How do you knead?

[Ed!]

For those who use the traditional approach (and I tend to do both traditional and non, depending), how do you knead your kava? I wouldn't have thought you could do it all that many ways, but watching a kavasseur video, he does it way differently than I have been.
I tend to keep my strainer in the liquid and squeeze hard, shifting every once in a while to keep the kava from being pressed the same way.
Kavasseur appears to soak his kava by rubbing it around the outside of the bowl and then lifts it and wrings it out over the bowl. I'm sure he can speak to his approach if that's not right.
How do the rest of you do it? Do you squeeze as hard as you can or just move it about? Do you wring and soak or just keep it soaked? Do you think it matters?

 

[Vekta]

I push the strainer bag under the water and flatten it out. Roll it around until it's all soaked through and through. Then I pick it up and squeeze it with one hand. Repeat and squeeze with the other hand several times. Then I dunk it again, put the strainer bag in one hand and roll it like I'm making a ball of cookie dough while pushing down on it harder and harder. Then I dunk it again and roll it again then squeeze it between both palms of my hand as hard as I can like a press. Repeat all until satisfied or tired.
I don't know...this is the way I do it. I feel I get the best results I can this way without putting it in a blender. I suppose it does matter since this is what my technique has developed into.

 

[kavalover]

Pretty much the exact same as Vekta just add in about 10 - 15 minutes of blending on a low setting before hand. A little technique I've adapted while kneading is to make a fist and sort of pound the kava underwater into the side of the bowl, then bring the kava up, squeeze it dry, and then back into the bowl. Beat the kava out of that kava. lol. I used to wring out the kava in the strainer like you would a wet towel, but I was breaking too many strainers this way

 

[kl.Sauroth]

I squeeze with one hand, I always use a cup of 2% or full fat milk mixed with 2 cups of water. I use a nylon stocking and I usually put about 4 table spoons in it (that is the most efficient amount). I heat the liquid up to a warm bath temperature and then let the kava soak for 2 hours. I tie a knot in the stocking (one that i can undo). When it is done soaking I squeeze the sock HARD in the liquid kind of just at the surface of the liquid so air can get in the sack. I squeeze it one handed and move the stocking around in my hand a as I squeeze it. I squeeze it fairly hard and fairly quickly (1.5 squeezes per second or so), from time to time I will submerge the stocking and move it around under the water if it is getting dry. I do this for 20+ minutes. Then when it is done I grab both hands and push as hard on the sock as I can in a kind of inverted praying position (extra force from your arms) and squeeze as much liquid as I can out the stocking. I have large hands so my hand will completely cover the kava using 4-5 table spoons, smaller and it just isn't very efficient and larger also.

I at no times actually take the kava out of the container and I keep it kind of half in the liquid and half out, so I use a juice jug so the kava doesn't spray everywhere. My method is absolutely exhausting for the first few weeks (even a few months) and I could barely make it through ten minutes. After doing this for seven months every day I can now crush a human skull with my bare hand as long as it is my right hand

I have tried to get friends to do this but they start to puss out after about 5 minutes. Afterwards I freeze the used Kava and put it in the freezer to extract it or something later so I now have 4 kilos of crap in 3 freezers.



So not really like what you guys are doing. I think I may add some double handed bent elbow pressing to my above method as well.

 

[Kojo Douglas]

Knead to taste, amigo!

 

[kl.new2kava]

I typically start by taking about 2 cups of water and heating it in a microwave untill just about boiling and then add a few tablespoons of soy lectin, then stir it and microwave it again for a minute and keep stiring until the lectin is totally disolved. After that I add 2 16 ounce cans of coconut water and stir it in and then 2 more cups of warm water. That brings to liquid total up to around 2 quarts. I then take a fat cup of root in the strainer bag and let sit and soak in the mixture for at least 1/2 a hour. Then I roll it around and squeeze it while it is totally submerged kinda like a 2 handed stress relief ball for a few minutes. I then take it out of the liquid and squeeze it as hard as I can without ripping the bag. In the beginning it so oiley that it hard to get it too well squeezed, but the suff that oozes out is so rich and kava-y. I then repeat this process around 12 -15 times and usually by the end enough oil has leaked out that I can squeez it almost dry in the bag. At the end I get real anal and actually try my damnest to squeeze out every last drop of liquid. By now there is a nice layer of oil of the grog and I am usually tuckered out and pretty thirsty and chug a nice big shell and hits the spot every time. Doing it this way I have enough for a few solid sessions and keep it in the fridge in tupperware. I usually save bag and make a second ghettoish batch with about half as water and don't bother with soy or coconut.The second batch always numbs my mouth and works well, just not as much as the first.

 

[kl.icky]

After blending for a min or two with warm water, I let it sit 10-30 mins. Let the kneading begin; I've posted about my lack of patience with kneading, but so far found short youtube videos to help with that/my ADD...



I get my fingers in it, squish it to the bottom of the bowl, then give it a good wrung, repeat.