Homemade Chili Oil

[TheTInCook]

Has anyone tried crushing the dried chili seeds and using a very small amount of oil, to extract the spicy heat and make an oil that's very concentrated?

I like the 'goop' part of the chili oil as much, if not more, then the oil itself. So I use a lot of chiles in proportion. Haven't measured or anything when I've made it, but I'd have to say around 4 oz of chile flakes to 16 floz of vegetable oil.

[Kouign Aman]

The oil coats your mouth, paradoxically protecting you from the burn you are looking for. Also oil is not a great thing to infuse as it takes taste quite slow and mild, this is why you have to have a long period of infusion to reach high Scovilles. Chopping the chillies as fine as possible will hasten the process of infusion.

Hmm. I thought capsaicin was oil-soluble: My link.

Maybe I'll try extracting it into ethanol. That should help with the risks of bacterial growth too.

thanks for the input, all.

[Mjx]

The oil coats your mouth, paradoxically protecting you from the burn you are looking for. Also oil is not a great thing to infuse as it takes taste quite slow and mild, this is why you have to have a long period of infusion to reach high Scovilles. Chopping the chillies as fine as possible will hasten the process of infusion.

Hmm. I thought capsaicin was oil-soluble: My link.

. . . .

You're absolutely right, it is: 'Capsaicin is insoluble in cold water, but freely soluble in alcohol and vegetable oils.' (Fire and Spice: The molecular basis for flavor). And oil can't coat your mouth, for the same reason that milk can't coat your stomach: fats sit on water, and your mucous membranes are constantly secreting water-based fluids).

[Will]

I mostly use dried chilis for chili oil.

Normally, I just follow Fuchsia Dunlop's method, taking dry, roughly chopped dried chao tian jiao (facing heaven chilis), frying them in a wok with their seeds (without burning), crushing, then adding to oil that's been heated to 300F and then cooled a bit. I sometimes put some ginger (later removed) and star anise in the oil as well. I leave the chilis in - depending on the application, I may use only oil, only sediment, or both.

BTW, a Vita-mix is much faster / easier than a mortar / pestle or a food processor for crushing chilis (I don't have the dry blade; hopefully I won't ruin the blender!).

I also make my own Cantonese style chili oil, which is really delicious. I do a vegetarian variation of this recipe:

http://3hungrytummies.blogspot.com/2009/11/cantonese-chili-oil.html

I usually just use dried chilis, but the recipe does call for both fresh Thai chilis and dried chilis - for me, it's plenty hot without the Thai chilis.

[TheTInCook]

I usually just use red chile flakes from the market. Sometimes I grind up chile de arbol or japonase, but it doesn't seem to make that big of a difference. Used some little dried red chiles from a Thai market, and they made exceptional chile oil.

It seems my method differs from most here. I combine the chile and cool oil in the wok, and heat it gently until it just starts to smell toasty, then I remove from heat, and let it cool before bottling. I prefer the toasted flavor from this method, then the pour hot oil over chiles and steep method.

[Jenni]

I have no qualifications that mean that anyone should listen to me, but...

...I heard that chillies were one of those things like garlic that are a great carrier of botulism spores. And as we've discussed before, you'd have to pressure can to get the chillies themselves up to high enough heat to destroy these (have I got the science right here?). So, please be careful people. Treating the chillies with acid before putting them in the oil (the oil makes an anaerobic environment that is perfect for botulism spores to get going) sounds like a good idea. When I make chilli pickle (Desi style - lots of oil), I heat the chillies up in lemon juice first. I think commercial products of many kinds often have citric acid in them to create an acidic envrionment.

I am also sure that I recall there are some places where bottles of chilli oil on the table are not allowed, for health reasons related to botulism. I may have this completely wrong though.

[Kouign Aman]

I ended up with an alcohol extraction.

It was very successful. Hotter than needed and fairly quick. (I gave it two days).

I think now I will try extracting the capsaicin from the alcohol into oil just to see if I can.

I should be able to, since I can evaporate off the ethanol, and the capsaicin, being lipophilic, should then move into oil instead of staying in the leftover water fraction.