Create hot "sauce" from capsaicin extract

Question

There are a lot of hot sauces like "Blairs Mega Death" with more than 500.000 scoville heat units. However, they do have some odd taste, which I don't really like.

So I'm thinking of creating a sauce from capsaicin or nonivamide extract. These are pure chemicals with 16.000.000 and 9.200.000 SHU respectively and would be perfect candidates for creating tasteless but very hot sauces. I already have nonivamide at home. Capsaicin is something I could get easily over the internet.

Since you really can't just put them on your food, you have to dissolve or mix it with either a liquid or another powder. I don't think I can use a powder because that would never create a homogeneous mixture. So I'm thinking of a liquid.

Facts:

Capsaicin is soluble in alcohol, ether, benzene, slightly soluble in CS2, HCl, petroleum

Nonivamide is soluble in methanol

...

So, obviously these are all non-edibles, except for alcohol. But I don't really like the idea of consuming alcohol to every meal. It just doesn't sound very healthy. Does anyone have an idea of how to create a hot but tasteless "sauce" or powder from pure capsaicin / nonivamide?

Jolenealaska · Accepted Answer

If capsaicin is soluble in alcohol, and you want a sauce with heat but no taste, there's a very simple way to do it if you do get a hold of pure capsaicin. Keep in mind that pepper sprays used for personal protection or law enforcement are in the range of 10% to 30% capsaicin. Bear spray (commonly seen here in Alaska) is required by law to be at or under 2% capsaicin. If you consider that then you've got to realize that you don't want a capsaicin concentration of greater than 1% anywhere near your food, and if you create a 1% solution, that's a product that you would only want to use by the micro-drop.

So, if you're using your capsaicin solution by the micro-drop, how great of a health concern can it possibly be that the carrier of your capsaicin is vodka? There's more naturally occurring alcohol in  a glass of fruit juice than in a micro-drop of vodka.

So, just get yourself a little airline bottle of vodka, that will be 30mls of vodka. For this purpose, lets pretend that vodka weighs 1 gram per ml. That's not exactly right, vodka weighs slightly less, but calling 30mls of vodka 30 grams is fine for this. So, to achieve a 1% capsaicin solution in the vodka, you would add 0.3 grams of pure capsaicin to to the bottle. Shake and you're done.

If you do get a hold of pure capsaicin, please treat it with great care and use protective clothing. Obviously if a 2% solution works as a bear repellant, the pure stuff could really hurt you.

EDIT: Also, see my comment to GdD below.

GdD · Answer

There's no point in getting pure capsaicin and diluting it yourself when you can buy capsaicin in just about any strength you want with all the work done for you. If you want something truly, painfully hot then get capsaicin 1 mil and then measure it into your dishes with an eye dropper. Be real careful with it, use gloves and don't sniff it, even at 1M it can still seriously hurt you.

I second @Jolenealaska's warning that pure capsaicin is dangerous. In fact, you should not try to get the pure stuff even if it is available, get something somewhat diluted as it is safer and easier to work with. Pure capsaicin is used in industrial applications, you need to work in tiny quantities, requiring special equipment. It can also put you in the hospital, so just don't do it. As cool as it sounds "I made this sauce using pure capsaicin!", the reality is somewhat different.

Joe · Answer

There's a product on the market called 'Pure Cap', which is exactly what you're proposing to make:

http://www.amazon.com/Pure-Cap-Hot-Sauce-Ferociously/dp/B0000DG4NJ

It comes in a dropper bottle inside a child-proof container.  One my former housemates (before he was living with me) had a container ... it seemed more useful for a (not very funny) practical joke than for actual food.

Maybe you could use it to make your own hot sauce, but I didn't really find it useful as an ingredient on its own.  (of course, I've also grown thai bird chilies, and get scotch bonnets & habaneros from my stepfather, so I already had a source of good heat).

Jpkicks · Answer

The only reason I can think of to buy pure capsaicin is to create a hotter hot sauce than what is available https://www.amazon.com/Mad-Dog-357-Plutonium-Scoville/dp/B00IIUEOEW
Assuming that you have read how hot pure cap is 16 million and before you buy this most sites require you to acknowledge this. I reconfused why people are trying to tell people that pure capsaicin is hotter than what he wants without knowing how hot he actually wants it.
Now to answer the question capsaicin will dissolve in oils, fats, and alcohols. Pure capsaicin equals 16 million if you are trying to make something less than that use a dropper.

sev · Answer

While sauces with 200'000+ scoville units do have hot peppers in them, many of them (Blair's Mega Death sauce included) use capsaicin extract to achieve that heat. When taste testing I have always found that those sauces which utilize capsaicin extract tend to have an unpleasant metallic taste.
If you would like to make a good tasting super hot sauce I would recommend to use hotter peppers such as the Carolina Reaper, Trinidad Moruga Scorpion or Naga Viper instead of capsaicin extract.
There are also existing hot sauces which use this method such as the Hot Ones | the last Dab XXX or the Heatonist #1 and others. I personally find the taste of these nice and I am not left wanting for more heat.

Create hot "sauce" from capsaicin extract

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