SCOVILLE
What are the Scoville Heat Unit ratings of our sauces?
Our sauces have been independently tested on multiple occasions using High Performance Liquid Cromeography (HPLC). The average heat ratings in Scoville Heat Units (SHU) are shown in the graph below.
| Product | Capsaicin mg/kg | Scoville Heat Units |
| Jalapeño & Date | 10 | 165 |
| Scotch Bonnet & Caribb. Spices | 19 | 306 |
| Chipotle & Pineapple | 38 | 612 |
| Habanero & Tomatillo | 105 | 1,690 |
| Ghost Pepper & Mango | 229 | 3,686 |
| Trinidad Scopion & Clementine | 279 | 4,492 |
| Carolina Reaper & Blueberry | 467 | 7,518 |
| Superhot Naga | 1,792 | 28,851 |
| Superhot Scorpion | 1,909 | 30,743 |
| Superhot Reaper | 2,124 | 34,196 |
| Superhot Special | 2,272 | 36,582 |
Why We Don’t Use the Scoville Scale
The Scoville scale is a well-known way to measure spiciness, but it has many problems. We try to avoid using it when describing our products—though we often get asked about it.
Originally, the Scoville scale measured how much a spicy sample had to be diluted until a person could no longer taste the heat. This method is unreliable because people have very different spice tolerances.
Today, a more accurate method called High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) is used. It measures the amount of capsaicin—the compound that causes heat—in milligrams per kilogram. This value can be multiplied by 16.1 to get the Scoville Heat Units (SHU), because pure capsaicin equals 16.1 million SHU.
Using HPLC often gives much lower SHU numbers than expected. This is because the Scoville scale has been widely exaggerated over the years. For example, some sauces are claimed to be 9 million SHU, which would mean they are more than 55% pure capsaicin—a very unlikely claim.
Sometimes, sauces claim a Scoville rating based on the SHU of the chili used in them. For example, a sauce with 20% Carolina Reaper might claim 328,000 SHU, based on the chili's average rating of 1.64 million SHU. But this is misleading for three reasons:
- The actual chilies used are likely less spicy than 1.64 M SHU
- Cooking chilis reduce their spiciness.
- The SHU rating refers to dried, powdered chili. Fresh chilies are mostly water (about 90%), so their SHU is much lower.
Generally, the actual Scoville rating is about 100 times lower than what some people might expect.
Our Approach to Describing Heat
Because of all these issues with Scoville ratings, we prefer to describe the heat level of our sauces using simple, easy-to-understand terms like "mild," "medium," "hot," "very hot," and "super hot." We believe this gives a more practical idea of what to expect.
However, when people do ask for Scoville ratings, we’ll provide the most accurate figures possible based on real capsaicin measurements—even if our numbers seem lower than those used by other brands. Accuracy matters more to us than hype.