If you’re a fan of spicy food, you’re a fan of capsaicin. That’s because this is the active ingredient that lights your mouth on fire when you bite into a spicy dish. Once it makes contact with your mouth’s VR1 receptors, it’s like heat meeting kindling – you get flames!
Some people have taken their love of spicy food to another level, though. You can now find pure capsaicin hot sauce. That’s right. This is basically fire in a bottle. If you’ve ever had a spicy pepper before and thought, “The only thing that could make this better is if the fibrous material wasn’t getting in my way”, then pure capsaicin hot sauce is for you.
The Strange Truth Behind Capsaicin
Before we proceed to discuss pure capsaicin hot sauce, here’s one more interesting science tidbit: the VR1 receptor we just told you about wasn’t initially for detecting this powerful ingredient.
Instead – and this makes a lot of sense – these receptors were supposed to sense actual heat. They’re there to keep you from biting into a piece of chicken that is still hot from the grill.
Put another way, the sensation of consuming capsaicin is actually a lot like sticking a lit match in your mouth. Alright, that’s a bit dramatic, but your VR1 receptors do associate with the same heat level of water that’s near the boiling point.
16,000,000 SCU
Now, there’s a big difference between the active ingredient in peppers and pure capsaicin hot sauce. The former can be consumed in all different amounts. Obviously, we’ve all had some kind of spicy food before and didn’t feel like our mouths had just been visited by an arsonist.
The reason pure capsaicin hot sauce has such a mythic reputation amongst “fire eaters” is that it literally gets no hotter than this. As the name makes clear, this is capsaicin distilled to its purest form.
To put this into perspective, it helps to understand the Scoville scale. This measuring tool is used to rate chili peppers on their degree of heat. The unit of measurement is the SHU.
At the lowest end of the spectrum, you’ll find a bell pepper, which has 0 SHU. Three levels up from that is the jalapeno pepper. It sits alongside others that range in heat between 3,500 and 10,000 SHU.
The famous habanero chili, Madame Jeanette and bird’s eye chili all clock in at between 100,000 and 350,000 SHU.
At the very top of the scale are names like the Komodo dragon chili pepper, Naga Viper pepper, Trinidad scorpion pepper and the infamous Carolina reaper. These are peppers that were literally bred from other versions to come up with the hottest versions possible.
They can easily produce a million SHU. The Carolina reaper actually has the record with an unheard of 2.2 million SHU.
That’s all well and good, but what if you’ve sampled these heavy hitters and your tongue still yearns for a burn?
That’s where pure capsaicin hot sauce comes in.This fiery condiment has been measured at 16,000,000 SHU. You literally can’t put anything spicier in your mouth.
Why You Need Pure Capsaicin Hot Sauce for the Full Effect
If you are in the market for this kind of heat, make sure you go with pure capsaicin hot sauce. Some people buy the powder, but this won’t give you the full effect. It will definitely be very, very, very hot, but, again, if you want to say you’ve been to the summit, you need the sauce.
Why?
It’s because capsaicin in crystal form is hydrophobic, which means it can’t be fully dissolved through direct contact with water. In other words, your saliva won’t be able to dissolve it in your mouth.
This information often comes as a huge shock to people who have tried capsaicin crystals before. After all, it’s still no walk in the park. Sadly, though, those who have braved the powder still haven’t felt the complete impact of pure capsaicin.
Hot sauce, on the other hand, can do a better job of this, especially when alcohol is used. High-content alcohol is able to break down the crystals.
The other problem with using powder is that single flakes don’t spread the heat across your tongue. Even if you put a small mound on your tongue, the spice would only be felt where the individual flakes were able to touch.
This is why pure capsaicin hot sauce is generally made with some amount of vodka.
While no one knows for sure, most estimate that it would take somewhere in the neighborhood of 250,000 gallons of water in order to dissolve capsaicin to the point that you would no longer be able to experience its trademark heat.
Is Pure Capsaicin Hot Sauce Dangerous?
As with any spicy pepper or sauce, you want to be careful how you consume pure capsaicin hot sauce. Make sure you don’t get any in your eye or on an open wound when you’re handling it.
That being said, it’s perfectly safe and pure capsaicin hot sauce is sold in bottled form all over the world.
Of course, you want to work your way up to it. If you’ve never had anything hotter than a habanero before, this is probably going to be an uncomfortable experience you’d do well to avoid. Again, this sauce is 8,000 times spicier than Tabasco. It’s not suited for beginners.
For those who crave the feeling of fire in their mouths, there’s no better product on the market right now than pure capsaicin hot sauce (aside from actual fire, of course). To create a single pound of this sauce, several tons of peppers are required. Months of work are required. Those who make it wear lab suits with masks to ensure they aren’t accidentally exposed to it.
Chili heads all over the world have come to revere it as the holy grail of spice. While someone is always working on a stronger formula, right now, pure capsaicin hot sauce is the undisputed champion.
Sources:-
http://www.chez-williams.com/Hot%20Sauce/hothome.htm
http://www.peppersofkeywest.com/shop/blairs-hot-sauce/blairs-caldera-16-million-scoville-units/