Brewing Chicha!

Anyone ever brew chicha? (a fermented drink using corn) (drinkin by the Inca's)

yes it is good. first you get deer urine and corn and put it in a bucket. let it ferment for a month... then open the container and start chewing the corn and spitting it back into the bucket. let it ferment for another month. take a huge dump in the bucket and then enjoy!

PS. it may be the wrong recipe.

been watching to much Anthony Bordain on the Travel Channel have we?

Ha! right after I saw it on "no reservations" I started researching and now am planning on getting a batch going. The style of brewing probably wont be very traditional, being that there will be no chewing and spitting of the corn. I'm not sure what kind of yeast Im going to use yet. Who knows maybe it will turn out alright and eventually be served on draft in my living room.

bs22619 said:

Anyone ever brew chicha? (a fermented drink using corn) (drinkin by the Inca's)

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Isn't BMC "a fermented drink using corn"

Jeez there's 2 threads on it on the same day...thought I was having dejaview for a second....

Here's what I posted on the other thread...

An alcoholic beer-like drink that was brewed and drunk by the Wari, a civilization that thrived in what is today Peru from about 700 to 1000 C.E., before mysteriously disappearing. The chica made by the Wari was made from the berries of the molle pepper plant. Some people today still drink chica, which is now made from corn. [/quote]

On page 301 in this Google book, The Chemistry of Common Life is the preparation of Chica http://books.google.com/books?id=bc...g=vMpEAff2RXWkNXeTanXWGBTU8i0&hl=en#PPA301,M1

You know you're supposed to get a bunch of people together to chew on corn then spit it into a fermentaion container don't you?

Technically, chicha is/was make by converting starch into sugar by chewing it, and letting disastase enzymes in human saliva do the starch/sugar conversion - you can do this yourself by chewing bread for a long time, and noting how it gets sweeter. The chewed starch material (maize, cassava, whatever) is spat out and dried, or semi-dried, until the brewer is ready to soak it and ferment it. Some sources say the name chicha is derived from the Spanish word for “spit.”

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Now I'm all for exploring ancient brewing techiques and all, but not THAT much.

If you don't want to go that route, here's a recipe that doesn't require mastication, just normal mashing...

http://www.ehow.com/how_2086198_make-chicha-from-corn.html

There's a great article on the Archeology of it. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-07/fm-abd072704.php

I haven't made chicha yet but my brother knows exactly how to make it using regular yellow corn (not the chicha de jora which uses a purple corn).

I know that you get the corn Kernels of a dry corn cob and put it in a cleaned and sterilized container. Filled to the top with water. The corn already has wild yeast in it and fermentation will start pretty fast.

After a week you take out the corn and dry it. The corn has to germinate a little just enough to release the sugars which only happens when the corn begins to sprout.

Once you dry the corn, you got to wash it and then put it back in the cleaned/sterilized container with water, you let it sit for another week and then do the same thing until it begins to sprout. Once it sprouts add sugar to the water. My brother adds natural sugarcane sugar. I fixed one of his brews and found that adding dextrose makes it stronger ABV.

You got to leave it in the container for another week and then add more sugar. You can add as much as 2-3 times sugar. It will keep on fermenting.

Now, Chicha is suppose to be drunk while still fermenting. A good chicha will be bubbling, sweet, and have bite when it touches your tongue. It must also get you drunk (prime objective). If your chicha is not sweet, then it needs more sugar and fermenting time.

Also while fermenting the grains begin to stink and that is why you got to keep them clean and washed (before sprouting takes place, not necessary to clean/wash after sprouting). Most chicha brewers will brew the chicha in container with a small pin size hole to release the pressure. There is no need to chew it and spit it out.

On the other side my grandfather use to brew chicha by germinating the corn in the ground. He would make a hole, put the corn in and wait until it sprouted. Once sprouted he would wash and start the sugaring processes.

What can I tell you, I love to drink chicha. It has a cidery taste to it, sweet, bubbly and is very good.

Try it, I did an experiment with popcorn kernels but didn't work (in case you were thinking about using popcorn kernels (grocery store kind). I am not sure where my brother gets the corn he uses, will find out.

My wife and I took an amazing trip to Peru last year and had the great pleasure of being able to try Chicha at a local "bar"...I can't emphasize the quotations enough here because it was a persons house with a red rag hanging from a pole indicating it was a place to get Chicha. Pretty awesome.

We had what I guess you would call a normal Chicha and a Strawberry Chicha. The normal Chicha was amazing. I am sure a percentage of this was the surroundings but it tasted great to me. I definitely want to brew some on my own. The Strawberry, well, I didn't care for that one.

It is also worth noting that Dogfish Head is apparently brewing some Chicha and serves it at their pub in Delaware only.

good luck with that. I will take your word for it. Brew on good men!

I just watched the "Chicha" episode on Brew Masters and they said it had some spices and herbs in it as well. I believe they said cloves, cinnamon, fennel, and local Peruvian Spearmint. I don't know if this is all of them, but it is all that I caught. They also filtered it through a hay lined basket to give the Chicha an earthy nuance.

I think i'd rather puke from drinking beer, not making beer

DeepSouthGal said:

I just watched the "Chicha" episode on Brew Masters and they said it had some spices and herbs in it as well. I believe they said cloves, cinnamon, fennel, and local Peruvian Spearmint. I don't know if this is all of them, but it is all that I caught. They also filtered it through a hay lined basket to give the Chicha an earthy nuance.

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Yeah, funniest thing was he was all bent outta shape about brewing it the traditional way and chewing it. Then he gets down there and nobody chews their own raw corn anymore. The only exampkle he found was the last lady who chewed the germinated corn (much easier to do than the "fresh" corn) and then he comes back and does it differently, LOL!

I wonder if the employees wanted to kill ole Sam when they actually saw the episode and found out nobody in Peru chewed it themselves anymore?

Randar said:

Yeah, funniest thing was he was all bent outta shape about brewing it the traditional way and chewing it. Then he gets down there and nobody chews their own raw corn anymore. The only exampkle he found was the last lady who chewed the germinated corn (much easier to do than the "fresh" corn) and then he comes back and does it differently, LOL!

I wonder if the employees wanted to kill ole Sam when they actually saw the episode and found out nobody in Peru chewed it themselves anymore?

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I was thinking the same thing. Now I am new to the wide world of brewing but I thought that germinating the corn sounded an awful lot like the malting process for barley. Humm maybe a good thing, Sam? I love the looks on their faces at the end when he suggests doing another batch.

On the broadcast I thought, Sonora Pickard's germinated Chicha looked like Hoegaarden, it was even served in giant Hoegaarden glasses. It had that cloudy lemon yellow look about it. Didn't look un appetizing in the least.

Since they were collected spit samples and testing it for ALpha amalaze, couldn't they just have made a huge, *ahem* "Gob Starter" then ran the corn and the AA starter through a mill to mush and crush the corn and then let it ferment out on it's own, skipping the actually chewing of the 40 pounds of corn? It still would have been made with human saliva, but just not chewed and spit.....

I may be tempted to try making a spitliess version of it someday. Just using beeno or a commercial Alpha Amalaze product to do the work of the spitting.

Resurrecting a dead post?? You betcha!!

I'm in the mindset of actually trying to brew up a batch of Chicha this year.... but definitely not in the traditional way. I figure germinate the kernels, or get some corn, grind it to grits.... make a porridge, throw in some Amalyse enzyme... the needed spices.. and booya!

Out of curiosity, how did everyone's Chicha experiments turn out?

Shoot. I thought this was going to be a thread with pictures of female brewers.

Bummer.

LOL that would be "Chica", Homer!

fergy89406 said:

LOL that would be "Chica", Homer!

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Yo no comprendo espanol...

Subbed

What about taking the corn directly from the stalk and doing it that way? The corn is sugar until it is picked then it turns to starch. Then you have to chew it to re convert it. But what if you just take the corn off the stalk and shuck it and immediatly do the cooking? I think it take about a half hour from the time it is picked till the sugar begins to convert.

I read a book about Huaorani tribe in Ecuador. They make (made) A LOT of chicha.

I want to put together a recipe using the traditional method as spit sloppy and true to the original way as possible. I haven't seen any homebrewed results of any kind so I'll post as I go in here whenever I get to it for those interested.