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.