About this site
Scoville Chart is a free, independent site that puts chilli heat on one interactive scale and lets you compare any two items.
Why it exists
Most Scoville charts are a static table or a single picture. This site lets you search, filter, compare two items and see how many times hotter one is, and it lets you download or print the chart for your own use.
Who makes it
This website is run by Michael Theodore, trading as Scoville Chart, as a small independent project. It is not connected to any seed company, sauce maker or retailer, and nothing on it is sponsored.
The text and the chart code were drafted with the help of an AI assistant. The figures and the explanations were then checked by a person against the sources below. Any mistake that gets through is ours, and we would like to hear about it (see the contact page).
Method
- Each item has a minimum and a maximum, in Scoville heat units (SHU), taken from published ranges. Where a source gives only one figure, it is shown as a single figure and labelled so.
- We say "about" and give ranges because real peppers vary. See how the scale works.
- The compare tool uses the middle of each range for its "times hotter" figure, and shows the wider range-based gap alongside.
- The heat bands (mild to extreme) are our own grouping and not an official scale.
- A small number of items, such as pepper spray and pure capsaicin, are not foods. They are included only to show the top of the scale.
Sources
How the scale is explained
- Paul W. Bosland and Stephanie J. Walker, Measuring Chile Pepper Heat, Guide H-237, New Mexico State University, 2010.
- W. L. Scoville, "Note on Capsicums", Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association, 1912: doi.org/10.1002/jps.3080010520.
- Vera Koester, What is HPLC?, ChemistryViews (a general explanation of the laboratory method).
The heat figures
Sources for each heat figure are being checked and will be listed here by name, item by item. Until that is done, the figures on the chart should be treated as a draft.
Last checked
Last checked: not yet.
Advertising and independence
The site is currently free of advertising. If advertising is added later it will be clearly separate from the content, will not change what the chart says, and the privacy policy will be updated first.