The Scoville Scale
The Scoville Scale and Scoville Heat Unit (SHU) were named for scientist Wilbur Scoville in 1912. At the time, Scoville worked for a pharmaceutical company named Parke-Davis where he developed a test called the “Scoville Organoleptic Test” which is used to measure a chili pepper’s heat.
What is the Scoville Scale?
Originally, Scoville ground up peppers and mixed them with sugar water, then tested them with a panel of tasters who sipped from these sugar-water-pepper solutions. He would then dilute the solutions bit by bit until they no longer burned the tongues of the tasters, after which he would assign a number to the pepper based on the number of dilutions needed to kill the heat.
The measurements are divided into multiples of 100. Note that 1 part per 1,000,000 dilutions of water is rated at 1.5 Scoville Units. Pure capsaicin, the stuff that makes chili peppers hot, is rated between 15 – 16,000,000 Scoville units. This is incredibly HOT! See the chart below to compare several peppers on the range of the scale, and how they relate to pure capsaicin.
As noted in the FAQ section, several factors can affect the heat of a pepper, but they generally fall into the ranges listed below.
Today, testing chili pepper heat is not quite so subjective. It has been replaced by High Performance Liquid Chromatography, or HPLC, which measures the pepper’s heat producing chemicals and rates them in ASTA pungency units.
A List of Chili Peppers from Hottest to Mildest as Measured on the Scoville Heat Unit (SHU) Scale
This is not a complete list of chili peppers, but rather a representation of some of the more popular chili peppers listed by heat level from hottest to mildest.
Scoville Scale for Some of the Most Common Chili Peppers and Hot Sauces
Here is a list of Scoville Heat Units (SHU) of the most common chili peppers and hot sauces so you can get an understanding of how they relate to each other.
- Bell Pepper – 0 Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
- Anaheim Peppers – 500 – 1,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
- Cholula Hot Sauce – 500 – 1,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
- Texas Pete Hot Sauce – 747 Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
- Valentina Hot Sauce (Red Label) – 900 Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
- Poblano Pepper – 1,000 – 2,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
- Valentina Hot Sauce – 2,200 Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
- Crystal Hot Sauce – 2,000 – 4,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
- Tabasco Hot Sauce – 2,000 – 5,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
- Huy Fong Sriracha Hot Sauce – 2,200 Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
- Tapatio Hot Sauce – 3,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
- Jalapeno Peppers – 2,500 – 8,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
- Tabasco Habanero Hot Sauce – 7,000+ Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
- Serrano Peppers – 8,000 – 22,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
- Cayenne Peppers – 30,000 – 50,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
- Habanero Peppers – 150,000 – 325,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
- Ghost Peppers – 1,000,000 + Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
- Carolina Reaper Chili Pepper – 2.2 Million + Scoville Heat Units (SHU)
For a more complete list of chili peppers, visit the following links…
Want More Chili Pepper Heat Information?
- Chili Pepper Types – Here is a list of chili peppers
- What is the Hottest Chili Pepper in the World?
- A List of the Hottest Chili Peppers in the World
Check Out Our List of Chili Peppers Organized by Heat Levels, from Mild to Superhot
- Sweet and Mild Chili Peppers
- Medium Heat Level Chili Peppers
- Medium-Hot Chili Peppers
- Hot Chili Peppers
- Superhot Chili Peppers
Looking for Spicy Chili Pepper Recipes?
4 comments
Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
We actually had a batch of Coolapenos (hybrid) grown and bedded with some Cayenne peppers, they came out hotter than the Jalapenos did. Growing conditions surely must change the heat level for any kind of pepper I would think.
Thomas, yes, growing conditions are a huge factor.
Even the Carolina Reaper has a minimum capsaicin content, and I believe that measurement on the Scoville scale is 1,400,000. So it could be possible that two peppers juxtaposed where even a Butch T Trinidad Scorpion is hotter than a Carolina Reaper specimen.
There are ranges with many peppers, sometimes very large ranges, particularly with the superhots. The heat can be affected greatly by growing conditions and other variables.