Food & Drink How high can you go on the Scoville scale and still enjoy your food?

[Gracious Warrior]

I know most of you can go high on the Scoville scale as a matter of competition. But the question is how high can you go and still actually enjoy your food? For me I can enjoy lots of things with Jalapeno, and I often use cayenne in my Chili recipe. Dominos also has Habanero wings that sometimes annoy me with their burn but I enjoy nonetheless. So I guess Habanero would be my limit

 

[Bobby00]

Belle Pepper FTW

 

[Lubaolong]

Yeah, after that 300-500k zone, it’s more about suffering. I ordered the hottest level at a couple different hot chicken places in the last year and couldn’t really eat the sandwiches. They were in the 1-2 million range. I ate about half at both places and threw the rest away because it was just too hot to enjoy.

 

[AFanNotAFighter]

Jalapeno is my limit and then I tap out.

 

[jx820]

The scoville scale of the pepper doesn't matter all that much in how much I enjoy the food, because different dishes have different amounts of peppers in them.

So when you see things like "ghost chili sauce" at a fast food place, they've put one chili into a vat of sauce. It's not coming in at a million scoville.

For me Thai Chilis are the top end of the comfort zone in food. They're hot enough to be very hot, but still taste good although there isn't much there to impart flavor. If someone asked me to just eat a pepper I probably wouldn't enjoy anything above a serrano and maybe less. IMO Jalapenios are a great pepper for both heat and flavor.

Habaneros IMO taste like shit. IDK what is so different about them, but I just don't like them.

 

[Seano]

After a point, there's no flavor. I don't really get this trend of eating mega hot food just to say you ate it. Its not enjoyable.

 

[syct23]

I've been snacking on some Carolina Reaper Almonds lately and they're no that bad..

But if I want to taste my food well enjoying the heat, I would say somewhere around Thai...

 

[Pittie Petey]

I put jalapenos with the seeds and cayenne in my soups and I eat Tabasco on lots of things, thats about as high as Im interested in going

Those peppers they use in spicy Chinese food is probably my absolute limit, sometimes I can handle it, sometimes I cant

 

[dirtypablo]

Ha, I didn't realize tabasco was an actual chili pepper, I thought it was just the name of the sauce. Makes sense as I had seen this image before and was always confused because I've had many raw jalapenos that were much, much hotter than Tabasco sauce. I'm guessing around 30-50k is my limit, but it also really depends on the food it's going with as well.

 

[Post 2 Decision]

I don't know what Fatali is, but around there, probably.

I can do Scotch Bonnet and Habanero no problem, but that's where the tongue burn starts becoming a bit uncomfortable.

 

[Post 2 Decision]

I put jalapenos with the seeds and cayenne in my soups and I eat Tabasco on lots of things, thats about as high as Im interested in going

Those peppers they use in spicy Chinese food is probably my absolute limit, sometimes I can handle it, sometimes I cant

Those Chinese peppers are Tianjin, and would fall around the lower end of the 'Thai' level

 

[BB in Crazy!!!!]

Depends on how good the food tastes. Usually if I want something Spicey, but still tasty to enjoy, I’ll go with up to Thai peppers. I do occasionally get some higher stuff on my hot sauce, even up to Reapers, but adding a little (okay maybe a god amount) to a burrito doesn’t make the burrito have a scoville all that high. Hottest thing I tried was the 9 million scoville gummy bear challenge. It was so hot my mouth just went numb and pulsed. I threw my guts up for the next hour though and I will never do that again.

 

[Get To Da Choppa]

Not a meme, but an actual answer

 

[Takes Two To Tango]

First we feast FTW.

 

[crabmeat]

 

[Thai Domi]

I can tolerate a few jalapeños in something, and that's it. And I think that chart is old, because the Carolina Reaper is the current champ iirc.

 

[Flower2dPeople]

I can tolerate a few jalapeños in something, and that's it. And I think that chart is old, because the Carolina Reaper is the current champ iirc.

Carolina reaper is in the top of naturally grown chilis on the graph.

 

[shunyata]

Yeah, after that 300-500k zone, it’s more about suffering. I ordered the hottest level at a couple different hot chicken places in the last year and couldn’t really eat the sandwiches. They were in the 1-2 million range. I ate about half at both places and threw the rest away because it was just too hot to enjoy.

Under 200k can still be an enjoyable meal.

But above that it's more of an ordeal, a crucible.


I do think raw sliced Thai chilis are an excellent garnish for many dishes, and I'll use 100k + hot sauce on my lunch, but too much above and beyond that isn't very fun.

I like the heat strong, but not abusive.

 

[Grrrr]

Been on a Datil pepper kick lately. Don’t normally go any hotter than that.

 

[William Huggins]

Habanero, for me...