A question for green kava experts here
- Thread starter Kava Time
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kasa_balavu
Yaqona Dina
I'm not an expert.
> Is there any possible way to concentrate green kava in liquid form without heating it?
I don't believe there is a commercially viable way to do that without heat. Freeze drying, centrifuges, or filtration are how one might do it on a small scale in a lab, but that's another story.
> How does gaia herbs make their kava liquid gel type capsules?
I'd assume they extract kavalactones using a solvent like ethanol and then mix the extract with a gel/liquid before putting them in gel caps.
I am not an expert so could be completely wrong.
> Is there any possible way to concentrate green kava in liquid form without heating it?
I don't believe there is a commercially viable way to do that without heat. Freeze drying, centrifuges, or filtration are how one might do it on a small scale in a lab, but that's another story.
> How does gaia herbs make their kava liquid gel type capsules?
I'd assume they extract kavalactones using a solvent like ethanol and then mix the extract with a gel/liquid before putting them in gel caps.
I am not an expert so could be completely wrong.
That's interesting. How would centrifuges or filtration work? because when you take out green kava juice without using any water, it doesnt seem to separate like how dried kava does after you leave it for a while. I'm thinking about the possibility of this so that a substantial amount of time can be reduced on dehydration to make instant kava.
verticity
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Gaia capsules are an ethanol extract. Basically they soak the kava in ethyl alcohol (the same kind of alcohol in alcoholic drinks) to extract the kavalactones (and some other stuff), then evaporate it off so there is no ethanol left in the final product.
Some other extract manufacturers use supercritical carbon dioxide to make extract. I think Kalm with Kava beverage is made that way. The equipment to do that is expensive, and I am skeptical that it is better than ethanol.
It is possible to make an extract using water, but that process involves heating at high pressure, and requires special equipment. I think that is what Taki Mai does. As far as I know that is the only legal way to make extract for the Australian market.
If you don't want to make an extract, you can make "instant kava" powder instead. Instant kava is better, because it does not change the profile of chemicals that are present in traditional kava. The process for making that has been discussed here. To do that you make kava in the traditional way and then dehydrate it using very low heat so that you are left with a powder that can be mixed with water.
Some other extract manufacturers use supercritical carbon dioxide to make extract. I think Kalm with Kava beverage is made that way. The equipment to do that is expensive, and I am skeptical that it is better than ethanol.
It is possible to make an extract using water, but that process involves heating at high pressure, and requires special equipment. I think that is what Taki Mai does. As far as I know that is the only legal way to make extract for the Australian market.
If you don't want to make an extract, you can make "instant kava" powder instead. Instant kava is better, because it does not change the profile of chemicals that are present in traditional kava. The process for making that has been discussed here. To do that you make kava in the traditional way and then dehydrate it using very low heat so that you are left with a powder that can be mixed with water.
verticity
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If you have green kava juice, it already has water in it. You can just put it in a dehydrating oven. A centrifuge or filtration would not work in that case because there is no particulate matter in there like there is when you use powder.
Use something like this:
Excalibur 2900 Dehydrator 9 Tray Model
At a temperature of about 60 Celsius.
http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/vista/html_pubs/DRYING/dryfood.html
Below is a video of how taki mai makes their extract. Basically they take out juice from green kava with addition of some water and dehydrate the water and moisture out of the juice. I'm not sure at what temperature they do this but in the video it says it takes around 4 hours so the heat maybe quite high. The problem with dehydrating the juice at low heat is that it takes a long time. If high heat is used then the kava loses a bunch of its kavalactones and other stuff which makes green kava distinct from dried.
I was looking at how instant coffee is commercially made and they seem to have this procedure where they concentrate the liquid coffee before dehydrating. But they use heat so i was wondering if there maybe a way to concentrate kava without the heat before further processing.
I was looking at how instant coffee is commercially made and they seem to have this procedure where they concentrate the liquid coffee before dehydrating. But they use heat so i was wondering if there maybe a way to concentrate kava without the heat before further processing.
verticity
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OK. I don't know. You could just ask Taki Mai what temperature they use to dehydrate. The dehydrating oven is ventilated, so there is air blowing through it so it can remove water faster than a normal oven, so the temperature actually might not have to be super high.
You could use a freeze dryer, and that would not involve any heating, but is more expensive and slower than a normal dehydrator.
verticity
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Here's a freeze dryer for USD 3,000
https://www.akgoodlight.com/freeze-dryer-standard-4-trays/
https://www.akgoodlight.com/freeze-dryer-standard-4-trays/
I dont think Taki Mai is doing it right because if they were then a freeze dryer would have been used to make their extracts. The reason I'm saying this is because if you take a close look at when the dehydrated powder is being taken out of the dryer, the top appears to be dark and scorched. They may have changed their process after a bunch of further research though.
A freeze dryer would help but it wont exactly be reducing the time needed for dehydrating. If only there was a way
The last time I considered the freeze drying route I was asked to kick in around $15k into the adventure. That has priced itself into the "ooooh maybe 'one day' is coming sooner than I thought". Bless the other green industry and their innovations.
@Kava Time check out industrial spray dryers. Someone correct me, but I believe they're becoming standard in large scale instant kava production.
verticity
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Here's the thread where some members made home-made instant using kitchen dehydrators. It seems that if the temperature is 155 F (68 Celsius) that it takes approx 4 hours, but is a little too hot and makes the product somewhat "crispy." If the temperature is more like 105 F (40 C), it takes more like 9 hours, but the product has a less singed appearance.I dont think Taki Mai is doing it right because if they were then a freeze dryer would have been used to make their extracts. The reason I'm saying this is because if you take a close look at when the dehydrated powder is being taken out of the dryer, the top appears to be dark and scorched. They may have changed their process after a bunch of further research though.
A freeze dryer would help but it wont exactly be reducing the time needed for dehydrating. If only there was a way
http://kavaforums.com/forum/threads/making-your-own-instant.6878/
verticity
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Spray drying would be fast, but probably not cheap..
Don't spray dryers require exposing the misted kava juice to high temperature in order to zap dry them? Wouldnt that affect the quality of the powder?
It would, and it most likely does. It's a very brief temperature increase and rapid temperature decrease so it would be minimal, but I'd never argue that it wasn't affected in terms of the the taste and quality.
verticity
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According to this, they do use very high temperature air, but the evaporative cooling of the droplets keeps the product cool. (The same phenomenon where sweat evaporating keeps your skin cool)
(with epic film score introduction...)
Interesting. So just went through a bunch of sites about spray dryers which mention that there is an evaporative jacket formed around the particle as it is dried which has a cooling effect as long as the particle isnt bone dried. So i guess this could be used as a method to concentrate the kava juice but not really fully produce instant or the heat would scorch the powder as its bone dried.
@Gourmet Hawaiian Kava how do you process your instant kavas?
kasa_balavu
Yaqona Dina
AFAIK Taki Mai have both an oven and a spray dryer.
Spray driers are tricky to manage; takes a lot of experimentation to get it right. Or at least that's what I gathered when I was considering going that route a year or so ago.
You can buy them from US second-hand farm equipment traders, or a new one from China. You'd probably need to spend at least FJD$50k just to get a decent one.
I don't think the current instant kava vendors make much money with it. Micronised is convenience-wise just as good and cheaper.. especially now with every vendor claiming to remove all the makas.
If you go the instant route don't sell it the same as all your other kava like other vendors do. Take the convenience factor even further like these guys attempted.
Spray driers are tricky to manage; takes a lot of experimentation to get it right. Or at least that's what I gathered when I was considering going that route a year or so ago.
You can buy them from US second-hand farm equipment traders, or a new one from China. You'd probably need to spend at least FJD$50k just to get a decent one.
I don't think the current instant kava vendors make much money with it. Micronised is convenience-wise just as good and cheaper.. especially now with every vendor claiming to remove all the makas.
If you go the instant route don't sell it the same as all your other kava like other vendors do. Take the convenience factor even further like these guys attempted.
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I had this in mind and also getting the powder for use as pills. Im still skeptical about the spray dryer not degrading the kava with heat though.
Any idea if the kava juice would need to be pasturised before turning into powder for long term storage if its dehydrated without heat?
verticity
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"The Elite Tea once found only in Metropolitan cities..."
"The True Kava Experience"
Hey!! True Kava is not a trademark, but still: Hey!!
I'm not sure if you are serious with your comment about "convenience factor." As far as I can tell they just put instant kava in packages so you don't need to use a spoon.