hot water or cold milk

[sentiententity]

Which would be better to prepare kava with?

 

[Ed!]

I would guess hot water for extraction. Cold milk would certainly be drinkable, but you can always add ice to your hot water.
I effectively make a mud with hot water, let it sit in that, blend, then add whatever I want, be that milk, almond milk, grapefruit juice, whatever.

 

[kl.new2kava]

I usually boil a cup of water in the microwave and then add a tablespoon of soy lecithin and let it dissolve. I then add that to a 16 oz can of room temperature coconut water and the result is a quite warm coconut water with lots of lipids for the kava to bind to. I then add 1/2 cup of good root, usually a blend of several varieties with very different kavalactone profiles to even out the effects. I let it sit for at least 1/2 and hour and then blend it for 5-6 1 minute intervals and then knead and squeeze for at least 20. The blending actually makes it hot (I use a magic bullet) and the resulting grog is usually too warm to be palatable so I add ice cubes to my shell to make it easier to chug.

 

[sentiententity]

Ok I've read different instructions from different vendors, some saying it doesn't matter whether its hot or cold. Most people say hot, tho. The milk takes some of the bitterness out, so i like that. Kava tastes pretty gross to me.

 

[krunkedout]

Im going to have to disagree here, just my opinion though. I personally only use Luke warm water, never hot. Ever ever. It can kill kavalactone, even though it's a small amount I like to have all of them lol. And even though it may pull them out faster with hot, it's nothing that a second or third squeeze with Luke warm water can't do.

 

[Paradise Kava]

Neither.

Room temp / Cool water only.

One of my mentors, Ed Johnston, and I have had these discussions while sucking down some amazing kava from his back yard. Ed used to make his kava in warm/hot water and I asked him why he did this.

His answer was related to sterility more than kavalactone extraction.

This was a few years ago and now we agree that nothing beats room temp water as the safest way, for the cleanest tasting and best extracted version of kava beverage.

Ed got interviewed and kava got an article written a short while back - http://www.hanahou.com/pages/magazine.asp?MagazineID=&Action=DrawArticle&ArticleID=1122

 

[kavalover]

I use warm water, a bit warmer than room temp, but not hot at all, water for my kava. Which I'll then cool down with either milk or ice. The thing with using hot water with many kavas is it tends to bring out the bitterness I've noticed. I don't like that.

 

[kl.ImSoCold2323]

Everyone will have their own prep methods that work "the best" and those usually vary to the point of contradiction, which makes me assume most of the details are arbitrary.
The only actual study I've seen on the subject was posted here:http://kavalounge.yuku.com/topic/210/report-optimizing-extraction-kavalactones-prep-kava#.UMPwBof7JBk
And considering they had 8 (somewhat arbitrary) variables, but only ran 16 tests, I wouldn't consider their "conclusions" any more official than random opinions on this forum.
Also, I thought I read somewhere that hot water killing kavalactones is usually greatly exaggerated.  Like it had to be submerged in 300F water for 30 minutes for 0.1% of the kavalactones to be destroyed, or something ridiculous like that.

 

[Ed!]

Thanks for digging that up, I kept trying to find that without success.



Yeah, from what I've gathered you aren't going to kill kavalactones as long as you aren't using really hot water. I just go with water as hot as the tap will get it, which I don't think is ever going to be hot enough to kill anything.