Aluball makas -> CTAHR for 2nd Wash Ratio

[evrnd]

Hello all. I've been saving my Squanch Waka from my Aluballs and freezing the makas. I always like my kava strong and use the CTAHR method when making big batches. Soooooo... anyone have any thoughts or research (personal or otherwise) on what will make a stronger batch of 2nd wash Squanch? Luckily, I remembered that the weight would be off due to water retention (I use 100g+ for CTAHR) so I marked the number of tablespoons on the container. I'm assuming at least double? I need to look up the TBS to water ratio but I doubted this info would be there too.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Zaphod]

Hello all. I've been saving my Squanch Waka from my Aluballs and freezing the makas. I always like my kava strong and use the CTAHR method when making big batches. Soooooo... anyone have any thoughts or research (personal or otherwise) on what will make a stronger batch of 2nd wash Squanch? Luckily, I remembered that the weight would be off due to water retention (I use 100g+ for CTAHR) so I marked the number of tablespoons on the container. I'm assuming at least double? I need to look up the TBS to water ratio but I doubted this info would be there too.

Thanks in advance.

So if you want to roughly compare, the density of dried kava is about 0.53g/ml (note depends on grind size but I am going off of this thread: http://kavaforums.com/forum/threads/weight-of-various-kava.1765/ where it looks to be about 8g/TBSP and a TBSP is about 15ml. Water is about 1g/ml. The real trick is you have no idea how much water is absorbed by the kava. I suppose you could go through the trouble of weighing dry kava versus fully soaked by strained kava to find out.....or you could just stick it all in the blender and start with the smallest amount of water that will let you reasonably blend. That will get you your strongest second wash.
I have found frozen mongrel grog to always be a "lighter" wash closer to a second or third wash, but stronger than one would expect from a traditional second or third wash. Always seems to taste better (less bitter in my opinion) as well.

 

[evrnd]

So if you want to roughly compare, the density of dried kava is about 0.53g/ml (note depends on grind size but I am going off of this thread: http://kavaforums.com/forum/threads/weight-of-various-kava.1765/ where it looks to be about 8g/TBSP and a TBSP is about 15ml. Water is about 1g/ml. The real trick is you have no idea how much water is absorbed by the kava. I suppose you could go through the trouble of weighing dry kava versus fully soaked by strained kava to find out.....or you could just stick it all in the blender and start with the smallest amount of water that will let you reasonably blend. That will get you your strongest second wash.
I have found frozen mongrel grog to always be a "lighter" wash closer to a second or third wash, but stronger than one would expect from a traditional second or third wash. Always seems to taste better (less bitter in my opinion) as well.

Thank you. I’ve always just stuck with those directions plus 25 or so extra grams of root but have never experimented with reducing the water. Have you or anyone else tested the limits on this? With a first wash of Squanch it would be easy to make an oily, unstrainable pudding but I doubt it’s too big a risk with the second wash, especially since I shake the crap out of it for almost the same amount of time it would take to knead and strain.
Half the water maybe? I can mess with it. I was just wondering what you all think since, in general, you’re much more experienced at this. I believe some actually do it regularly.


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[Zaphod]

Thank you. I’ve always just stuck with those directions plus 25 or so extra grams of root but have never experimented with reducing the water. Have you or anyone else tested the limits on this? With a first wash of Squanch it would be easy to make an oily, unstrainable pudding but I doubt it’s too big a risk with the second wash, especially since I shake the crap out of it for almost the same amount of time it would take to knead and strain.
Half the water maybe? I can mess with it. I was just wondering what you all think since, in general, you’re much more experienced at this. I believe some actually do it regularly.


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I tend to make my first wash really strong - with the least amount of water that I can. I find it helps "kick-off" the night. After that I am less discerning. It also greatly depends on the kava. Squanch is one of the kavas that I feel like I can easily wash 3-4 times and still get a strong, oily, heavy grog from. Others - like most of the Hawaiian varieties 2 washes and it is usually washed out.
I would try with half the normal amount of water and see how it comes out. You can always add more water, pretty hard to subtract water.

 

[evrnd]

I tend to make my first wash really strong - with the least amount of water that I can. I find it helps "kick-off" the night. After that I am less discerning. It also greatly depends on the kava. Squanch is one of the kavas that I feel like I can easily wash 3-4 times and still get a strong, oily, heavy grog from. Others - like most of the Hawaiian varieties 2 washes and it is usually washed out.
I would try with half the normal amount of water and see how it comes out. You can always add more water, pretty hard to subtract water.

I stuck with that plan and after digging through the Kavapedia for a while (it was surprisingly hard for me to find the tbs:water info here even though I know I’ve seen it multiple times) I found a reply from a member uses 4tbs:qt. I ended up with 36 soggy-ass tbs of makas to about 9c of water. I didn’t want to try to re-measure the makas so I used what was in each container, 20 and 16, and maxed out my blender each batch. So far it’s not bad? But for ~2c of grog that would normally give me a nice happy“kick-off” as my first long chug, it was a little underwhelming. I wondered if it was somehow missing something beyond potency but that’s likely in my head. Certainly beats composting it after its first wash. FWIW I would consider those makas spent because they had that dry feeling Squanch gets after the oily bits have been wrung out. That was my plan regardless but I’m glad I feel like I got almost everything I could.
Of course in my search for the powder to water ratio I found the original thread I remembered seeing about freezing and doing additional washes. I think the OP used the same amount of water for 1st and frozen washes though. If my thread continues I would be happy to rename it so it’s more searchable and makes more sense to the general kava public

Thanks @Zaphod for your help. I plan to do this many more times so additional insights and opinions would be appreciated.


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[evrnd]

So just an update on my end of day results with the 2nd wash/frozen Aluball makas: It was definitely on the weaker side. I drank half of everything I made last night which was approximately 4c of kava made from ~18tbs of makas. I'm sure my almost disturbingly thorough initial Aluball agitation makes a big difference in the 2nd wash potency. But even though I didn't notice a whole lot going on with the effects, I did sleep well and didn't have to get up 20 times the way I do when I normally drink medium grind. My body may not agree but I really do prefer the strength of micro. All in all, it's will be a good break from the never ending assault on any moisture trying to hide in my body while still helping me feel calm and sleep easier. But it does make me wonder how little water I could actually use without creating un-strainable sludge. I definitely won't bother to do this with anything besides Squanch Waka because I've found that no other kava retain enough... whatever that's called to be worth the freezer space or cleanup after the blender prep.