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Chile Pepper Heat Scoville Scale

Wondering how to rate the heat level of various types of chile peppers? Peppers are rated based on Scoville Units, a method developed by Wilbur Scoville in 1912. The original method used human tasters to evaluate how many parts of sugar water it takes to neutralize the heat. Nowadays human tasters are spared and a new process called HPLC, or High Performance Liquid Chromotography measures the amount of capsaicinoids (capsaicin) in parts per million. Capsaicin is the compound that gives chiles their heat. The chart below rates chile peppers, with 0 being mildest and 10 highest heat.

Scoville Chile Heat Chart
Variety
Rating
Heat Level
Sweet Bells; Sweet Banana; and Pimento
0
Negligible Scoville Units
Mexi-Bells; Cherry; New Mexica; New Mexico; Anaheim; Big Jim
1
100-1,000 Scoville Units
Ancho; Pasilla; Espanola; Anaheim
2
1,000 - 1,500 Scoville Units
Sandia; Cascabel
3
1,500 - 2,500 Scoville Units
Jalapeno; Mirasol; Chipotle; Poblano
4
2,500 - 5,000 Scoville Units
Yellow Wax; Serrano
5
5,000 - 15,000 Scoville Units
Chile De Arbol
6
15,000 - 30,000 Scoville Units
Aji; Cayenne; Tabasco; Piquin
7
30,000 - 50,000 Scoville Units
Santaka; Chiltecpin; Thai
8
50,000 - 100,000 Scoville Units
Habanero; Scotch Bonnet
9
100,000 - 350,000 Scoville Units
Red Savina Habanero; Indian Tezpur
10
350-855,000 Scoville Units

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