Coconut Kava Stout

[clintonwatton]

Hello everyone, first post!

I started extract kit brewing this past November and I've brewed a few batches. Tomorrow I'm planning on starting my first non-kit extract brew. (Sidebar: I'd love to get into AG but right now I'm short on space and if I buy one more piece of brewing equipment my wife is going to murder me).

In my recipe I'll be using coconut and a ground root called kava. Kava, for those who are unfamiliar, is in the pepper family and is used in a traditional drink in Polynesian cultures; it's consumption yields a hynoptic or relaxing feeling. My goal is to determine the best way to sanitize kava. I want to add kava AFTER boiling as the kavalactones are more soluble in alcohol than in water and those are the chemicals I'm interested in adding to my brew.

Here's the recipe:

Grains and Adjuncts:
-6 Lb Northern Brewer LME
-2 Lb Chocolate Malt -0.5 Lb Briess Carapils Malt
-0.75 Lb Caramel / Crystal Malt

Hops
-1 oz Cluster - 60 min
-1 oz Williamette - 45 min
-1 oz - 6 min

Other
-1 Tsp Irish Moss - 15 min
-2 Cinnamon Sticks - 15 min
-1 5'' Licorce root shoots - 15 min
-1/2 Tsp Cardamom seed - 15 min
-2 oz Sarsaparilla - 15 min
-1 Lb Toasted Coconut (20-25 min at 325 deg. F) - 14 days secondary
-1 Lb Kava root powder - secondary 4-6 hours prior to bottling

Yeast
-Safale S-04

My main dilemma is choosing whether to pitch the kava into the secondary as is, or boiling with a small amount of water for 15 minutes then cool in a cold water bath and then pitch kava and small amount of water into secondary.

Thoughts?

 

[biggmatt]

You may not get the relax feeling from the kava. The yeast may eat it and get that relaxed feeling. Yeast love caffiene too. That is why adding coffee to beer just yields flavor.

Although just before bottling may leave some as there won't be a lot yeast.

 

[clintonwatton]

Hmm, okay. I'll report back in a few weeks to see how strong the resultant kava kick is. Of course, I won't have quantitative numbers for its strength but a qualitative evaluation. As for sanitizing the ground kava, would boiling suffice for a decent sanitation prior to adding to bottling bucket/secondary?

 

[biggmatt]

Most certainly.

 

[rorypayne]

Soak it in vodka or being a stout maybe some bourbon.

 

[davidvhead]

Hello, I am getting read to brew a kava stout to enjoy this winter. I am writing to ask how you prepared the kava before racking onto it. How did you prevent contamination of your beer as you racked it onto the bacteria (and God knows what else) laden kava? Did you boil it, soak it in alcohol, have a witch doctor bless it, etc, (just kidding about the witch doctor....or may be not, it is kava kava).

I plan to allow it to sit on the root for about 1 day during secondary, or simply placing some kava chips in a sifting bag and putting it in the keg before I rack into the keg. Thoughts?

My big concern is bacterial contamination of the beer with a root that has not been boiled ( as I have heard boiling the root yields it useless).

 

[C-Rider]

Don't know about adding to beer, but friends who have tried it in Fiji said it tasted like muddy water. LOL

 

[Yreval]

This might be kind of avoiding the question, but what if instead of brewing with it directly, you brewed the beer you were planning on (coconut stout or otherwise) without the kava, and then just used that beer in place of water when cold steeping your kava drink?

I know the kavalactones are pretty volatile and don't hold up well to heat, so you probably don't want to boil them. Hence, if you wanted to sanitize them, you'd probably be best making a tincture with vodka or rum and then adding that to your fermenter. I don't know if the yeast will ferment the kavalactones out.

You can avoid that risk, as well as the risk of adding too much (either in flavor or effect) by just steeping the kava with your finished beer after.