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Long ago I happened upon this page where someone took the time to invesigate the effects of various taco sauces on pennies. Since then, I’ve often thought about the effects of other hot sauces on pennies - would the type of vinegar have any differential effect, would the heat level of the hot sauce have any effect and which hot sauce would work best?
So I gathered up quite a few pennies, some shiney and brand new, others dulled by copper oxide (the reaction of the copper and the oxygen in the air).
Pennies get dull over time because the copper in the pennies slowly reacts with air to form copper oxide. Pure copper metal is bright and shiny, but the oxide is dull and greenish. When you place the pennies in the salt and vinegar solution, the acetic acid from the vinegar dissolves the copper oxide, leaving behind shiny clean pennies. The copper from the copper oxide stays in the liquid. Source: About.com
Goal of this experiment: To determine which of the following 4 hot sauces cleans a penny the best.
Prediction: Original Tabasco (because of the greater vinegar & salt content.)
A penny will be suspended in each hot sauce and then compared to an already shiny penny and a completely dull penny (for visual effect)
Sauce #1: Original Tabasco Hot Sauce
Ingredients: Fully aged red peppers, Avery Island salt and distilled high-grain natural vinegar.
Sauce #2: Tabasco Chipotle Hot Sauce
Ingredients: Chipotle pepper, distilled vinegar, water, salt, sugar, onion powder, spices, natural flavor, Tabasco brand pepper pulp (distilled vinegar, rad pepper and salt)
Sauce #3: Dave’s Cool Cayenne
Ingredients: Water, red chiles, salt, cane vinegar, xanthan gum, onions and garlic.
Sauce #4: Blair’s Jersey Death
Ingredients: Red Habanero Pods, Cayenne Chiles, White Vinegar, Natural Pepper Flavor, Tomato Puree, Pirri-Pirri Chiles, Pumpkin Seed, Lime Juice, Salt, Spices.
Surprisingly, Blair’s Jersey Death had little to no effect on the penny. Chipotle Tabasco appears to have cleaned the penny better then Original Tabasco - which is surprising given the taste of Original v. Chipotle - but looking at the ingredient list on each and distilled vinegar is higher on the ingredient list in the Chipotle Tabasco. So there you have it: Cleaning pennies with hot sauce does work, but you may as well save your sauce and use a plain vinegar and salt solution. Just be sure to rinse your pennies after removing from the solution, otherwise the solution will promote the oxidation between the copper and oxygen and will create a blue green copper oxide on your freshly cleaned pennies.
Chilehead Comments:
Posted by: Nick Lindauer - Categories: Hot Sauce Stuff
Permalink: Cleaning Pennies with Hot Sauce
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29 Comments »
I swore ive seen this thread before.
Hey man, you been inside too long. Go out for lunch today and get some air!
Floor it bitch!
God i love science
I have found that “Tarnex” works better but just doesnt have the taste I like.
I’m suprised there was a penny left after the Jersey death!
lol, great article!.
I think a good question is; why would somebody clean their pennies?
I’ve tried some hot sauces that tasted like Tarnex!
Actually, ketchup works very well for this.
This is the kind of research I am looking for- entertaining, fun, and with pictures to allow me to verify the results. Good job.
I’ve written about hot sauce a couple of times on my blog-but looks like I’ve got to make it a trifecta with a link to you!
No the real question is why would you waste expensive hotsauce on a penny, go clean some hundreds.
For 8th grade science fair this year me and my parther{Jenny} have decided to clean pennies with different substances but came to the conclusion Hot sauce cleans the BEST!!!! I love your website… CHA-CHING!!!
your pennies are sexy
what makes the pennies get shinnier in the hot sauce?
I think your stories and believe your story,but what you really need is some more text from how you cleaned all the pennies with different sauces.
The blue is actually from the salt (NaCl) forming copper chloride. Copper oxide is just the plain ol’ dull patina you normally see.
I hated the sauce `cause it looked ugly so don`t even think about it!
This so totally works. My daughter is in 4th grade and this was the perfect idea ever!
Mercy on 6/27/2006 at 9:37 am said:
I hated the sauce `cause it looked ugly so don`t even think about it!
Just because it looks ugly doesnt mean it’ll ever work!
jessie on 1/12/2006 at 10:28 am said:
your pennies are sexy
So what! Pennies aren’t meant to be sexy!
Whats good for the body is good for the mind! I love hot sauce!
what happened to Frank? Franks hot sauce is good…you should try it
yo what juice cleans pennies the best
orange juice will clean them pretty freakin good west side yo
im doin a science project help!!!!! me plez giv ne info and hurry thnx
i realy like how i learned that hot sause can clean pennyies since now i am doing a science experment on that! thank-you for all of you’r help!
i realy like how this experiment helped me with my science projest! me and my freind shay,really like it!
Well…W/e because im using hot sauce as my science fair project >) Cuz it just randomly popped up..So like…Yea 
Oh….Ur using it as ur science fair poroject also? ………………I didnt know that until I saw what u wrote on top of me. =/ Okay then. Whatever. Just one thing….I hope you won first place because…..Yeah. v.v
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I think its the vinegar, and since Blairs has little vinegar (thank goodness) its not much of a cleaner.