Guide
The Heat Guide
What a Scoville number actually tells you, where all eleven PepperZ chiles sit, and how to build heat you can still control.
A ghost chile and a chipotle both bite. They arrive at different speeds, land in different parts of your mouth, and differ in strength by a factor of about a hundred. "Spicy" covers all of that, which is most of why the word is useless on its own.
What the Number Measures
The Scoville scale rates one compound. Capsaicin is what makes a chile hot, so more capsaicin means a higher number. A bell pepper sits at zero, a jalapeño lands somewhere in the thousands, and a Carolina Reaper climbs past two million.
Those gaps are not a gentle slope. Going from ancho to habanero multiplies the heat by more than a hundred, and the last step of all nearly doubles it again. The bottom of the scale is crowded and the top is close to absurd, which is why a number is easier to shop by than an adjective.
Every Chile We Sell, Mild to Extreme
| Chile | Scoville range | Tastes like |
|---|---|---|
| New Mexico | 800–1,400 SHU | Sweet, earthy, slightly tart |
| Ancho | 1,000–2,000 SHU | Sweet, fruity, raisin-like |
| Pasilla | 1,000–3,000 SHU | Fruity, rich, slightly bitter |
| Guajillo | 2,500–5,000 SHU | Tangy, earthy, slightly smoky |
| Chipotle | 3,000–8,000 SHU | Smoky, earthy, slightly sweet |
| Serrano | 10,000–23,000 SHU | Bright, grassy, tangy |
| Chile de Árbol | 15,000–30,000 SHU | Nutty, grassy, smoky |
| Pequin | 30,000–60,000 SHU | Citrusy, smoky, nutty |
| Habanero | 100,000–350,000 SHU | Fruity, floral, tropical |
| Ghost | 800,000–1M SHU | Smoky, earthy, slightly sweet |
| Carolina Reaper | 1.5M–2.2M SHU | Fruity, floral, and then very little else |
Eleven numbers is more than anyone wants to carry around, so the line is sorted into four bands: Mild, Medium, Hot and Extreme. Shop by the band, and check the number when it matters.
Habits That Keep Heat Under Control
Big numbers are the fun part of a chile. Control is the useful part, and four habits do most of the work.
Bloom the chile in fat before anything else goes into the pan. A minute in warm oil or butter spreads the heat through the dish instead of leaving hot pockets in it. Then start lower than you think and climb, because you can add heat at any point and you cannot take it back out. Leaving the seeds and ribs behind gets you more of the flavor and less of the fire, since a good share of the burn hides in them.
If you overshoot, dairy, acid and sugar all pull a dish back from the edge: a spoon of yogurt, a squeeze of lime, a pinch of sugar. And match the chile to the job. Ancho and guajillo build the backbone of a mole or a chili, while habanero and above are finishing accents rather than foundations.
The mildest thing in the line is New Mexico at 800 SHU, which most people would call warm rather than hot. That is a reasonable place to start if you have no idea where you sit on the scale.