What is the Scoville scale?
The Scoville scale measures the heat of chili peppers in Scoville Heat Units (SHU), based on the concentration of capsaicin — the compound that makes your mouth burn. A bell pepper sits at 0 SHU, a jalapeño around 5,000, a habanero near 150,000, and record-breakers like Pepper X climb past 2.6 million. This tool turns those numbers into a flame that grows with the heat, so the difference is something you can see rather than just read.
Why the scale is logarithmic
The gap between the mildest and hottest peppers is enormous — hundreds of thousands of times — so a straight bar would leave almost every everyday chili invisible at the bottom. Plotting the flame on a logarithmic scale keeps the whole range readable, from a sweet pepper to a Carolina Reaper, while the compare mode does the honest maths and tells you the real multiple: a habanero is roughly 30 times hotter than a jalapeño, for example.
Real heat varies
The SHU figures here are widely cited averages, but the true heat of any chili shifts with the plant variety, the soil, the climate and even how ripe it is when picked — two jalapeños from the same plant can differ noticeably. Use the numbers to understand the ballpark and to compare peppers sensibly, not as a lab-exact measurement of the one in your kitchen.
Reference averages: real chili heat varies by variety and growing conditions.
Frequently asked questions
What does SHU mean?
SHU stands for Scoville Heat Units, a measure of a chili's spiciness based on its capsaicin concentration. Higher SHU means hotter.
Are these exact heat values?
No. They're widely cited average references. A pepper's real heat varies with its variety and growing conditions, so treat them as a reliable guide.
What is the Scoville scale?
It measures the heat of chilli peppers in Scoville Heat Units (SHU), based on how much a pepper's capsaicin must be diluted before the heat is no longer detectable. A bell pepper is 0 SHU, a jalapeño roughly 2,500–8,000, and a habanero 100,000–350,000.
Is the Scoville scale logarithmic?
Not by definition — the numbers are a linear count of dilutions — but because the range runs from 0 to over 2 million, it behaves a bit like a logarithmic scale in practice, where each big jump feels like a different league of heat.
What is the hottest pepper on the Scoville scale?
The current record-holders are Pepper X and the Carolina Reaper, around 1.6–2.7 million SHU. For reference, pure capsaicin is about 16 million SHU.