Questions About Drying Methods

[riffmaster]

Hey everybody!

This is my first post on the forum, but I've been a long-time lurker and friend of Steve Mariotti.

I've been looking around without much luck trying to find information on kava drying.

Here's my question: Would roots dried gently and thoroughly in UV light suffer any loss in potency? I'm aware of the temperature cutoff for brewing so as not to damage kavalactones, but if there's any other information floating around about people drying their own kava instead of sourcing dried root I would be very grateful for it.

Bula!

 

[verticity]

Welcome to the forum.

Drying in direct sunlight is the traditional method that is still practiced in many places. It does not result in loss of potency.

Oven drying can be much quicker though, which can be important to prevent mold from growing. The Fiji Kava Quality manual recommends using an oven temperature no more than 60 C (or 140 Fahrenheit). Higher temperatures can negatively affect the potency and appearance and give it a funky taste. Also an electric dryer would be preferred over a wood stove to prevent getting a smoky taste, but even an electric oven can cause an odd smell and taste if the temperature is too high.

As you might be aware, green or undried kava is very difficult if not impossible to get outside of the kava producing islands, but if you do have access to it, the aforementioned quality manual might be useful (see p. 62 for detailed information about drying):
https://pafpnet.spc.int/attachments/article/779/Fiji-Kava-Quality-Manual.pdf

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

Drying in direct sunlight is the traditional method that is still practiced in many place. It does not result in loss of potency.

It does result in loss of potency and alters the original chemical composition a bit, doesn't it? I thought that's what makes fresh root taste different and feel better/stronger.

I think John Fordham of Klin Kava has some specific method of drying some of his products (think WOW!/5-Star or something like Nambawan) to try and preserve as much freshness as possible...for a dried kava.

 

[verticity]

It does result in loss of potency and alters the original chemical composition a bit, doesn't it? I thought that's what makes fresh root taste different and feel better/stronger.

I think John Fordham of Klin Kava has some specific method of drying some of his products (think WOW!/5-Star or something like Nambawan) to try and preserve as much freshness as possible...for a dried kava.

The Fiji manual actually mentions that repeated drying is not good.. ie. if the kava is dried and gets wet and is then dried again it is bad for the quality... I guess I should have said traditional drying can produce dried kava/powder that has normal potency for powder...

So, sure, some KLs probably do evaporate off during drying, as well as possibly other volatile chemicals in green kava, but since so much water evaporates off also I would expect that the KL percent by weight would be a lot higher after drying. I don't know of any data on that though, nor do I know if hypothetically higher KL levels per shell could explain the superior effects that you and others have noted from fresh kava. From what you have said (in other threads) it sounds like a difference in quality as well as magnitude. If it were just a matter of lower KL levels, it would seem you could recreate a "fresh kava effect" by simply using more powder per cup of water in your prep, but it sounds like it doesn't really work that way...

 

[verticity]

So, yeah, if you have fresh kava, drink that!

 

[Intrepidus_dux]

Hey everybody!

This is my first post on the forum, but I've been a long-time lurker and friend of Steve Mariotti.

I've been looking around without much luck trying to find information on kava drying.

Here's my question: Would roots dried gently and thoroughly in UV light suffer any loss in potency? I'm aware of the temperature cutoff for brewing so as not to damage kavalactones, but if there's any other information floating around about people drying their own kava instead of sourcing dried root I would be very grateful for it.

Bula!

The bigger question here is, if you test it out, so we get to try some?

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

I guess I should have said traditional drying can produce dried kava/powder that has normal potency for powder...

That sounds good to me.
John Fordham was the first person to warn me that the drying kava changes and weakens it, and that most internationally marketed kava will have been dried and redried 2 or 3+ times before it gets to you. That's why he tries to minimize the amount of drying and also created a special drying process for 'premium' kava. Though this doesn't really hold true when it comes to the Hawaiian kavas I drink, which are presumably only dried once and yet are typically (but not always) weaker than most Fiji & Vanuatu kava I drink, which is often likely to be dried more than once. But maybe I'm just not accounting for the fact that perhaps these Hawaiian plants are being harvested young or just naturally have a lower overall KL%.

Here are a couple other things I've posted before but might be fitting here as it pertains to dry vs. fresh kava.

• http://kavaforums.com/forum/attachments/fresh-png.8478/ (Highlighted pertinent parts)
  
• http://kavaforums.com/forum/attachments/bittenbender-rearranged-png.8834/ (Graphic of Bittenbender's Optimization of KL extraction, which can be confusing to look at, trying to keep track of all the changing variables -- and I think it does have a couple unexpected results in there...but definitely shows fresh roots to produce a beverage with more kavalactone than dry.
  
• And to use another dried/fresh root as an example:

"As with all spices, fresh ginger root contains a large range of chemical compounds. ... Whilst these may be the primary compounds in fresh ginger, when ginger is cooked, the story changes. When the ginger is heated or dried, gingerols are transformed into different compounds, which can alter both the flavour and pungency."​

Evaporating the water out of fresh kava roots definitely concentrates the kavalactones, so that why it takes 4-5 pounds of fresh kava root to make a 1 pound bag of dry kava powder. When you make kava with fresh roots, it will require about ¾ - 1¼ pounds to make one strong batch.
I personally think higher kavalactone % per shell is the number one most important aspect, but it is a combination of factors that create the superior effect of fresh kava:

• Higher overall percentage of kavalactones...
• Less lingering bitterness, more pleasant natural flavor...
• Thinner, cleaner beverage with much less sludge, easier on the gut and on the pallete, which helps create a more conducive setting. Dry kava requires a much dirtier, muddier particle filled drink to get close to the equivalent amount of kavalactones as a fresh drink...but that sludge creates a more nauseating, distracting, unpleasant gut irritating experience.
• Mysterious lesser chems/enzymes which may play some role in the magic. Even if these aren't important, the first 3 points are enough to create a superior kava experience.

I have been able to emulate the fresh experience, in terms of psychoactive effects and potency, a handful or more times with dry kava...it has always been with kavas that 'feel' strong even from the first shell or two and/or with dosing high. But for me, there's a limit to how much I wanna push it, to keep trying to 'get there' with dry powder, considering the additional bloat, nausea, bitterness, sediment and waste of product is causes.

I guess I'm blabbering on and not really answering OP's question about UV lights...but I just love bashing dry kava so much.

 

[recentreturn]

...that most internationally marketed kava will have been dried and redried 2 or 3+ times before it gets to you. . . . Though this doesn't really hold true when it comes to the Hawaiian kavas I drink, which are presumably only dried once...

Why??? Are Fijians more prone than Hawaiians not to notice that its raining?

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

Why??? Are Fijians more prone than Hawaiians not to notice that its raining?

Because Hawaiian kava is less likely to lay around and pass through the hands of many different people on it's way to market.
Vanuatu/Fiji kava will likely be grown on an outer island and passed down through different middlemen and locations, sometimes being re-dried throughout the whole process before being reaching the 'main' island/exporter and shipped internationally. Hawaiian farmer typically grows himself, dries himself, grinds himself and ships himself with immediate access to international shipping...which creates a scenario where the Hawaiian farmer is less likely to be re-drying their root several times.

 

[recentreturn]

Hawaiian farmer typically grows himself, dries himself, grinds himself and ships himself...

That sounds dangerous and painful!!!

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

That sounds dangerous and painful!!!

 

[recentreturn]

Ew!!!! LOL!

 

[SelfBiasResistor]

So now we know why there are so few Hawaiian farmers at this point...

I personally think higher kavalactone % per shell is the number one most important aspect, but it is a combination of factors that create the superior effect of fresh kava:

• Higher overall percentage of kavalactones...
• Less lingering bitterness, more pleasant natural flavor...
• Thinner, cleaner beverage with much less sludge, easier on the gut and on the pallete, which helps create a more conducive setting. Dry kava requires a much dirtier, muddier particle filled drink to get close to the equivalent amount of kavalactones as a fresh drink...but that sludge creates a more nauseating, distracting, unpleasant gut irritating experience.
• Mysterious lesser chems/enzymes which may play some role in the magic. Even if these aren't important, the first 3 points are enough to create a superior kava experience.

I'm thinking the last bullet point may be very important and must affect point 2 and 3 quite a lot. There is a big difference with certain instants like BKH Green and ROH Instant compared to all other dried roots so maybe they retain some of the other compounds that get destroyed by drying heat/UV sun rays. Pretty much all dried root makes me bloated, kills my appetite and nauseates me if it's of higher potency. Not to mention the taste that makes me want to gag. The mild taste and lack of the other mentioned side effects I get from those instants greatly enhances the enjoyability of the kava session. If only there wasn't such a big trade off of high price and lack of cultivar variety.

 

[verticity]

To directly address the question about UV light:

UV light is used to "dry" or cure some kinds of paint, varnish, etc, but that's really a different process than drying something like kava in which the goal is to remove most of the water by evaporation.

Generally if you want to dry something, in the sense of dehydrate it, you need heat or infrared light (or I suppose vacuum, as in freeze drying, if you want to get fancy...) A UV light source like a black light would not be very efficient at removing moisture. However since natural sunlight does contain ultraviolet, the question is pertinent: Is it possible that UV light in sunlight degrades KLs more than would happen in an oven with primarily infrared radiation and convection? UV light can degrade some organic chemicals, although I don't specifically know about KLs, but I tend to think such an effect would not be that great when drying whole roots in the sun simply because the UV light wouldn't be able to penetrate very far inside the roots. To back this up: this study on the effect of UV light on wood says that UV light can't penetrate more than 80 microns into the surface, although it can degrade the surface.

Surface Degradation of Wood by Ultraviolet Light

Since kava roots are fairly woody I would expect this would apply to them also..

So I would guess the main thing that would happen, either in sunlight or in an oven, would be that some of the KLs and other chemicals would just evaporate because of the heat. How much is lost would depend on the temperature and amount of time spent drying, but I would also guess that whether UV light was present or not would not make much difference...

 

[riffmaster]

SMASHING!

 

[riffmaster]

Tons of great information here, everyone. Thanks so much.

To directly address the question about UV light:

UV light is used to "dry" or cure some kinds of paint, varnish, etc, but that's really a different process than drying something like kava in which the goal is to remove most of the water by evaporation.

Generally if you want to dry something, in the sense of dehydrate it, you need heat or infrared light (or I suppose vacuum, as in freeze drying, if you want to get fancy...) A UV light source like a black light would not be very efficient at removing moisture. However since natural sunlight does contain ultraviolet, the question is pertinent: Is it possible that UV light in sunlight degrades KLs more than would happen in an oven with primarily infrared radiation and convection? UV light can degrade some organic chemicals, although I don't specifically know about KLs, but I tend to think such an effect would not be that great when drying whole roots in the sun simply because the UV light wouldn't be able to penetrate very far inside the roots. To back this up: this study on the effect of UV light on wood says that UV light can't penetrate more than 80 microns into the surface, although it can degrade the surface.

Surface Degradation of Wood by Ultraviolet Light

Since kava roots are fairly woody I would expect this would apply to them also..

So I would guess the main thing that would happen, either in sunlight or in an oven, would be that some of the KLs and other chemicals would just evaporate because of the heat. How much is lost would depend on the temperature and amount of time spent drying, but I would also guess that whether UV light was present or not would not make much difference...

The Fiji Kava manual was also extremely helpful. Definitely got some more homework and work cut out for me.

BULA