Historical Beers End of the World Chicha Muko

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reverendj1

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2012
Messages
597
Reaction score
81
Location
Jenison
Recipe Type
All Grain
Yeast
Safale S-04
Batch Size (Gallons)
2.5
Original Gravity
1.044
Final Gravity
1.011
Boiling Time (Minutes)
180
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
7 days
Tasting Notes
Pretty sweet. Strong cinnamon taste.
Fermentables:
2 lbs Purple Corn Kernels (steep @ 150 for 60 min) (This was purchased on Amazon, $10 a lb)
1/2 lbs Yellow Feed Corn Kernels (steep @ 150 for 60 min) (This is just the deer corn you can find at any gas station during hunting season, strip kernels off cob.)

Spices/Seasoning:
16 oz Piloncillo (unrefined brown sugar) (10 min)
1 stick Mexican Cinnamon (10 min) (Buy this at a Mexican grocery store. It is different than regular cinnamon, and has a special name, but I don't know what it is. The package I bought was unlabeled, and just looked like massive regular cinnamon sticks. There were as big around as my thumb, and longer than my middle finger.)
1 tbsp Ground Allspice (10 min)
1 12 oz bottle Malta Goya (10 min)
6 Whole Cloves (10 min)
8.5 oz (1 cup) Turbinado Sugar (bottling)

Misc.
Straw (optional)

Instructions: To prepare all corn for chewing, place in coffee grinder or grain mill. It should resemble a very coarse flour when done. Mix in enough water with the flour so that it will be just moist, and stick together. Thoroughly chew corn flour, then spit it into a bucket. It was easiest to just have two cups, one for chewing and one for spitting and dump the spit cup into the bucket when done. Make sure that all saliva gained when chewing the corn remains with the chewed corn. i.e. do not swallow it. This took two of us 2 days, although we weren't very motivated.

Once you have chewed through all of your corn, you can start the steep. We placed a paint strainer bag in the kettle, then dumped all of the chewed corn into the bag. We then filled up the kettle to ~3 gals. We placed the corn in before bringing to temp to better imitate the way it would be traditionally brewed. Bring water to 155 degrees F, and hold for 1 hour, teabagging the bag every 10-15 minutes.

After the 60 minutes, hang bag above kettle to drain, and start bringing the kettle to a boil. We also squeezed bag to get as much juice as possible out, using tongs. Boil for 3 hours (starting from grain removal, not boiling point). With 15 minutes left, top up water to 2.5 gals, at 10 minutes, add spices/seasonings. Transfer to primary fermenter (remove cinnamon stick while doing this), and allow to cool overnight. If you have straw, place it in a colandar, etc. and strain wort through the straw when transferring it to primary. Pitch yeast next morning.

This is normally drunk after 3-4 days (i.e. mid-fermentation). We wanted to be able to make this ahead of time, and still keep that still fermenting quality, so we let it ferment out, which took about a week. We then bottled it and added the 8.5 oz (~1 cup) of turbinado sugar (I ran out of Piloncillo, and this was the closest they had at the store on bottling day) to 1 1/2 cups of boiling water to use as priming sugar. Use a plastic soda bottle for one of the bottles to test carbination, and stovetop pasteurize the rest once the desired fermentation is achieved. It should only be slightly carbonated to mimic the still fermenting taste. We ended up carbing ours for 7 days.

Story: Long time reader, first time poster. My co-brewer and I wanted to make Chicha to drink for 12/21/2012. We know that Chicha is actually an Incan drink, not Mayan, but we thought it was close enough. Sorry for any cultural insensitivty, but we figure that at some point, an Incan shared a brew with a Mayan. To throw more flames on the fire, we had to use mostly Mexican ingredients, because there isn't any little Perus around here, although we do have a substantial Mexican population. It just sounded like it would be a fun experience to brew, something we would never be able to try otherwise and we wanted to do something a little different for our 7th batch.

This is my own recipe (first ever), so we could call it the Jenison Regional Chicha. I kind of mashed together every recipe for chicha I could find on the internet, and took what ingredients I thought sounded good.The reason for the yellow corn was just that the purple corn was really expensive, and we were not sure if this would even turn out, so we didn't want to dump too much money into it. Since we only had one shot to brew this in time, we used the Malta and Piloncillo for extra fermentables. This turned out delicious, although I would probably only use half a stick of the cinnamon if I were to make it again. So far only my co-brewer and I have tried it, but we both like it. We will see on 12/21/12 at our party if anyone else is willing to try it and tell us what they think.
 
Okay, so everyone at my End of the World party tried it and liked it! After just the 2 days between when I posted this and when we had it for real, the cinnamon really mellowed out. I don't think I would change a thing. Secondary tasting notes were that it was very fruity, almost like a cider, and a little spicy. The flavors were very balanced, but hard to pinpoint. I'm not really sure where the fruitiness came from, but it was very delicious.
 
I just had another one, and it has really lost all of it's flavor/character, so these should be drunk fairly quickly. Traditionally Chicha is supposed to be drunk within 4 days, but I had modified the methods a little so I could make it ahead of time. To reiterate, it was best at ~19 days (from grain to glass), at 26 days it has lost much of it's flavor, and isn't really much good anymore. I have not had many between 20 and 26, so I'm not sure when all the flavor died.
 
I had this in Peru at some 'questionable' roadside spots outside of Cuzco. There were houses along the roads that would put out a flag indicating Chicha was available. It was pretty good. I had no idea they were spitting into buckets to make it. That might have impacted my decision to try it.

I always thought there were beets in it as well. Maybe it was the purple corn? Are there different types of Chicha?

I'd love to try making this sometime.
 
Nice! I've never been south of the US. Traditionally, instead of the red flags or red bags that they mostly hang out now, they would hang red flowers outside when they first brewed the Chicha. This was a sign not only to tell you that there was Chicha to be had, but also how fresh it is, since it is supposed to be drunk within 4 days of brewing. If the flowers are wilted, the Chicha is no good.

It is a fairly regional drink, as far as I could tell. That's why this is a Jenison, Michigan regional Chicha. :) I did as much research as I could formulating the recipe. The ingredients vary depending on the region, so there may have very well been some beets in it. Traditionally, I think it is made with Jora corn, which is yellow, but they do often use blue corn. A lot of health nuts make a "Chicha" from purple corn for it's health benefits, but I think it is really more of an unfermented tea.

At any rate, if you are grossed out by chewing the corn, you can just wet the kernels, and allow them to start sprouting. That's actually the way most people do it now. We just thought it would be fun to try the more ancient methods. Also, just remember the short shelf life. I wish I would have drunk more when they were in their prime. :)

Again, all of this is just research I've done on the internet. I've never been to Peru, and never had real Chicha, so I have nothing to compare it to, but I think this turned out great. I don't know if we'd make it again, just because it was very laborious, but it was definitely a very fun brew!
 
At any rate, if you are grossed out by chewing the corn, you can just wet the kernels, and allow them to start sprouting. That's actually the way most people do it now. We just thought it would be fun to try the more ancient methods. Also, just remember the short shelf life. I wish I would have drunk more when they were in their prime. :)

I think my own spit would be OK. I was more grossed out by the idea of other people's spit being used. Hopefully they used water. At least that's what I'll tell myself going forward.:D

Oh - In the spirit of full disclosure, I also ate a Guinea Pig when I was there.
 
I think my own spit would be OK. I was more grossed out by the idea of other people's spit being used. Hopefully they used water. At least that's what I'll tell myself going forward.:D

Oh - In the spirit of full disclosure, I also ate a Guinea Pig when I was there.

I just watched the episode of Brew Masters where DFH does this brew, and they research it in Peru and most people now do it by sprouting the corn. It is actually boiled as well, however I too find the idea of drinking someones cooked spit hard to stomach.
 
I just watched the episode of Brew Masters where DFH does this brew, and they research it in Peru and most people now do it by sprouting the corn. It is actually boiled as well, however I too find the idea of drinking someones cooked spit hard to stomach.

Thanks for that. I appreciate the piece of mind. ;)
 

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