How Hot are Peppers?

With the many varieties of peppers available, they each have a different level of heat. They are measured in Scoville Heating Units (SHU). This heat measuring scale is named after Wilbur Scoville who developed this testing method in the early 1900s. 

Here are some examples to visualize the scale:

  • Sweet Peppers & Bellpeppers measure at 0 SHU. This means they are not hot and are at the bottom of the scale. 
  • Banana Peppers can be anywhere from 100-500 SHU.
  • Jalapeños average around 8,000 SHU, and most of us notice how hot a Jalapeño is. 
  • Cayenne Peppers reach 30,000-50,000 SHU
  • Habanero - 100,000-350,000 SHU
  • Ghost Pepper - 850,000-1 million+ SHU
  • Trinidad Scorpion Pepper - 2 million SHU
  • Carolina Reaper - 2.2 million SHU
  • Pepper X - The newest world record holder for the hottest pepper, recorded in October 2023 with a whopping 2,693,000 SHU.

When developing salsas, hot sauces, food recipes, pepper spray, etc. it is important to understand how much heat to build into your recipe (unless you’re just trying to make some butt-burner of a hot sauce). It is also important to know how (or where) to store certain plants, seeds, sauces, etc. You don’t want your pets or kids to get ahold of most of these! Any Pepper registering 1 million+ SHU is considered a “Superhot” Pepper. 

We have pepper seeds available and add the average SHU of these peppers on the listing. This should help you navigate our shop a little better. 

It is always recommended as a best practice to wear gloves when handling hot peppers and seeds.

  • Do not get on your eyes or other sensitive areas!

Chilito Bandido LLC is not responsible for any incidents caused by your actions or storage practices. It is extremely recommended to keep hot peppers and seeds away from pets and children at all times.

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