Peru style Chicha

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Nic0

Nic0

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Hopefully this is the right forum... if not, Mods, feel free to move.

A couple of weeks ago I saw a beer show on TV, I guess the people on the show just try to go around the world and learn about a traditional style of beer or other fermented beverage of a specific location, and then try to make their own back at their brewery.

The episode I saw was about Chicha, the type made traditionally in Peru (I've read that other Chicha types are significantly different than this, so I wanted to be specific), where people chew up a specific corn/maize grain and spit it out. I forget all the steps, but from what I remember, the saliva does the initial breakdown of starches to sugars, and then they sparge that and boil it, probalby add some hops or something to alter the flavors and aromas.


I'm inclined to try something like this, mostly becuase it's pretty unique (peopel chewing up and spitting out grain), and it grosses some people out, which makes it that much more fun.:mug:

Anyone tried making one of these before? Or have you tasted one that someone else made?

Thanks!

Nic
 
Nic0 said:
Hopefully this is the right forum... if not, Mods, feel free to move.

A couple of weeks ago I saw a beer show on TV, I guess the people on the show just try to go around the world and learn about a traditional style of beer or other fermented beverage of a specific location, and then try to make their own back at their brewery.

The episode I saw was about Chicha, the type made traditionally in Peru (I've read that other Chicha types are significantly different than this, so I wanted to be specific), where people chew up a specific corn/maize grain and spit it out. I forget all the steps, but from what I remember, the saliva does the initial breakdown of starches to sugars, and then they sparge that and boil it, probalby add some hops or something to alter the flavors and aromas.


I'm inclined to try something like this, mostly becuase it's pretty unique (peopel chewing up and spitting out grain), and it grosses some people out, which makes it that much more fun.:mug:

Anyone tried making one of these before? Or have you tasted one that someone else made?

Thanks!

Nic
Click to expand...

It was Brewmasters and I remember everyone having a hard time processing all that corn (it took him 5 hours to chew 7 lbs of corn the first time he did it). That said in the same episode alot of traditional chicha brewers are also using malted corn to augment the chewed corn. You can definitely look into that as well.

You could also use Beano too which has the the amalyze enzyme that is in human spit.
 
It's called Brewmasters. It's about DogFish Head brewery. One of the largest US craft breweries. I've not seen anyone mentioning making this. Did you notice how much corn they had to chew up and spit out!
 
IrregularPulse said:
It's called Brewmasters. It's about DogFish Head brewery. One of the largest US craft breweries. I've not seen anyone mentioning making this. Did you notice how much corn they had to chew up and spit out!
Click to expand...

Yes, it was an aweful lot. Of course, didn't they make a total of a couple of hundred gallons? For a 5 gallon batch to try at home I'm sure me and a few friends could manage to chew the neccesary corn quantity.
 
Nic0 said:
Yes, it was an aweful lot. Of course, didn't they make a total of a couple of hundred gallons? For a 5 gallon batch to try at home I'm sure me and a few friends could manage to chew the neccesary corn quantity.
Click to expand...

For 5 gallons it should be doable, I mean thats about the size they do in Peru, plus there is always the Beano I mentioned. Your friends might not like you so much after you ask them to chew all that corn though, the episode made it pretty clear that everyone absolutely hated the process.
 
dvdanny said:
Your friends might not like you so much after you ask them to chew all that corn though, the episode made it pretty clear that everyone absolutely hated the process.
Click to expand...
:D I'm sure I'll be able to find at least one who is willing... he's my normal beer making partner. And if not, then I'll just hate myself for chewing twice as much corn.


Frodo said:
Also there were 5 total episodes, and each one highlighted making a unique beer. The other episodes are online, and there is actually a thread on this forum that is about 50 bazillion pages long discussing that show. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/brew-masters-discovery-w-sam-calagione-202853/
Click to expand...
Thanks! I'll go back and watch the rest of them. I had only see that one episode and I missed the first half-ish of it. I'll see if I can make a dent in the 50 bazillion pages on that show as well.
 
I've never seen this show you guys are talking about (I've heard of it). However, I spent some time in Ecuador learning Spanish between my Senior year and my 2nd Senior year in college :) Anyway, some of the kids that I went to school with and I got a chance to spend a week deep in the Jungle with some Indians. Long story short, one night we got in a circle with a Shaman (sp.) and they passed a bowl of Chica around. They explained what it was and in an effort to not seem rude most of us tried it. I found it to be very bitter and that was about it. It didn't taste like much else to me. All in all the trip was an awesome experience and being able to tell people I drank something partially made up of human spit was always a fun story..... :)
 
That's really cool. In its more natural form (without the barley malt that Dogfish Head added as required by their license, and Dogfish Head's need to make it a stronger version appealing to the consumer) it's apparently only 2 to 3 ish percent alcohol.

EDIT: forgot to mention, had a similar experience with Kava in Fiji (though not exactly with a tribe, but more of a backpacker type resort place) - seemed like muddy water to me... (with a high probability of having the ****s) though it's not fermented and no alcohol in Kava. Just a numbing of the mouth effect and a general weird feeling.
 
I figure if I do it, I may do a pure corn version, and then a version with something else... probably barley.

Anyway, g-love, pretty neat story. I never got to go on any cool trips in college. However I was a senior the last 2 years.... 6 years in college total for an associate's and bachelor's degree. woo.
 
Go all purple corn. I drank this a few times when I lived in Bolivia. People freak out at the old almost toothless indian women chewing the corn, but it's worth a taste.
 
dvdanny said:
You could also use Beano too which has the the amalyze enzyme that is in human spit.
Click to expand...

For clarity sake Beano isn't amylase, it is a galactosidase. Beano can not be substituted from amylase to obtain the same result.

In this case, Beano might work.

:mug:
 
I watched the episode and just couldn't understand why they worked so hard at it since it was their second batch of Chica.

I realize it's traditional to chew the corn so saliva would mix to make the corn ferment.

Couldn't they have just crushed/ground the corn and added saliva/spit to achieve the same thing?
 
Rushis said:
For clarity sake Beano isn't amylase, it is a galactosidase. Beano can not be substituted from amylase to obtain the same result.

In this case, Beano might work.

:mug:
Click to expand...

Ahh, I stand corrected. I figured it was the same because I remember a few people trying to use it for the grocery store Apocalypse beer brewing challenge on this board to get various unmalted grains to convert without 2-row barley in the mash.
 
something else to consider is that, from the show, not everyones saliva contains the same amount of the enzyme (I found that to be really interesting for some odd reason) they tested all the employees saliva in the lab to see whos spit was the best to use. granted i am sure you wont be able to do this test at home, but it is something to keep in mind as they cited that as being part of the reason their first attempt did not come out well.

Also they filtered the wort thru hay prior to pitching the yeast
 
I wondered on one of the hundreds of other chicha threads that popped up when the show aired, why we couldn't just make a "spit starter" with a small amount of corn our spittle, like we do yeast, then simple mascerater the larger vloume of corn in a blender or something with our "starter?" That way we wouldn't have to chew so much corn to get a larger volume...
 
92greenyj said:
something else to consider is that, from the show, not everyones saliva contains the same amount of the enzyme (I found that to be really interesting for some odd reason) they tested all the employees saliva in the lab to see whos spit was the best to use. granted i am sure you wont be able to do this test at home, but it is something to keep in mind as they cited that as being part of the reason their first attempt did not come out well.

Also they filtered the wort thru hay prior to pitching the yeast
Click to expand...

I need to subscribe to netflix or something and watch that episode again. Good point though, everyone's mouth is different. And the same person's mouth may be different on different days. But probably the closest way to get consistent results would be to use the same chewers.

Revvy said:
I wondered on one of the hundreds of other chicha threads that popped up when the show aired, why we couldn't just make a "spit starter" with a small amount of corn our spittle, like we do yeast, then simple mascerater the larger vloume of corn in a blender or something with our "starter?" That way we wouldn't have to chew so much corn to get a larger volume...
Click to expand...

Maybe so... but what's the fun in that? I like your way of thinking, though... what ifs and such.
 
Moonshiners make shine, and I don't think any of them chewed any corn. If you want to make a video to put on Youtube or something, by all means, chew corn and spit in it. But, if all you want is to make some sugars, why not sprout the corn?

Really, if you want to share your chicha, you'd be better off sprouting, because I for one am not drinking anything someone spit in, even if they boil it.
 
If you watched the show you would have noted that they had a hard time actually finding someone in peru who still chewed and spit the corn. Most of the brewers down there evolved into germinating the corn and nixing the whole chewing and spitting process. I think it would still be authentic without the spit, just not to the ancient ale theme that Dog Fish Head was going for. They have a whole set of beers they dubbed the ancient ales that they try using the original technique to make. Honestly I would just skip the whole chewing part since it's still authentic to not chew in Peru.
 
Good point about them germinating the corn, I forgot about that from the tv episode. In my mind it would be plenty authentic, and just less nasty sounding.
 
Dog Fish Head also added malt and hops, neither of which are authentic. I think you could make a more authentic chicha at home with sprouted corn.
 

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