Kava Preparation Endwatcher's prep method

[endwatcher]

Recently I stumbled on to what Id like to believe the best extraction method.
While taking hints on boiling water from GHK, and having a Fijian strainer that blew out on me, I came up with this.
"I rebought a new strainer FYI, Thank PK"


Boil 3.5 cups water, "about a half cup boils off" place 3 cups boiling water in a blender.

Turn the blender on low, the reason why you dont add the Kava first is because it will sink UNDER the blades and some will get stuck.

Add 6 TBL's Kava, 1 TBL Sunflower Lecithin

It gets pretty Thick.
Now you will blend on and off until the mixture is cool enough to knead. "Takes about an hour"

You will need a old white T for the first strain.
The mixture is to thick to pour all of it in the T shirt, you will have to pour 1/4 at a time, squease it out in a Bowl.
DONT THROW AWAY WHATS IN THE TSHIRT!
Now while you have your 1 bowl with thick Kava sludge, you will have 1.5 cups cold water in another "mines a measuring cup"
For each time you pour 1/4 mixture in the TShirt and sqease, you will knead whats left in the 1.5 ccups cold water.

When you work out all the sludge from the blender, you will want to add a little water to the blender, and swirl it around to get the rest out to knead.

Now, you will have to bowls, 1 with a thick Kava sludge that is looking more like PKs extract, then a normal knead.
And the other will have more liquid, but is also SUPER STRONG"Rooted worthy". you will see the oils extracting while kneading, like something no other!

Now, what Im about to say is probably gonna get you thinking, but dump the wash in the sludge.

Now you have a slighty smoother mixture combined....not done yet.

Mix the 2 together then dump them through the Fiji strainer to get the fines out.

You will still have some sludge in the main bowl, do like the blender, add a little water and clean it out; putting it through the Fijian strainer also.

You should have roughly 4 cups WAKA KNOCKA your butt out!

And of course, drink and enjoy

I was slightly rooted at the time of the pictures, hopefully everythings clear for you all.

Bula!

 

[Deactivated Account]

Man that looks good & strong !

 

[endwatcher]

It is,
Im rather rooted as we speak, haha

I know its WAKA grade, try it out...lemme know what ya think!

You can just see the Kavalactones creaming on the surface, I've never seen it like this way before.
Plus, the Lecithin gives a nice mellow feeling I think too, so its a bonus!

 

[kavadude]

you know its good when you get that froth

 

[HeadHodge]

It is,
Im rather rooted as we speak, haha

I know its WAKA grade, try it out...lemme know what ya think!

You can just see the Kavalactones creaming on the surface, I've never seen it like this way before.
Plus, the Lecithin gives a nice mellow feeling I think too, so its a bonus!

That's awesome!!! I'll give it a try later after I finish the BHK Borguru batch I made this morning.

I'm a little confused about the 1.5 cup of water part. Are you saying that after squeezing the sludge out of the T-Shirt into the bowl you are then dipping the T-Shirt into the measuring cup and then kneading it in the water without putting what's left in the T-Shirt directly into the measuring cup?

What Kava did you use to make it?

Do you think anything else besides a T-shirt would work for the 1st straining? (i.e. a nylon bag mabe?) If not is it because the T-shirt is a coarser material?

Thanks again for taking the time and photos to impart your wisdom on us!!!

Oh... I forgot, when you're blending on and off for the hour, how long are you running the blender? (pulse, or about a minute, or more)? Is it still on low?

 

[endwatcher]

I mean, after straining all the thick Kava sludge.
You keep the sludge in the TShirt, and knead it in the clear water.
Then discard, you could probably do a 2nd wash....but wouldnt be to strong.

I have been on a PK Fijian kick "Its my fave"

I use the cotton material first for the courser stuff, since its so thick at first, I dont think it would work out strait through a Fijian strainer, paint strainer..etc..etc
Then after mixing the wash and sludge, it becomes thin enough for the fines to be sifted with the Fijian strainer.

No prob, I like doing this stuff, especially when Im root-bound
Which I am.

 

[violet]

@endwatcher Great tutorial, I am going to try this when my Boroguru gets here. Thanks for putting it up for us

 

[HeadHodge]

Thanks for the reply @endwatcher. I think I modified my last post after you read it.

Could you explain a little more how you are using your blender during the hour it's cooling? Like maybe blend every 15min. for around 1 min on low. (something like that)

 

[endwatcher]

@HeadHodge
its always on low setting.
Ill run it for 3-5 minutes, then after that its just periodically on and off until its cool enough to handle.

@violet, no prob hopefully you receive the rooted mind set that I have reached with this method.

 

[HeadHodge]

Man.... I wish I would have had your technique a few days ago. I did the following procedure the other day, because I wanted to experiment with using heat. I thought I overcooked it because it was really thick and smelly. So I threw out the batch because I thought I ruined it. But now I'm thinking that if I would have just let it cool and use your technique I would have saved the batch. I got some on my fingers when I was tossing it and I licked it off my fingers. It made my mouth instantly numb. Sigh.....

This is what I tried the other night (from http://www.witchforge.com/kava-kava-tea.html)

"Add a little more water to your pot than you will be drinking to account for the water you will lose in the cooking process. Bring your water to a boil, then reduce it down to a simmer. When you have your water simmering steadily, add your kava kava root. Stir in your kava kava and continue to watch it.

Depending on your elevation, you'll want to simmer this for 5-10 minutes. Here, at sea level, 7.5 minutes seems to be the right time. Did you hear that? 7.5 minutes. I've seen source after source, website after website, that all recommend boiling herbs hard for hours or days at a time. DON'T. Watch your decoction carefully, stirring regularly. When it's ready, you will notice that the mixture will become suddenly cloudy or you may notice an "oil slick" type appearance on top. These are the volatile compounds in the root coming out. If you continue to cook the kava kava, you will boil these away, defeating the point.

When your decoction is ready, remove it from the heat. If you're brave, you may let it cool and drink it down, or if you'd like to mask the flavor a bit, now is the time to add your tea of choice directly to the hot decoction. Once this has steeped for 5-10 minutes, you're ready to go! You may notice that kava kava will make your tongue and mouth a bit numb for a few minutes, this is normal and should be considered an indication that you've done your job right. "

 

[kavadude]

Thick and smelly is what happened with my kava when I boiled it and it worked just the same. Of course it's smelly without you doing anything to it...

 

[HeadHodge]

Thick and smelly is what happened with my kava when I boiled it and it worked just the same. Of course it's smelly without you doing anything to it...

Double Sigh.....

 

[endwatcher]

I found it to be a mess to add Kava to the pot of water, and boil it on the stove.
That, and you might burn it.

I hope some people try this out, because Ive yet to find a method that makes root like this one.
And Id like to hear some feedback.
I know it has a lot to do with the Lecithin also, because it gives the Kavalactones something to bind to while in boiling water and mixing.

 

[HeadHodge]

@endwatcher

I noticed in your pic you're using the measuring spoon that came with the Lecithin (I have the same Sunflower Lecithin that you have). Do you use a full one of those to measure your Lecithin?

The last picture looks like what your holding your resulting brew in. But out of curiosity what is "Smart Kava"? I tried to look it up but couldn't find anything.

 

[endwatcher]

Yea, its full.
lol @ the smart kava

It was a smart water, water bottle.
While I was waiting for the mix to cool, I scribbled on it to say "Smart Kava"

Maybe I should get in the Kava bottle biz. lol

 

[violet]

I know it has a lot to do with the Lecithin also, because it gives the Kavalactones something to bind to while in boiling water and mixing.

Do you think it matters that I'll be using soy lecithin? I read the performance of both types of lecithin are similar, so I'm hoping to still get good results.

 

[endwatcher]

I dont think it matters what source the Lecithin comes from.

Im sure you will get good results violet

 

[HeadHodge]

@endwatcher: I made a batch of BHK Boguru today using your technique.

I modified the process a little for my needs.

I used:
1tbs Sunflower Lecithin
4 heaping tbs Boguru
2 bottles of bottled water (4 cups of water total)

1 Blender
1 Microwave
1 Sauce Pan
1 Bowl
1 Large Glass Water Picture
1 Fijan Strainer
1 Nylon Strainer

I used 4 cups of water because I find it convenient to open and use two bottles of water (2 cups each).

I nuked 1 bottle of water in the microwave for 2min. It was pretty hot but not boiling.
Placed this water in sauce pan along with 1/2 of the other bottle. (I could have warmed this too, but didn't out of laziness)
Placed the remaining half of the unused bottle of water into the bowl (to be used later for second washing)
Cooked saucepan of water on stove top until it reached hard boil.
Poured boiling water from saucepan into blender.
Added the 4 tbs of Boguru and 1 tbs of Lecithin into blender.
Blended on low for 1 minute
Let set to cool for about 45 min. (took lid off of blender to let it cool a bit faster)
While cooling my plan was to blend every 15min. (on low) for 2min. But I spaced out and didn't remember to blend until after 1st 30min.
So ended up only blending twice at 2min., instead of three times (first time at 30 min into cooling and second time at 45 min into cooling)

Placed nylon strainer over glass picture and poured all the grog from the blender into the nylon strainer.
My grog turned out a little thick but no where near as thick as @endwatcher's turned out, and was able to get all into the strainer.
Thoroughly squeezed the liquid out of the nylon strainer into the glass picture. It looked nice and dark with a nice froth floating on top.
Took a small sip from the picture and it made my lips pretty numb!!
Took the nylon strainer off the glass picture and placed into the bowl with my 1/2 cup of room temp. water
Thoroughly kneaded the nylon strainer for about 5-10min. The liquid in the bowl was brown but no where near as dark as the other.
Even though it wasn't as dark and it and didn't have any froth on top, it did have oil floating on top of the water.
Threw away the solids remaining in the nylon strainer and combined the liquid in the bowl with the liquid in the glass picture.
Washed out the blender and blender lid in sink and then placed fijan strainer on top of blender.
Poured all liquid from glass picture into the fijan strainer.
Thoroughly squeezed all liquid out of the fijan strainer into blender.
Threw out solids left over in fijan strainer.
Put lid on blender and stuck in fridge to cool and drink later (made this morning and I'm drinking it now)

I've just finished 2 of the 4 cups I made this morning and I would have to say it's hitting me fairly good. Better than any other of the batches of Boguru I've made so far with my 1lb bag of Kava. I've tried different techniques and even though I have different brands of Kava, I've stuck to using the Boguru for comparison purposes between batches.

The brew doesn't taste a lot stronger than other batches I've made. In fact it actually seems smoother tasting and a little less bitter. But it definitely has a more pronounced kick to it after drinking. I think this may be, in part, from using the Lecithin.

This is the first time I've actually done a second washing with the root solids and also the first time I've ever done a double straining (once with the nylon strainer and then once with the fijan strainer). Before I was only using the nylon strainer, because it was a real pain for me to use the fijan strainer. But with this double strain technique, it was easy to use the fijan strainer and it made the results a lot less gritty.

Conclusion: I would give this technique 2 thumbs up!!

It's made my grog stronger/more potent and smoother/less gritty to drink than anything I've made to date with my Boguru.

I think the key elements in accomplishing this was by using the boiling water to aid in extracting the Kavalactone oils, and the Lecithin to help bond the oils with the water to give it a smoother (less sharp) taste that also makes it more digestible to my stomach. Also the second wash aided in making the brew more potent and the double straining helped (a lot) to remove the root solids from the liquid.

It sounds like it's complicated, but it's really not that hard at all and wouldn't be too complicated for me to continue preparing my grog this way in the future.

I'll probably try tweaking this in future batches. Like playing with Kave/Water ratio and the amount of boiling water compared to second wash water used, etc. If I got a large enough cup, I could use the microwave to boil the water and eliminate the need for the sauce pan. Right now, I put the plastic water bottle into the microwave and if it gets too hot I can't get it out of the microwave (without gloves).

But overall, I can't think offhand of anything I would fundamentally change.

Hope others try this and have good results too. Thanks @endwatcher!!!

[Update]
Finished the batch I made (with a root beer chaser) and am really feeling it!!! I think this is actually the best experience I've had since I started using Kava. There's hope for using this stuff after all.

I'm feeling great (krunked?) and no nausea, gas, or other bad side effects.
.
I'll have to do more batches to check for consistency and make sure it's not just psychosomatic. I have to admit though, I'm feeling pretty pumped right now.

 

[HeadHodge]

Do you think it matters that I'll be using soy lecithin? I read the performance of both types of lecithin are similar, so I'm hoping to still get good results.

FWIW, I just made two more batches using @endwatcher's technique. One with Koniak and the other with Stone. I'm drinking my first shell of Stone right now and I think I might have used too much Lecithin because I can taste it while drinking. It doesn't taste all that bad, it's just an added flavor that I'm not sure I like. I started out using 2 teaspoons per batch and then upped it to 1 tablespoon per batch. But with this latest batch I used a heaping tablespoon. I think that might be a little too much for my batches.

 

[endwatcher]

I think its a matter of taste for the individual.
As long as you are getting some in the mix.