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Anyone with some lab experience care to weigh in?

theghostpepperstore

theghostpepperstore

So, I ran across this during some random google searching.

http://www.beaconkit...vity-plate-kit/

Seems to me being able to test capsaicin levels at home could be very beneficial to some of us. $300 is pretty steep for most people, but it still beats sending samples off to get tested.

I do not have the kind of lab experience necessary to interpret the instruction manual (Organic Chemistry was a long time ago);

http://www.beaconkit...e (2010219).pdf

So I am hoping someone here has the knowledge to at least tell me if it would be possible to convert the results of the test into SHU above 1,000,000. I know there are some mad scientist types around here.


*edit* It looks like I got excited way too soon. A plate reader is required to run these test. I get the feeling they are pretty expensive.
 
Seems doable... its like a reagent based test with a colorimetric reading? or do you just keep diluting till you dont get a color?

edit: 300 bucks seems like alot imo. i wouldn't be surprised if you could get a simple chromotogram done for that or maby a bit more... there aren't any companies that do that for hot sauce companies or w/e?
 
Yes there are some labs, which is kind of how I stumbled upon this. I think I understand this to be a colorimetric reading but you have to have an ELISA plate reader in order to get the results of the test. I was thinking $300 would be pretty cheap if I could repeatedly test as opposed to about $50 per test at the lab.

Plate readers are in the $10,000 range, so needless to say, thats out of my price range. I think I will stick with my original plan for testing. LOL.
 
It would be nice if a community member did have the ability to test cap. levels. It would open up a whole new area of competitive growing I think.

and put an end to this freaking hp22b ordeal.
 
Well I am going to talk to a guy I know who calibrates lab equipment and see if there is a secondary market where I could pick up a reader at more affordable price. Might be a good investment if I could offer a service for cheap enough.
 
theghostpepperstore said:
Well I am going to talk to a guy I know who calibrates lab equipment and see if there is a secondary market where I could pick up a reader at more affordable price. Might be a good investment if I could offer a service for cheap enough.
Click to expand...

ebay, and labx are just a few of the places i would start.

there are a huge number of people that sell reconditioned or maby even new equipment from business liquidations or just sell offs of old crap.there are numerous companies that do this, many are on ebay and or labx, some are not.

if you are talking about a buying a chromotography setup? you should get a serious education on how to run them and repair them because they are hellaciously complicated. you would need to form some sort of official sounding company also... so you can buy the solvents etc. from one of the local chemical suppliers.
 
Not looking at a chromotography setup but maybe one of these ELISA style plate readers. I don't plan on doing any of this commercially, just kicking ideas around. I think it would be neat to be able to test my own peppers and do research in house, and maybe do some "unofficial" testing for others but that would be the end of it. I don't have the time or energy to try and start up any kind of professional laboratory.
 
Ahh, and don't forget the computer and software needed for the plate reader (parts sold separately!). Well actually I think the software comes with the plate reader. And then you'll need the correct size pipetters, and consumables like pipette tips and 96 -well plates (or whatever the plate reader requires). it gets ridiculous, which I think you already concluded.
 
Indiana_Jesse said:
Ahh, and don't forget the computer and software needed for the plate reader (parts sold separately!). Well actually I think the software comes with the plate reader. And then you'll need the correct size pipetters, and consumables like pipette tips and 96 -well plates (or whatever the plate reader requires). it gets ridiculous, which I think you already concluded.
Click to expand...

Indeed, ridiculous. Maybe in the future something like this will be within the grasps of the laymen.
 
I do this kind of work on a daily basis, and its way out the price range for most people (myslef included) we actually were just looking at having one of our readers replaced and the estimate was $40,000
but that does come with the software (rums the reader and does analytics)

but I do think there might be other ways to do this...... this has me thinking to look into a diy version.

thanks for the inspiration!
 
isnt there some way to get quantitative measurements from gas chromatography equipment? GC is supposed to be alot cheaper to run day to day i understand.

seems like you could just get a homogenized sample of pepper flesh... extract it and start feeding vials it into some fancy robot auto sampler.
i bet you could get super simple with it... like cram some flesh into a vial... vortex it, then centrifuge like 100 of them at a time, decant and sample them. whats that like 3 or 4 man hours per 100?

i wouldn't be surprised if you could contract some lab work like... once or twice a year, and just buy like 40 hours of GC work from said lab. problem is im guessing you would still need 100's if not thousands of samples to do in order to make any money at a price that's acceptable... like >100 bucks.

its too bad there isnt other stuff that needs analysis that might share a similar process. maby medical cannabis testing or something.
 
How many people want this as a service? And how often would you do it? If it were $100/sample? What if it was $50 or even $25?

Lab equipment is a beat to keep running reliably, then there are consumables, reference standards, columns, etc.
 
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