Let’s Talk Scoville Heat Units In Peppers

In this blog, we will discuss how pepper heat is measured. Pepper’s heat is measured in Scoville Heat Units. The abbreviation for Scoville Heat Units to SHU on the products they are selling. Sometimes we might buy pepper products let it be sauces or plants and on the label will be the SHU.

Where Does The Heat Come From

There is a misconception that most of the heat in peppers comes from their seeds. I have even heard people say that if you remove the seeds the pepper would be much less hot. The truth is that it’s actually the oil in the pepper, known as capsaicin, that causes the burn/hotness. Capsaicin varies in strength. For example, the stronger the capsaicin in a pepper the more heat it will have. This generally means that any pepper can be hotter than another regardless to pepper size or color. It’s all about the genetic makeup of the variety. And as an example, Scorpion peppers have more burn than a Jalapeno, because of the strength and potency of its capsaicin. Scorpions will measure higher on the SHU than Jalapenos.

Natural Pepper SHU

For natural, peppers grown on a plant have SHU’s that can measure from zero SHU up to around 3 million SHU. Sweet peppers such as Bell etc. will measure zero on the SHU meter. According to the Guinness Book Of World Records, the Carolina Reaper pepper by Ed Curry is the hottest pepper with an SHU of 1.4-2.2 million SHU. This is the highest recorded SHU, but Ed has another pepper called Pepper X he bred. They use Pepper X on the television show called “Hot Ones”, and it has an SHU of over 3 million. Ed has not released any of these seeds to the public yet.

Pure Capsaicin Extract

This is the hottest and purest form of capsaicin. They extract the oil from the peppers, and they can range from1 million SHU up to 16 million SHU. Extracts can be sold as an extract or put into tinctures. But companies can change the form of the extract and make capsaicin crystals. The problem with extract, you can normally tell when companies use it in their products. How you can tell is the flavor is not that good, they were just trying to get the product very hot. This happens a lot with sauce makers making their products hot using extract. Although there are other companies that mix extracts with their products, and you can not tell it is in there. There are only a handful of companies that can do this.