Re: [CH] FFS follow-up V8 #511
Cameron Begg (begg.4@osu.edu)
Tue, 12 Mar 2002 08:25:49 -0500
Hi C-H's,
Jim wrote:
>Don't know if I qualify as one of the 'technical people' or not (I
>usually think 'Cameron' for that ;-), but here goes....
>Technically pure capsaicin, I believe, is 15 million Scoville. To get
>one that registers 7.1 million, you cut it by a little over half.
>
>Technical enough? :-P
Yes. I do not consider myself an expert in organic chemistry, but
this much I know. The capsaicin group of molecules are not terribly
difficult to synthesize. You could manufacture it and purify the
products to close to 100% thereby gaining a pure cap. of 15million
Scovilles (or whatever it works out to be on that misleading and
highly unsatisfactory scale.) Unfortunately organic chemistry is not
that easy. Not only would you make capsaicins, but also a whole slew
of other related compounds, most of which would likely be highly
undesirable. The cost of producing the crude capsaicin in the first
place could be quite low. However the cost of refining it might be
prohibitive.
That's why the ORC manufacturers use pepper pods as their cap.
source, and devise various ways to concentrate it. From what Jim says
it looks as though they might be extracting the capsaicins (and a
load of other plant compounds by default) using an organic solvent
like ethanol, acetone or maybe ethyl acetate. (Guessing). It may also
be possible to use liquid CO2 but I doubt that they go to that
expense. It seems that this extract is dissolved and distributed in
oil. (Capsaicins have very low solubility in water.) Often, as we
know, this results in a terrible taste.
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Regards, Cameron.