Morning Show Does Munchies 420 Cafe Fire in the Hole Wing Challenge; Scott Finds a Boo-Boo

Scott Roberts August 27, 2009 at 9:13 pm food video Digg this Article

Here's one I heard about this morning from my wife. She was listening to a St. Louis crap morning radio show. It's the dreadful MJ Morning Show, which is technically based out of Tampa and is syndicated in other Florida towns, in addition to the St. Louis metro area. Anyway, she text messaged me that on this morning's show they were partaking in the "Fire in Your Hole" wing challenge which Adam Richman of Man v. Food had recently taken on (and will be aired on the Travel Channel later in September). She also mentioned that the challenge is using a sauce based on the ghost chile pepper, which chileheads know better as the naga/bhut jolokia pepper. Sounded interesting, but I was unable to listen to the radio segment on my iPhone in time.

One item that was of particular interest to both my wife and me was that while listening, she heard the owner of the eating establishment hosting the wing-eating challenge, Munchies 420 Cafe in Sarasota, FL, claim that the sauce was hotter than 20 million Scoville Heat Units. Now she is not into hot peppers and spicy foods at all, but after listening to me talk about the heat in sauces and chiles over the years, even she knew the extreme heat claim sounded a little fishy. Of course, everyone with even the smallest knowledge of capsaicin knows that the top limit of the Scoville Scale is Scoville Scale, and it's near impossible to create a pure extract that high, let alone 20 million.

Anyway, the MJ Morning Show had a couple of members of their crew, Meredith and Dilbret the intern, take on the challenge. Adam Richman supposedly was only able to consume 2 1/2 of these hot wings:

After reflecting on it, I decided to look into the 20 million SHU claim to see if my lovely wife's ears were playing tricks on her or not. I struggled to make sense of Munchies' website (http://www.munchies420cafe.com) and I had failed to come across any heat claims of the challenge. I called the cafe. A polite man named Carl answered and I asked a few questions of him, including the details of this "Fire in the Hole" contest. He did confirm what my wife had heard, and stated that the sauce used in the extreme wings contained naga jolokia peppers, plus a pepper they "had not really done testing on" which was around 20 million Scoville units. If not for my mild irritation at the bogus boast, I would have laughed.

Thanks to the magic of the internet, I had discovered the radio program's podcast containing the erroneous heat claim. While he mentioned nothing of some unknown mystery chile pepper as eluded to by Carl that was hotter than the naga jolokia, Munchies 420 owner JD stated that it was an extract from the jolokias that gave the sauce its extreme heat. When inquired about the extract's heat level, JD replied with "they haven't really tested it yet, but it's DEFINITELY OVER 20 million [emphasis mine]." Oops.

Here is the link to the podcast segment containing the heat discussion: 08/26/09 Segment #6. The discussion on heat was brought up around 6:36 into the mp3 file, and the particular claim at 7:21. If the podcast is taken down by the time you read this, you can download it here.

I'm not trying to rake JD over the coals on this matter; after all, he could be innocently parroting what the maker or supplier of the pepper extract had told him. But when the cafe employees start propagating the claim, then someone should raise a flag.

I hope that when the Man V. Food episode is aired, they will have already done their research and know that Munchies' claim is false. After all, they presented correct Scoville Heat Unit levels of the peppers contained in the episode featuring Chunky's Burgers' Four Horsemen Burger, so hopefully they did likewise with this.

Comments

Butch Taylor
2009-08-27 20:49:42

Thats pure BS! But if your not in the news, you loose! lol BTW come to Open
Fields and I'll bring a few of those
not so hot peppers you can try!

Nick1987
2009-08-28 07:54:17

It reminds me of a little kid who exaggerates by saying words like "a zillion gajillion"!

Chileman
2009-09-01 06:48:06

These probably don't hold a handle to some Defcon ZERO wings!

DEFCON Creator
2009-09-03 13:39:41

Agreed. I would like to see the Man vs. Food dude sit at a Deathmatch table.

BIGTOMIE
2009-09-06 15:54:31

good catch scott...

pissedoff
2009-09-15 12:33:38

Thanks for not using the words "SPOILER ALERT" asshole!

Nick1987
2009-09-15 21:03:04

Spoiler alert for what? That Adam Rickman didn't finish the wing-eating challenge? I think the blame lies on this morning radio show and on the restaurant owner for spilling the beans, not on Scott.

eric frederic
2009-09-22 14:38:26

The Munchie owner is an a-hole for ruining the man vs food episode. It was'net eve funny or entertaining to watch. The owner looked like a sadistic idiot.
Hope your proud of yourself jerkoff!

Joe
2009-09-24 16:03:08

100% pure capsaicin which is the active heat ingredient of hot chili peppers is 16 million Scoville units. It is physically impossible to get any higher than that with a chili extract.

Blair's death sauces made the hottest chili extract to date which was literally pure capsaicin at 16 million scoville, He also marketed a 12 million, 5.5 million, 2 million, 1 million and 600k - 900k Scoville unit extracts.

Most likely the Munchies 420 guys mis-read the rating and the extract they used was most likely a 2 million scoville unit extract. Another reason for this is economic as only 999 bottles of the 16 million blair's were ever made and the sold out 12 million goes for about $450 a bottle. On the other hand 2 million scoville unit "mad dog 22" goes for about $15 and it can be bought in bulk. So I'm sure that's what they used as it is the most cost effective.

Joe
2009-09-24 16:05:43

LOL but you already knew all that because this website clearly has a Scoville unit scale with all of Blair's sauces listed lol... I should learn to read.

Brian
2010-02-07 12:39:44

To the orignal writer of this post get a damn life. I am glad you take your peppers so seriously that you wrote a small novel about this but you are pathetic. Next time invest your time in something somebody might care about.......... Loser.

Nick1987
2010-02-08 11:21:48

Wow Brian, that's such a stinging retort. Who do you work for, the MJ Morning Show or Munchies 420? Instead of a trollish, ad hominem attack against Scott, why don't you actually try to point out where he's wrong?

parker394
2010-02-08 23:56:12

I care :-)

David Lynch
2010-04-19 08:10:08

The part about this segment that bothered me was the claim it is a ghost chili sauce. When you watch the segment you will see the only actual pepper in it is the habenero. There is then the extract added, which lets face it might as well have come from ANY pepper seeing extracts are basically the same.

Sorry that gets me fired up cause we make Bhut Jolokia sauces and we don't use any extracts, the peppers themselves can be made into quite impressive sauces.

David Lynch
2010-04-19 08:14:02

I hadn't read the comments before this. Defcon (while being a very good extract wing sauce) is not so bad. I did their challenge last August. The Zombie Apocolypse we make is FAR worse and uses zero extract just the Bhut Jolokia pepper. And it tastes GREAT.

Kim grissinger
2010-09-21 15:48:11

I just did the challenge at Munchies last week. I guess now they are using capsaicin crystals which they told me were 16 million Scovilles in their "new" sauce as they can't get the Fire in the Hole powder. They told me it'd be about a 20 minute wait as the cook made up the sauce, which ended up being pretty tasty. I ate the 10 wings which were hot, but not impossibly hot to me. The cook was really disappointed it wasn't causing me physical harm and I was barely sweating and wasn't crying. I guess I pissed the gal behind the counter off, because she then added the rest of the remaining crystals along with some jalapenos, into the next sauce batch for the next challenger. He didn't complete the challenge and I was allowed to try his sauce. I sucked all the sauce off a wing and it didn't taste any hotter than my wings were. I put Da Bomb Final Answer on most of my food and don't use it as a food "additive." I also eat habaneros and scotch bonnets with most of my meals as well. I have never had a ghost chili and would love to experiment with them sometime in the future.

james
2011-01-19 19:29:09

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9dP7O7Gz5Q
Munchies 420 Fire in your hole contest. I saw you were friends with them figured you would enjoy this video lol

buying ghost chili
2011-03-17 19:00:59

holy cow my mouth is watering just thinking about it

Harland
2012-05-03 15:49:59

So much bad information here. My grandpa and I have been making 40-40 sauce for decades. 40-40 sauce is made in northern Albama and is 40 miillion times Scotcher Bonnevillve Heat Units. Its usually made by families who due a ghost chilli fermentaion, and mass muddle, where it is extracted through brass distillery piping. After 2-3 batches, it has actually eaten through portions of the brass pipe. We don't use it for chicken wings, but usually use it as a suace for rabbit, squirrel, and turkey. It is way hotter than anything bought in a restaruant or gift store. If you get it in your eye, you will go blind. And even Gramppy has a hemmrhoid fuse his colon together after eatin 40-40. You city folks should read up before u talk all this shit. Fuckin penis lovers!

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