• 19th February 2021
  • Scott
  • 0

Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way first. We all know that Chillies are hot (well the hot ones are anyway). For the purpose of this article we’re not going to be talking about sweet peppers.

Chillies are hot because of a chemical irritant named Capsaicin, the active componant in Chillies. It’s actually an irritant which is why it cause inflammation of the lips and tongue and cause sever pain when you get it in your eyes (safety warning: Don’t get it in your eyes, it hurts).

Capsaicin and a related other alkaloids are grouped together under the name of Capasicinoids and it’s primary function is to act as a deterrant against animals and fungi that might want to devour the fruit of the chilli plant. The plant ideally wants birds to eat the chilli seeds and ppop them out around the place thus completeing the number one function of all live on earth, to ensure the continuation of it’s DNA.

So in 1912 there was a scientist named Wilbur Scoville working for a pharmaceutical company called Parke-Davis and he developed a test to measure the pungency and heat of Chillies. This test was called the “Scoville Organoleptic Test”. This early heat test involved grind the peppers up and then mixing them with sugar water before having a panel of tasters sip the chilli sugar water. He would then dilute the solutions in increments until they no longer caused a burning sensation to the tasters, he would then give each pepper a score to denote the number of dilutions is took to get rid of the heat,

These measurements are always in multiples of 100 with the scale starting at zero and going all the way up to 16 million, which is the number of Scoville units that you’d experience if you ingested pure Capsaicin.Since 2011 the subjective Scoville Organoleptic Test has been superceeded by more accurate methods like the HPLC (High Performance Liquid Chromatography).

The Scoville Scale is not onl used for rating peppers but for any product containing Capsaicin which has lead to higher and higher scores. The hottest Chilli Pepper currently verified is the Carolina Reaper which clocks in at about 2.2 million SHU, however there are many hotsauces that use extracted Capsaicin to get their heat with the Mad Dog 357 Plutonium No. 9 topping the table with an insane 9 million SHU.

See our table below to work out the hottest pepper you’ve ever eaten and where it stands on the scale:

Name Min SHU Max SHU
Pepper X 3180000 3180000
Dragon’s Breath 2480000 2480000
Carolina Reaper 1400000 2200000
Komodo Dragon 1400000 2200000
Trinidad Moruga Scorpion 1200000 2000000
Trinidad Scorpion Chocolate 1200000 2000000
7 Pot Douglah 923889 1853986
7 Pot Brown 800000 1853396
Dorset Naga 544000 1598227
Naga Monarch 1000000 1500000
Trinidad Scorpion “Butch-T” 800000 1463700
Naga Viper 900000 1382118
7 Pot Brain Strain 1000000 1350000
Infinity pepper 1067286 1250000
Spanish Naga 1086844 1200000
7 Pot Jonah 800000 1200000
Bedfordshire Super Naga 900000 1120000
Ghost Pepper 800000 1041427
Bhut Jolokia Chocolate 800000 1001304
7 Pot Bubblegum 800000 1000000
Chocolate Habanero 300000 577000
Red Savina Habanero 200000 577000
Yacatan White Habanero 200000 500000
Caribbean Red Habanero 300000 475000
White Bullet Habanero 250000 400000
Fatalii 125000 400000
Guyana (Wiri Wiri) 100000 350000
Habanero 100000 350000
Goat 100000 350000
Scotch Bonnet 100000 350000
Aji Chombo 150000 350000
Madame Jeanette 100000 350000
Datil 100000 300000
Rocoto 50000 250000
Charleston hot 70000 100000
Chiltepin 50000 100000
Apache 80000 100000
Byadgi Chili 50000 100000
Siling Labuyo 80000 100000
Thai pepper 50000 100000
Malagueta 50000 100000
Prairie Fire 70000 80000
Cheiro Roxa 60000 80000
Tien Tsin 50000 75000
Numex XX Hot 60000 70000
Dundicut 30000 65000
Pequin 40000 60000
Super Chili 40000 50000
Tabasco Pepper 30000 50000
Aurora 30000 50000
Aji Amarillo 30000 50000
Rooster Spur 30000 50000
Cayenne 30000 50000
Black Cobra 20000 40000
Jwala Finger Hot 20000 30000
Black Pearl 10000 30000
Hinkelhatz 5000 30000
Manzano 12000 30000
Black Prince 5000 30000
Japones 15000 30000
Chile De Arbol 15000 30000
Count Dracula 5000 30000
Lemon Drop 15000 30000
Bishop’s Crown 5000 30000
Bulgarian Carrot 5000 30000
Peter Pepper 5000 30000
Serrano 10000 23000
sport 10000 23000
Hungarian Wax 1000 15000
Aleppo 10000 10000
Fresno 2500 10000
Jalapeno 2500 8000
Hatch 1000 8000
Puya 5000 8000
Chipotle 2500 8000
Chimayo 4000 6000
Cherry bomb 2500 5000
Guajillo 2500 5000
Espelette 500 4000
Cascabel 1000 3000
Alma Paprika 2000 3000
Mulato 2500 3000
Numex Big Jim 2500 3000
Black Hungarian 100 2500
Anaheim 500 2500
Rocotillo 1500 2500
Padron 500 2500
Guindilla 1000 2000
Poblano 1000 2000
Ancho 1000 1500
Peppadew 1100 1200
Mexibell 100 1000
Cajun Belle 100 1000
Piquillo 500 1000
Italian Long Hot 100 1000
Cubanelle 100 1000
Santa fe Grande 500 700
Carmen Italian Sweet 0 500
Pepperoncini 100 500
Banana Pepper 0 500
Pimiento 100 500
Shishito 50 200
Melrose 0 100
Italian Sweet 0 100
Tangerine Dream 0 100
Gypsey Pepper 0 0
Purple Beauty 0 0
Sweet Bell 0 0

Scott

I'm the guy behind The Chilli Expert. I'm always learning new things about growing, cooking and eating Chillies which I hope I can share with you all.

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