Is it possible to infuse piperine of Black pepper into oil?

Is it possible to infuse piperine of Black pepper into oil? - Steel spoons and spices in creative serving

Is this possible? From my understanding one would need to freshly grind the black pepper into an oil and heat it, however due to the volatility of piperine it would be lost during the heating and so wouldn’t infuse.

Is there any way to infuse piperine from black pepper or maybe another spice into an oil?



Best Answer

Oil is used to extract pepper flavor, as piperine is relatively non-polar. Its solubility in water (a polar solvent) is only 0.04 grams per liter. It is more soluble in less polar solvents (67 grams per liter in alcohol, for example).

A related post:
How to infuse black layer of peppercorn into an oil?

Piperine has amide and benzodioxole functional groups, and would be chemically reactive, so it might lose flavor if heated too hot or too long.

A little chemical background on solubility: It all comes down to “like dissolves like”.

Atoms are made of bits with electrical charges, both positive and negative. These opposite charges attract each other, and hold atoms and chemical compounds together. Compounds are made from two or more (can be 100s or even more) atoms joined together. If the electrical charges are evenly distributed in a molecule, then its surface is neutral everywhere. That's “non-polar”. But some chemical compounds have the electrical charge unevenly distributed, so there are areas on the surface with + and - charge. That's “polar”. Some atoms or groups of atoms can also gain or lose charges to become ions. Ions are electrically charged by nature.

Water is very polar. The + and - charges on the surface are attracted to opposite charges on other water molecules, so it sticks to itself really well. This is why it has such a high boiling point for such a small molecule. Also, because it sticks using + and - charges, it can also dissolve compounds that have plenty of those surface +/- charges, like sugars, or ionic compounds like salt. But it's hard for anything that doesn't have those charges (non-polar molecules like piperine) to dissolve, because they would get in the way of the strong +/- attractions.

But piperine can mix with other non-polar or low-polarity molecules, like oil. When they mix with each other, there aren't very strong forces holding them together. It's mostly just the forces of disorder. And they aren't blocking electrically charged molecules from finding opposite charges to stick to.

Lots of molecules have both polar (electrically charged) parts and also non-polar (electrically neutral) parts. These can then dissolve/mix with both kinds of molecules (the best examples of these, like lecithin and other emulsifiers, can help fats and water stick together). Alcohol is one of these in-between molecules. It can dissolve the piperine, but also mix with water. It's also very volatile, so it could be used to efficiently dissolve out a molecule like piperine, and then be evaporated away to leave a more concentrated mixture, or even deposit the piperine into an oil in more concentrated form. Lately a lot of people are flavoring vodka with black pepper.




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Quick Answer about "Is it possible to infuse piperine of Black pepper into oil?"

The answer is yes, and it comes down to “like dissolves like”.

Does piperine dissolve in oil?

The piperine appeared to have higher solubility in ethyl oleate among three oils of soybean oils, oleic acid and ethyl oleate. Among the various cosurfactants, the Transcutol P showed highest drug solubility with 185.29\xb10.16mg/ml.

Can you infuse oil with black pepper?

For an infused oil, simply combine 7 parts oil with a pinch of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Seal the jar and shake for 30 seconds, until the salt is fully dissolved in the oil. Uncap the jar and add 1 part ground herb or spice of your choice. Reseal the jar and shake until emulsified.

How do you dissolve piperine?

Piperine is sparingly soluble in aqueous buffers. For maximum solubility in aqueous buffers, piperine should first be dissolved in DMSO and then diluted with the aqueous buffer of choice. Piperine has a solubility of approximately 0.1 mg/ml in a 1:7 solution of DMSO:PBS (pH 7.2) using this method.

How do you make black pepper essence?

Oil extract of Black Pepper is obtained from the unripe, dried berries(peppercorns) of plant Piper nigrum of the Piperaceae family. The oil can be extracted by crushing them or through steam distillation. It has spicy, warm, peppery and musky aroma.



Piperine extraction from black pepper (part 1)




Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Images: Dibakar Roy, Karolina Grabowska, Engin Akyurt, Engin Akyurt