Pepper X Scoville, 2.69 Million SHU and Record

How hot is Pepper X?

Pepper X averages 2,693,000 Scoville heat units, the figure Guinness World Records confirmed on 16 October 2023¹. Winthrop University in South Carolina ran the tests on specimens from the previous four years. That puts it at the top of the super-hot band, well clear of every other pepper you can look up in the index.

For a sense of the top end you're dealing with: pure capsaicin rates 16,000,000 SHU⁷, so Pepper X carries about a sixth of the heat of the pure compound.

How many times hotter than a Reaper, a ghost or a jalapeño?

Divide the Pepper X average by each pepper's published figure and you get the ratios below. They compare heat per gram, and every pod you buy varies around its own average.

The habanero row is the one to keep in mind if you've cooked with a habanero. Even against the hottest habanero you've had, a Pepper X pod brings about eight times the burn, gram for gram. Against an average jalapeño, your mouth faces about 540 times the heat.

Against the Reaper the gap is about 1,050,000 SHU (2,693,000 − 1,641,183)¹⁶, which the Carolina Reaper and Pepper X comparison lays out.

What does an average of 2,693,000 SHU mean?

How do the labs get to 2,693,000 SHU?

No one tastes their way to that number. Wilbur Scoville's original test diluted a pepper extract until a taste panel could no longer detect heat; labs today measure the capsaicinoids directly by high-performance liquid chromatography, which the New Mexico researchers call the most accurate and efficient method⁵. Guinness doesn't spell out Winthrop's method, so the chain below shows the standard one¹.

Run the conversion backwards and you see what the record means in the pod. 2,693,000 ÷ 16 is about 168,000 parts per million, so if Winthrop used the usual factor, roughly 17 % of the dried, ground pod by weight was capsaicinoids¹⁵. That's why gloves matter even for a pinch of dried flakes.

Averaging four years also smooths out the weather. The New Mexico team notes that the growing environment changes a cultivar's heat⁵, so one hot summer's batch could test higher or lower than the record.

Who bred Pepper X and how long did it take?

Ed Currie, founder of the PuckerButt Pepper Company, the same grower behind the Reaper you may already know. Guinness says he cultivated Pepper X on his farm for over 10 years, crossing it with some of his hottest peppers to raise its capsaicin¹.

1. 1980s

   First pepper plants

   Currie starts growing hot peppers at home in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and later raises 800 plants across family and neighbors' homes.²

2. November 2013

   Carolina Reaper record

   Guinness confirms his Carolina Reaper as the hottest chilli, at an average of 1,569,300 SHU.⁸

3. Over 10 years

   Breeding Pepper X

   He makes over 100 crosses a year; a new hybrid takes around 10 generations to settle into a stable line.¹

4. 16 October 2023

   Pepper X record

   Guinness confirms an average of 2,693,000 SHU, after Currie reveals the pepper on an episode of Hot Ones.¹

Ten generations is the part you might underestimate. Each one means you grow the plants out, keep the hottest and save their seed, and at one generation a year that alone fills a decade before any lab test.

What has Ed Currie said about Pepper X?

Not much about the pepper itself, and nothing that gives you its parents' names. The statements on record come from the Guinness article and from his own company's history page:

• On the parents: "When we started the cross, there were two peppers that I really loved the flavour of," Currie told First We Feast, "but neither of them were gonna be hot enough for my tastes"¹.
• On the method: he keeps going with a cross only when it shows "desirable traits, like high indices of capsaicinoids," and otherwise starts over; he calls it "a very time-consuming, very long process"¹.
• On why he started: his company says he began growing hot peppers in the 1980s while looking into links between lifestyle, habits and disease².
• On the farm today: it grows over 100,000 pepper plants in South Carolina, with natural fertilizers instead of chemicals and pesticides, by the company's own account².

So the only flavor clue you get from the breeder is that he liked the taste of both parents. That tells you he chose for flavor as well as heat; it doesn't tell you what the pod tastes like.

First We Feast, the team behind Hot Ones, made this 2023 video with Currie and Chili Klaus when Pepper X took the Guinness record, so you can see the pod and hear its breeder talk, but records change, so check the date against the record on this page.

Play video: Pepper X: Sean Evans, Chili Klaus & Smokin' Ed Currie Eat the New World's Hottest Pepper | Hot Ones 14:14

Pepper X: Sean Evans, Chili Klaus & Smokin' Ed Currie Eat the New World's Hottest Pepper | Hot Ones

From First We Feast

VideoPlays from YouTube when you press play.Watch on YouTube

1 source

What does Pepper X look like?

A knobbly pod with many curves and ridges, the kind you'd notice from across a market table. Guinness explains why that shape matters: the heat sits in the placenta, and the folds give the placenta more room to grow¹.

1Curves and ridges: more room for the placenta¹2Placenta: where the capsaicin is, not the seeds¹

1. Curves and ridges: more room for the placenta¹
2. Placenta: where the capsaicin is, not the seeds¹

Guinness does not give the pod's ripe color, so the index leaves color blank and the drawing above shows you shape only.

What species is Pepper X, and what does it taste like?

Nobody has published either on a primary source we could read, so we can't tell you yet. Guinness names no species and no parents; Currie only says there were two peppers whose flavor he loved¹. We leave species and flavor empty instead of guessing, and we'd rather you see a blank than a made-up answer.

The family history points you one way, since the Carolina Reaper is Capsicum chinense⁶. A family hint proves nothing about one pepper, so the field stays blank until a taxonomic or university source names it.

Which hot sauces use Pepper X?

PuckerButt sells sauces labeled as made with Pepper X on its own store³, and those are the most direct way for you to taste it. The better-known bottle is one step removed: The Last Dab Apollo is made from the Apollo pepper, which its maker says Currie bred from strains of the Carolina Reaper and Pepper X¹⁰.

How do you handle Pepper X safely?

Treat any Pepper X product as something you taste, not something you eat. Two case reports show what can go wrong when people eat whole super-hots in a contest. A 34-year-old man who ate one Carolina Reaper had dry heaves and then thunderclap headaches; scans showed narrowed brain arteries that had cleared five weeks later¹¹. A man who ate ghost peppers in a contest vomited so hard he tore his esophagus¹².

Pepper X averages about 1.6 times the Reaper's heat¹, so those cases set the floor for what a whole pod could do to you, not the ceiling.

1. 1

   Start with a sauce, not a pod

   A drop of a Pepper X sauce on a cracker tells you more than a bite of pepper, and you can stop after one.

2. 2

   Glove up before you open anything

   Rubber, latex or nitrile gloves, and no touching your face until you have washed your hands.¹³

3. 3

   Pour the milk first

   In a Penn State study of 72 people, whole and skim milk cut capsaicin burn the most; carbonated drinks did poorly.¹⁴

4. 4

   Wait before a second taste

   Give the burn a few minutes to peak and fade; a second drop on top of the first stacks the heat.

Can you grow Pepper X?

Not from seed you can buy from its breeder, as of October 2026, so any packet you see online deserves your doubt. PuckerButt's seed shop lists the Carolina Reaper but no Pepper X¹⁵. When seed turns up, the Pepper X growing guide covers the long season it will need. Until then, the Carolina Reaper from the same breeder is the closest plant you can buy seed for and grow yourself.