Hot sauce is a very popular additive to foods because of the burning sensation produced in the mouth. This sensation is mainly due to the capsaicinoid chemicals naturally occurring in the peppers used to produce the hot sauce. The most abundant capsaicinoids in peppers are capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin. Hot sauces are frequently ranked on a subjective “hotness scale” using Scoville Heat Units (SHU). Due to the subjectivity of the SHU, the reported “hotness” for many sauces may not be accurate. The goal of this research was to quantify the concentrations of capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin in several hot sauces. The hot sauces studied were Frank’s Hot Sauce, Cholula, You Can’t Handle This, and Vicious Viper. The capsaicinoids were extracted from the hot sauces studied using liquid-liquid extraction with dichloromethane. After drying the organic extract under nitrogen, the samples were reconstituted in methanol. The reconstituted samples were filtered then analyzed using reverse-phase isocratic High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) with a UV-VIS spectrophotometer (221 nm) as the detector. The flow rate was 1.5 mL/min through an Inertsil ODS-3V column (15 cm x 4.6 mm x 5 μm particle size) with a 20 μL injection and 15 minute run time. The peak areas for the analytes were converted into concentrations using a calibration curve of pure capsaicin and pure dihydrocapsaicin standards. The calibration curves for capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin showed excellent linearity with a working range that included all hot sauce extracts studied. To compare the measured results to the reported SHU, the sum of the capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin results (in mg/mL) was converted into parts per million (ppm) then to SHU using the ratio 16 SHU to 1 ppm. Of the hot sauces studied, only Cholula had a measured concentration of capsaicin/dihydrocapsaicin that matched the reported hotness in SHU of 1000 SHU. The other hot sauces studied all showed measured results significantly lower than the reported SHU. It is likely that the subjective SHU scale would include other chemicals not studied in this research such as acetic acid (vinegar) and allicin (garlic), which could contribute to the burning sensation of hot sauces. However, the results presented here clearly indicate the need for the quantitative (non-subjective) determination of hot sauce “hotness” level.

Quantification of capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin in hot sauces for comparison with reported Scoville heat units

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.