About water temp

[BourbonMac]

I saw a post from someone who said to strain in hot water but add ice cubes after as it makes it taste better.
I had been using more room temp water, and it was fine. I've been using warmer to hot and wow, it tastes freaking awful. I feel like it didn't at first, but maybe I heated up the water more than intended the past few nights.

If this works and won't somehow kill kavalactones then I'd be all for it. Maybe it's a silly question since it's all strained out. I'll be doing some in a little while so I wouldn't expect any immediate replies. I'll just drink my shoelace juice and enjoy the effects in the meantime haha. Maybe it being the bottom of the bag makes it taste worse but I kind of doubt that.

 

[PapaCthulu]

It is true that using tap hot water messes with the taste, but it also increases the amount of kavalactones that you can extract from your grog. This can usually be solved by adding a couple of tablespoons of any fat of some sort to your grog and throwing the concoction into the fridge for 3 hours after mixing.

 

[BourbonMac]

I did end up tossing in an ice cube. I use Brita filtered water since it seems to taste a bit better. Though, for one 2nd wash I didn't feel like microwaving more and used hot tap. Not hot but, warmer than warm. If a 10 is hot I guess I head it up to 6.5. The cube certainly reduced the bad taste. When you say fat concoction I assume you'd mean milk or something? I've heard fatty stuff can make it absorb better. I don't drink regular milk though, just almond. Fat contents might not differ all that much, but even when I did drink milk it was always 1% my whole life.

So it was only 1 ice cube, I'm halfway down a solo cup and it's starting to taste pretty icky again. Not as bad but still, I guess 2 ice cubes would be better next time.

 

[owen099]

I have been enjoying kava for years, and I've found that room temperature is best for me. Hot water certainly extracts more stuff, but the effects seem to be more unpleasant. Not to mention that the taste is way better if you don't use hot water.

I don't remember who on here says it, but with kava, "fuller extraction" is not always preferable as strange as it sounds.