Kava Poll "Final"answer on water temperature for prep?

[Paddy]

I'm on my second ever bag of Kava. KwK Pouni Ono. My first bag RoH premium Vanuatu is on hold. Not sure why but it didn't agree with me after 3 days of light (1 TbSp) daily use. I'm going to revisit it in time though and figure it out.

Onto the question: Both bags have suggested a hot water prep, but I've seen multiple people on here say that is not the way to go. What is the consensus?

 

[kasa_balavu]

You'll get marginally better extraction using warm water, but I suspect that most people who drink kava regularly find using warm water not worth the extra effort.
If you do use warm water, be sure to throw in ice cubes after kneading and straining. Kava tastes better cold.

I've never used warm water and probably never will. The people of the Pacific certainly don't, and they've been drinking kava for millennia.

 

[The Kap'n]

Final answer is room temperature.

I'm a rebel though because I warm my water up to about 120°F when making kava. It seems to extract a bit more kavalactones and stretch whatever kava I have out even further. It's not traditional to do it this way and it does affect the taste by increasing the bitterness, but that also equates to an increase in extraction of actives.

I'd bet that on some days the water used to make kava on the islands could reach something near that temperature.

 

[Pauluk]

Yes. I bet it's warm water in Fiji. Not like what's coming out of a UK tap

 

[spoco]

I've been to Fiji on new years. They are mostly using cold tap for prep. Since then I stopped using hot tap and I see no changes in quality of grog others then better taste when colder. Bula.

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

Fiji drinks weak watered down kava and typically consume it in in group settings, in a ritualistic or traditional way. Potency not being a great concern would make them less worried about ways of improving kavalactone extraction and you wouldn't likely find them putting water in a microwave or heating it in a kettle to make kava, not very traditional, probably wouldn't cross their minds. Also, as mentioned by PAULGUK, the ambient water temperature in Fiji would be quite warm compared to the near freezing water coming out of the tap in Europe and many parts of the USA. Even here in LA the winter can make our tap water be 40°-50° F. When I knead in cold water I can feel the kava's resistance to releasing the goodies, as the movement and body temp of my hands begins to heat the water, I can feel the extraction working better. I tend to heat my water, not boil it, because kava is expensive, kava is weak, extracting kavalactone's into water isn't easy, I need all the help I can get in extracting more kavalactones out of the root. Flavor be damned, I don't care. People who don't think hot water is important often have access to strong fresh kava, follow a tradition where optimal extraction isn't important or are 'lightweights' by nature and feel very satisfying effects very easily and without much work.

HC Bittenbender/University of Hawai'i did a little study that showed agitation time & water temp to be two of the most important factors in kavalactone extraction. Here are his conclusion:

I don't think the study is perfect and it doesn't seem like enough tests were done to see the direct results of comparing and changing one variable at a time. There seems to be a few weird anomalies in the results, where conditions that should produce weak results instead made good results and vice versa. Maybe I'm just viewing it wrong...and it gets too confusing to keep track of everything when you're trying to look at it and compare results. I rearranged the results here, sorted by percantage of kavalactones extracted from the root:

Not sure how his study could deem using fresh kava v.s dry kava and root vs. stump insignificant in the amount of kavalactones that get extracted?! Doesn't that seem antithetical to other studies and just about every experiential report that says fresh kava beverage has more kavalactones than dry beverage ... and root beverage has more kavalactones than stump beverage.

 

[verticity]

There is not a final answer to this question, but here are some factors to consider:

1) Kava has a history of being used safely for many centuries. This historical safety record pertains only to drinking kava in the traditional way: extracted with ambient temperature water. The average high temperature in Vanuatu, for example, is generally around 30 Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) (Ref: http://www.vanuatuweather.com/ ). So the temperature of the water would be somewhat less than that, what we would call "room temperature". So, scientists and medical doctors who have studied the safety of kava, and who also tend to be very conservative about erring on the side of caution as far as safety is concerned, officially recommend that to minimize any possible health risks, we prepare kava in the traditional way in every detail, including using room temperature or cold water.

2) Personally I always use hot tap water (about 120-130 F). I do this because it makes a stronger drink in my experience. Like @sɥɐʞɐs, I don't drink it for the taste, and don't want to waste kavalactones.. So, generally I'll do a traditional knead in 2 successive washes of hot water, which I combine to make my drink. Also, I tend to believe that the official recommendation to use room temperature/cold water is a little too cautious. I have various reasons for believing this which I won't belabor here, but I should note that that is only my opinion based on my understanding of the science, and that I am not a kava expert. The real experts do say to use cold/room temperature water.

 

[Krunkie McKrunkface]

I use cold water for the first two washes then hot water for the 3rd and then cold water for the 4th, 5th and 6th washes. Works for me.

 

[SelfBiasResistor]

2) Personally I always use hot tap water (about 120-130 F). I do this because it makes a stronger drink in my experience. Like @sɥɐʞɐs, I don't drink it for the taste, and don't want to waste kavalactones..

I agree. I've tried hot and cold and all other variables being equal, hot water always produces a more potent drink. I don't care about the taste in this case, I know it will taste terrible and I'm only drinking for effects, so I always use hot water. I will use ice cubes if available to mitigate some of the bitterness of the first shell or two.

 

[Plantacious]

For the people answering Hot Water on the poll, do you actually mean WARM Water ?
Most of the time, I see people say Warm, and I wonder if all the people voting Hot, only do so because there is no option for Warm on the poll ?

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

For the people answering Hot Water on the poll, do you actually mean WARM Water ?
Most of the time, I see people say Warm, and I wonder if all the people voting Hot, only do so because there is no option for Warm on the poll ?

I think we mean hotter than warm but cooler than scalding. Outside of freezing winter locations, water sitting around in the ambient air temperature is pretty 'warm', we definitely mean more than that. Over 100° F (38° C) is probably what we mean.

 

[verticity]

For the people answering Hot Water on the poll, do you actually mean WARM Water ?
Most of the time, I see people say Warm, and I wonder if all the people voting Hot, only do so because there is no option for Warm on the poll ?

When I say "hot", I do mean hot but not boiling: the hot water from my tap is about 120-130 F. It's a little too hot to submerge your bare hands in it, so I knead with gloves on.

AKA "Kids' Hot Chocolate Temperature" at Starbucks:
https://lifehacker.com/order-starbucks-drinks-at-kids-temperatures-to-avoid-1447852202

 

[DonL]

I use cold water for the first two washes then hot water for the 3rd and then cold water for the 4th, 5th and 6th washes. Works for me.

I never knew we can get 6 washes? I've been doing 2 washes and it seems like any more loses its potency. What's your secret of getting 6 washes?

 

[Krunkie McKrunkface]

I never knew we can get 6 washes? I've been doing 2 washes and it seems like any more loses its potency. What's your secret of getting 6 washes?

the secret is economies of scale. Aggregating enough makas by accumulating it in the freezer after 1st and 2nd washes until I have enough for a really big bag for the 3 rd wash. Because with each successive wash you have to use less water to maintain a uniform strength to each grog across the washes, you have to have a large enough bag of makas on the 3rd wash so you have a nontrivial amount when you get down to what little water you can use on the 6th wash. Oh, also, I use the AluBall for the first two washes, then freeze the makas and use trad prep in a nut milk bag for the 3rd through 6th wash. This answers the age old question which is better? The answer is both. Each brings the best out of the other and makes it possible.

 

[Pauluk]

I'm freezing my makas now to trad prep later ono. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Plantacious]

So do you guys use a meat thermometer for your water ?

 

[verticity]

So do you guys use a meat thermometer for your water ?

Not every time, but yes I have done that out of curiosity... call me crazy... and you are probably correct..

 

[Krunkie McKrunkface]

When I use hot water, to soak the thawed out freezer makas, I use the hottest water out of the tap, then let it soak for ten minutes. I think something happens with both the fact of wet makas having been frozen, so the minute amounts of liquid penetrates the root particles and then the expansion and contraction of freezing and thawing exposes more tiny root surface to water that can remove kl's into suspension, plus the soaking in hot water, I dunno, it does something. I've tried cold water for that third wash and I've tried not soaking, but freezing, thawing, then soaking in hot water seems to work some kind of magic in between the 2nd and 3rd washes. For the 4th, 5th and 6th washes it doesn't matter, cold water is fine. Hot water is fine, too, and doesn't seem to do anything wrong, but there's no real gain to it like there is with the third wash, IME.

 

[verticity]

When I use hot water, to soak the thawed out freezer makas, I use the hottest water out of the tap, then let it soak for ten minutes. I think something happens with both the fact of wet makas having been frozen, so the minute amounts of liquid penetrates the root particles and then the expansion and contraction of freezing and thawing exposes more tiny root surface to water that can remove kl's into suspension, plus the soaking in hot water, I dunno, it does something. I've tried cold water for that third wash and I've tried not soaking, but freezing, thawing, then soaking in hot water seems to work some kind of magic in between the 2nd and 3rd washes. For the 4th, 5th and 6th washes it doesn't matter, cold water is fine. Hot water is fine, too, and doesn't seem to do anything wrong, but there's no real gain to it like there is with the third wash, IME.

Freezing followed by heating with hot water can literally tear open the cell walls, releasing more KLs.
https://bitesizebio.com/13536/bringing-down-the-walls-part-ii-8-methods-to-break-down-cell-walls/

 

[nabanga]

I think there is benefit in terms of kavalactone extraction in using warm to hot (not so hot that having your hands in it for 10 mins is uncomfortable) water, not from any scientific viewpoint but just from a couple of decades of doing trad prep with dry powder. Like Shakas said, prep with cold tap water at 10C takes a long time to get anywhere, and you can feel through your hands whilst massaging that nothing is happening fast. Compare that with 40C water and there's a big, noticeable difference in speed and ease of extraction.

I'm not sure the viewpoint that warm to hot water was not used in melanesia-polynesia in the past holds much weight, as (1) there was no analysis of prep methods or need for it back then, (2) ambient water temp was/is 80F/25C, and (3) kava was plentiful and virtually free, not $120/kg plus postage, so concerns over prep efficiency were not such an issue!





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