Scoville Units And Capsaicin Information From Jalapeno Madness

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The Scoville Unit

The Scoville unit was named for Wilbur Scoville in 1912. At the time, he 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.

Originally, Scoville ground up peppers and mixed them with sugar water, then test 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 It has been replaced by High Performance Liquid Chromatography, or HPLC, which measures the pepper's heat producing chemicals and rates them in ASTA pungency units.

Check out the chart below.

Scoville Units
Chile Pepper Heat Range
Sweet Bell 0
Pimento 0
Cherry 00 ~ 500
Pepperoncini 100 ~ 500
El-Paso 500 ~ 700
Santa Fe Grande 500 ~ 750
Coronado 700 ~ 1,000
Espanola 1,000 ~ 2,000
Poblano 1,000 ~ 2,000
Ancho 1,000 ~ 2,000
Mulato 1,000 ~ 2,000
Pasilla 1,000 ~ 2,000
Anaheim 500 ~ 2,500
Sandia 500 ~ 2,500
NuMex Big Jim 500 ~ 2,500
Rocotillo 1,500 ~ 2,500
Pulla 700 ~ 3,000
Mirasol 2,500 ~ 5,000
Guajillo 2,500 ~ 5,000
Jalapeno (We LOVE YOU) 2,500 ~ 8,000
Chipotle 5,000 ~ 8,000
Hot Wax 5,000 ~ 10,000
Puya 5,000 ~ 10,000
Hidalgo 6,000 ~ 17,000
Serrano 8,000 ~ 22,000
Manzano 12,000 ~ 30,000
Shipkas 12,000 ~ 30,000
De Arbol 15,000 ~ 30,000
Jaloro 30,000 ~ 50,000
Aji 30,000 ~ 50,000
Tabasco 30,000 ~ 50,000
Cayenne 30,000 ~ 50,000
Santaka 40,000 ~ 50,000
Super Chile 40,000 ~ 50,000
Piquin 40,000 ~ 58,000
Yatsafusa 50,000 ~ 75,000
Haimen 70,000 ~ 80,000
Chiltecpin 60,000 ~ 85,000
Thai 50,000 ~ 100,000
Tabiche 85,000 ~ 115,000
Bahamian 95,000 ~ 110,000
Carolina Cayenne 100,000 ~ 125,000
Kumataka 125,000 ~ 150,000
Jamaican Hot 100,000 ~ 200,000
Birds Eye 100,000 ~ 225,000
Tepin (Wild) 100,000 ~ 265,000
Devil Toung 125,000 ~ 325,000
Fatalii 125,000 ~ 325,000
Orange Habanero 150,000 ~ 325,000
Scotch Bonnet 150,000 ~ 325,000
Choclate Habanero 300,000 ~ 425,000
Red Savina Habanero 350,000 ~ 575,000
Dorset Naga 800,000 ~ 900,000
Naga Jolokia 800,000 ~ 1,001,300
Carolina Reaper 1,400,000 – 2,200,000
Standard Pepper Spray 2,000,000–5,300,000
Pure Capsaicin 15-16,000,000

Learn More About the Scoville Scale Here at Chili Pepper Madness.

Also See: What are the hottest chili peppers in the world?

Tag » How Many Scovilles Is A Jalapeno