SCOVILLE UNITS

The typical measure of the “spicy hotness” of chili peppers is measured in Scoville units. The measure considers the amount of capsaicin in a given chili pepper. The more capsaicin the hotter the chili pod. Scoville is name of the American scientist that discovered the measurement. The basic tenant of the measure holds that hot taste is neutralized with sugar drops. So the number of liquid sugar drops it takes to neutralize the spicy heat of the pepper is how the scale is derived. The typical jalapeno pepper measures at approximately 4,000 scoville units. Meaning that typically 4,000 drops of sugar water is needed to neutralize the hotness of this pepper. This has been a very subjective measure, since what one person may perceive as hot, another may not. The Scoville unit scale has since been improved to really measure the amount of capsaicin in a given chili pepper. The hottest chili in the world is the naga jolokia (ghost pepper) which measures above 1 million scoville units. The habanero pepper that we use in our jerky measures 560,000 scoville units. The chipotle peppers and crushed red peppers measure about 3,500 Scoville units. Our rating scale is from 0 to 10, with the exception of the habanero flavor we tended to rate the hotness a bit higher to protect our customer. The chipotle and red pepper flavors can be hot at times so we rated these at their hottest. Habanero is always hot.