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Wilbur Scoville

  • Zero (Neutral) combines the sharpness between 0 and 100 ECU.

  • The first (soft) - from 100 to 500 ECU.

  • The second (hot varieties) is 500-1000 ECU.

  • The third (above average) is 1000-1500 ECU.

  • The fourth (hot grades) - from 1500 to 2000 ЕС.

  • The fifth (strong) - from 2500 to 5000 ECU.

  • The sixth (burning) - from 5000 to 15 000 ECU.

  • The seventh (burning varieties) - from 15 to 30 thousand ECU.

  • The eighth (hot) - from 30 to 50 thousand ECU.

  • The ninth (volcanic) - from 50 to 100 thousand ECU.

  • Tenth - from 100 thousand ECU. This is Trinidad Muruga Red Scorpion, Naga Jolokia. These are common types of pepper.

Chilli hotness index

It turns out that there are different flavors of spicy peppers. Not everything is black or white, there are many flavors of spicy and each flavor is suitable in its own way to different types of foods. There are also peppers that are used for self-defense like pepper spray

How to measure spiciness? The Scoville scale

How does one know the level of spiciness in a chilli that you buy or grow? To answer this question, we first need to answer the question of what is spicy.
Although we say about a certain food that it is spicy, this is only a form of expression, actually spicy is not a taste (like sweet, bitter, salty or sour), but more of a feeling of pain.

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What causes the sensation of spiciness is an organic compound called capsaicin. This compound stimulates the nervous system in the mouth and palate in the following way:

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The capsaicin binds to the heat receptors in the nervous system and simulates a signal of pain and a burning sensation, so when we eat chilli peppers our mouth feels as if it is on fire.

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How to measure the level of spiciness?
The standard measure of spiciness is the Scoville Heat Unit or in short SHU invented by the American chemist Wilbur Scoville in 1912.
The measurement is based on mixing the active substance - capsaicin up to the level where the experimenters no longer feel the spiciness.
It is important to know that the measurement according to the Scoville scale is a subjective measurement, which can vary between different plants of the same species, and even between different peppers that are on the same plant!

Therefore, normally, tables showing the degree of spiciness of different types of chilli peppers usually show a range of spiciness.

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The amount of capsaicin varies between the different chilli peppers, for example:

Sweet pepper has 0 SHU
Chalpinio pepper - 2,500 – 8,000 SHU
The habanero pepper – 200,000 – 350,000 SHU
Carolina Reaper - the hottest pepper in the world - 2,000,000 SHU
Pepper spray reaches about 5,300,000 SHU
Pure capsaicin reaches about 16,000,000 SHU

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