22Apr 2019 by Vincent Summers No Comments

The Main Component of Super Hot Peppers is Related to Vanilla

Chemistry, Food
[caption id="attachment_24231" align="alignright" width="480"] Not hot enough for some people...[/caption] Spicy hot peppers can provide culinary delight, or gastronomical torture for those with sensitive stomachs. So what is it – from a chemistry perspective – that makes those hot peppers so hot? Hot Peppers Contain Capsaicin For simplicity’s sake, we’ll limit the scope of this article to a single hot pepper constituent: capsaicin (IUPAC chemical name, (E)-N-[(4-Hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)methyl]-8-methylnon-6-enamide). Scientists assign capsaicin in pure form a Scoville heat value of 16,000,000. The Scoville value is subjective. Raters determine heat by means of tasting increasing dilution of pepper solutions. The jalapeño pepper, for example, possesses a Scoville rating of up to 4,000, while a habanero pepper rates at about a 250,000 on the scale. [caption id="attachment_24242" align="alignleft" width="280"] The relatively mild jalapeño pepper.[/caption]…
Read More
11Apr 2016 by Vincent Summers 10 Comments

Vanilla and Vanillin: What’s the Difference?

Chemistry, Food
[caption id="attachment_14041" align="alignright" width="440"] Drying vanilla beans.[/caption] Probably the average grocery shopper is unaware there are two sources of the flavor of vanilla. They are vanilla and vanillin. Are they the same? Are they different? If they are different, what is that difference? Vanilla and Vanillin Historically, our favorite ice cream flavor has been vanilla. To draw special attention to the use of natural rather than synthetic ingredients, some have added descriptors to their ice cream. They use phrases like natural vanilla or natural vanilla bean. The vanilla bean comes from an orchid, and is completely natural. The flavor extract made from it is called vanilla. Yes, the word that ends in an “a,” and not an “n.” We still have vanilla and vanillin. So what is vanillin? [caption id="attachment_17377"…
Read More