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Articles
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What Makes a Hot Sauce or Pepper Hot?
I get asked a lot about why are some peppers or hot sauces hotter than others and what makes them hot. The word to know is capsaicin which is produced by the pepper. Capsaicin is typically inside the membranes and tissue that holds the seeds, and produces most of the "heat". It is commonly believed that cleaning out the seeds will reduce the heat which is false, the seeds have little to no capsaicin, it's what holds the seeds that causes the pain. In cooking the heat of your dish can be adjusted by cleaning these parts out completely for a milder dish or possibly leaving some in to kick it up. Pure capsaicin is between 15,000,000 and 16,000,000 Scoville.
Capsaicin is what causes that burning sensation on your tongue and mouth because it bonds with the receptors. In higher doses it can actually burn skin so gloves are commonly worn when preparing peppers or hot sauces. An inadvertent stroke of the face several hours after cleaning a pepper can quickly spread into the eyes and cause great pain even after several washings.
Capsaicin is not water soluble which is why drinking water, even lots of it, does nothing to cool the burn, and actually can help spread it to other places. Capsaicin is alcohol soluble however you likely would not want to drink as much as required to do any good, A beer is typically only 4-5% alcohol which is nowhere near enough to help. The best solution to ease the heat is milk. Milk contains a substance called casein which is attracted to the fatty capsaicin molecule, bonds with it, and washes it away.
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