The relative power of Hot Sauce

[WordMan]

Maybe this belongs in GQ, but I don't know if there is actual science to answer this:

Okay, my favorite hot sauce is a habanero sauce - Yucateca Green - violent for the uninitiated, just right without being over-the-top macho for hot sauce nuts like me. But here's the thing: it seems to vary in strength depending on the food I use it on. On eggs, typical meats, etc. it is its normal hot self. On chicken salad made with mayo, I can pump enough of this stuff on to ignite a building and still barely notice it. And in split pea soup (okay, I like to add my hot sauce to a lot of things), a little daub lights the whole bowl on fire.

What's up? I have to assume that the ingredients in the food much reinforce or neutralize the heat-producing chemicals in the sauce, but that much? And which ingredients are doing it? Is it the mayo in the chicken salad? Then why doesn't it have the same effect on a sandwich? And what about the soup - why does it get super hot?

Have you experienced this? What have you figured out?

[DeVena]

Yep, this probably should be in GQ, but...

The capsaicin (what makes peppers hot) are jagged little shards that stick in your tongue (on a microscopic level). Water does nothing to counteract this, but oils do.More Info.

So anything with milk or mayonaisse with cut the heat, but water or very little fat will not.

(When you order chiles in a REAL Mexican restaurant, you don't get a meat stew. You get roasted green or red chile peppers, tortillas, and fresh black coffee. The coffee cuts the heat.)

[Bippy the Beardless]

Well from my experiences with only IMHO explanations.

Dairy products, and oily products seem to reduce the relative heat, I believe this is because the essential chili oils will dissolve into such things. This doesn't reduce their potential heat, but means that the capsicum oil doesn't bind to the walls of your mouth and tongue so much.

Amount of salt in a dish also has an effect, I notice salty tortilla chips make a salsa seem hotter than unsalted tortilla chips.

I also notice that from day to day my heat tolerance changes, so I suspect this is similar for other people. Some days you just need more of a chili kick than on others.

[The Controvert]

Judging solely on commercial ads, the power of Hot Sauce pales in comparison to The Power of Cheese.

[vibrotronica]

I was making veggie chili once and it came out WAY too hot. I called my girlfriend (who gave me the recipie) and said "Ouch! My chili is too hot!"
"How many chipotle peppers did you put in?" she asked.
"All of them" I said.
"The whole can?"
"Yep"
"You're only supposed to use two or three!"
"Oh..."
The solution she recommended was adding honey to cut the heat, and it turned into a great batch of chili.