So I’ve been cooking with more heat lately, and since my local supermarket has started stocking habaneros, I figured it’s hard to beat that without going to the really freaky stuff. I spent the last two weeks working my way through a bag of Scotch Bonnets, so I have that as a baseline… How much worse, on a per-pepper basis, should I expect the Habaneros to be? Scoville is by weight, AFAIK, so should I expect them to be similar to the larger Bonnets? Basically, how much more is my butt gonna hurt after I put one in a two-serving pot of soup?
Scotch bonnets and habaneros are the same thing but different names, at least in this part of the western Caribbean. Habanero in Central American and Scotch Bonnet being the favored nomenclature in Jamaica and Cayman.
Hmmm, I guess Wikipedia disagrees but stated both score 100,000-350,000 scoville units.
These don’t seem to be the same peppers.
http://www.habaneromadness.com/images/habanero-types-varieties/caribbean%20red%20habanero.jpg
As far as butt hurt… common cooking technique for local dishes is to pierce the scotch bonnet several times with the tip of a knife and then throw the whole pepper in whatever you are cooking. Fish it out and throw it away once done cooking.
My Jamaican colleagues were quite amused when I told them I finely diced three whole scotch bonnets and threw it in my first attempt at jamaican rice-and-peas. I would not recommend doing it again.
They are slightly different peppers, but very similar. I personally would say they are equally hot, overall, although there may be variation within any batch, of course. I substitute for them freely in recipes.
Around here, if you see peppers labeled “habaneros” at the store, they’re probably Scotch bonnets.
But yeah, they’re very close, close enough that there’s more variation within the varieties than between them.
Alternatively, put on a pair of rubber gloves and a face mask, wave a Carolina Reaper pepper above the cooking pot, then throw away the contents when it’s finished.
You’re still playing with kiddy peppers? 
There’s a new kid on the block.
As a fan of the very very hot stuff, and this might just be me, but it’s my experience there are two main elements to “hotness”: intensity and duration. I’ve had lots of habanero and Scotch bonnet.
I’ve had jolokia “ghost pepper” and Carolina Reaper. Once you’re into the 350,000-500,000 Scoville unit range and above, it’s all about the same intensity, what’s different is the duration. YMMV, of course.
For me, once you get to habanero heat & up to the ultra hots, it’s all pretty much the same, in terms of heat. The ultrahots seem to have a much quicker and sharper onset than habs, but (to me) they also do seem to dissipate pretty quickly (<10 min), so that’s a little different than your experience. But it ramps up very quickly for me. I pretty much consider all habenero & hotter peppers to be in the same category, heatwise. (Right now I got some reapers, chocolate scorpions, regular scorpions, habs, and Scotch bonnets growing in the garden, among the more “normal” peppers like Thai, cayenne, and Tabasco.)
Birds are almost immune to capsaicin https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_did_birds_adapt_to_eat_hot_peppers2.
Im wondering why some smart biologist doesnt invent a capsaicin blocker for the receptors in the mouth so more people can enjoy the flavor and get the health benefits of peppers.
The simpler way to accomplish that is to just breed peppers without the capsaicin. Which we’ve already done, for many varieties. If you’re eating habaneros instead of bells, it’s because you like the heat.
Yeah, but bell peppers were bred for durability and stackability, not flavor. For those who can’t stand the heat (or just like flavor), allow me to introduce the Habanada.
The Chinese are way ahead of you: Sichuan Peppercorns have been prized for ages for their ability to help numb the tongue to a dish’s true heat.
Because I am a masochist who enjoys the feeling of my upper body catching fire. Oh my god this is so good.
Speaking of which, having now had my first experiment interchanging habaneros with scotch bonnets: ow ow ow ow ow. They are not the same, the habaneros I got are waaaay hotter than the bonnets. Ow ow ow ow ow.
Both peppers have a Scoville rating of 100K-350K. You just got some “weak” Bonnets.
Obviously, you need to sample a number of both from different sources.
Taste wise (for as long as I can taste them before my mouth goes numb) I liked the reaper peppers. We tried some raw and then added to chili and it has this really nice fruity back hit. I find habaneros tend to have this but much less pronounced and it isn’t as nice. That being said, even as much of a chili head as I am I’m in no hurry to taste the dragon’s breath. You might just as well start spritzing pepper spray down your throat, which is in the same ball park Scoville wise.
Habenaros dont seem so hot on the eating but they leave something on my lips which burns…in in Los Angeles and our habaneros are Orange.
I also recommend Gringo Bandito hot sauce made with scorpion chili peppers…hot but with flavor.
I love spicy food and the heat of peppers, but isn’t it now just a pissing contest to make a hotter pepper? After a certain Scoville rating they all kind of range into “not hot enough” to “bad case of firehole”. I’ve eaten ghost peppers and the heat is similar to habanero’s, just last a few minutes longer. What is the ultimate point of creating a hotter pepper, honestly?
Yes and yes. I feel no need to go above habs in heat. They are nicely hot and have a fruity flavor I adore. Above that is just macho posturing, and when you have as big a dick as I do, you don’t need to posture.
Gringo Bandito is a quite yummy sauce, in any variety. Who knew Dexter Holland had it in him? Although he does have a PhD in Molecular Biology.