punch of heat nearly as potent as most pepper sprays used by police.
The Guinness Book of World Records recently decided that Mr Currie's peppers were the hottest on earth, ending a more than four-year drive by him to prove that no one grows a more scorching chilli. The heat of Mr Currie's peppers was certified by students at Winthrop University who test food as part of their undergraduate classes.
The world record is nice, but it is just part of Mr Currie's grand plan. He has been interested in peppers all his life - the hotter the better. Ever since he got the taste of a sweet hot pepper from the Caribbean a decade ago, he has been determined to breed the hottest pepper he can.
The 50-year-old entrepreneur is also determined to buld his company, PuckerButt Pepper Company, into something that will let him retire before his young children grow up.
The hot pepper market is expanding. In less than five years, the amount of hot peppers eaten by Americans grew 8 per cent, according to United States Department of Agriculture statistics.
Mr Currie's world record has created quite a stir in the world of "chilliheads", said blogger Ted Barrus, who has a following among hot pepper fans. He tapes himself eating the hottest peppers in the world and posts the clips on YouTube under the name Ted The Fire Breathing Idiot.
He said Mr Currie's world record is just the latest event in a series of pepper growers to top one another with hotter and hotter peppers. "That's the biggest bragging rights there is. It is very,very competitive," he said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Measuring the hotness
THE science of hot peppers centres on chemical compounds called capsaicinoids. The higher the concentration, the hotter the pepper.
The heat of a pepper is measured in Scoville heat units. Zero is bland, and a regular jalapeno pepper registers around 5,000 on the Scoville scale, devised by pharmacist Wilbur Scoville 100 years ago.
Mr Ed Currie's world record batch comes in at 1,569,300 Scoville heat units, with an individual pepper measured at 2.2 million. Pepper spray used by the police weighs in at about two million units.
When grading, the capsaicinoids are first separated from the rest of the peppers. Liquid chromatography detects the exact amount. A formula converts it into heat units.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mr Currie with his Carolina Reaper peppers, which have been deemed the world's hottest by the Guinness Book of World Records.
FORT MILL (South Carolina) - Mr Ed Currie holds one of his world-record Carolina Reaper peppers by the stem, which looks like the tail of a scorpion.
On the other end is red fruit with a punch of heat nearly as potent as most pepper sprays used by police.
The Guinness Book of World Records recently decided that Mr Currie's peppers were the hottest on earth, ending a more than four-year drive by him to prove that no one grows a more scorching chilli. The heat of Mr Currie's peppers was certified by students at Winthrop University who test food as part of their undergraduate classes.
The world record is nice, but it is just part of Mr Currie's grand plan. He has been interested in peppers all his life - the hotter the better. Ever since he got the taste of a sweet hot pepper from the Caribbean a decade ago, he has been determined to breed the hottest pepper he can.
The 50-year-old entrepreneur is also determined to buld his company, PuckerButt Pepper Company, into something that will let him retire before his young children grow up.
The hot pepper market is expanding. In less than five years, the amount of hot peppers eaten by Americans grew 8 per cent, according to United States Department of Agriculture statistics.
Mr Currie's world record has created quite a stir in the world of "chilliheads", said blogger Ted Barrus, who has a following among hot pepper fans. He tapes himself eating the hottest peppers in the world and posts the clips on YouTube under the name Ted The Fire Breathing Idiot.
He said Mr Currie's world record is just the latest event in a series of pepper growers to top one another with hotter and hotter peppers. "That's the biggest bragging rights there is. It is very,very competitive," he said.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Measuring the hotness
THE science of hot peppers centres on chemical compounds called capsaicinoids. The higher the concentration, the hotter the pepper.
The heat of a pepper is measured in Scoville heat units. Zero is bland, and a regular jalapeno pepper registers around 5,000 on the Scoville scale, devised by pharmacist Wilbur Scoville 100 years ago.
Mr Ed Currie's world record batch comes in at 1,569,300 Scoville heat units, with an individual pepper measured at 2.2 million. Pepper spray used by the police weighs in at about two million units.
When grading, the capsaicinoids are first separated from the rest of the peppers. Liquid chromatography detects the exact amount. A formula converts it into heat units.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
