Hi all. This is my first home brew made with yellow Caapi and Hawaiian Chacruna in a 2:1 ratio. The brews I’ve seen up till now we’re darker in color, like a couch syrup almost. This stuff looks exactly like coffee with milk or cream added. The ph of the brew was about 4.5. Any thoughts?

Hi there,

You know, until you mentioned it, ive never payed much attention to that. Then i remembered i still had a little single serving jar in my fridge, that to me resembled what you just described. I wish i didnt shake the sediment up because it had a different appearance beforehand.

This is an older brew that kinda just got pushed back in the fridge for a bit now, but i remrmber not thoroughly filtering this batch, which looks to explain why mine has that look.
Did you combine your 2 teas or brew them together? Did you filter any number of times?

Im not sure if any of those things would effect the appearance of your brew, but maybe try setting a bit aside for a little to watch how it changes once its settled.

@CatPharm- I brewed them together. Then before bottling, I filtered out almost all of the sediment using cheesecloth, and then a pass through a funnel blocked with cotton balls. Looks about the same as yours in color. I just attached a picture to the OP.

Ive never brewed together in the same pot or combined in the same jar to know the effect on the appearance. I also havent began the search for other admixtures to compliment my brew to know how any other plants would effect it either, so theres not much experience to speak on here.

From my own experiences so far though, ive noticed that after putting more effort into filtering, even though thered still be some sediment, that color wasnt the same. Tregar has a thread in the aya section here named Black Jaguar Brewing that i just copy, or do my best to copy for a cleaner brew....needless to say that after my first encounters with an unfiltered tea, ive changed my ways since

Jupitor, looks like you filtered very well thru chessecloth then cotton balls, have no idea what the milky is, never seen before, but propts to dreaming hawaiian leaf, it's the very best, only admixture dreamed over 55 times, infinitely magical. Catpharm, thanks for referring to black jaguar brewing, glad you like a filtered brew as well. I don't like nausea or purging as I feel it detracts from the experience, so I do my best to eliminate stomach and intestinal nausea.

Now that I think about it, the milky-ness could be from putting the brew in the fridge, then a seperation could occur from the oils from the leaf, which under hot conditions tend to blend into the dark colored brew. I personally don't like to put brew in fridge, but rather to freeze right after it reaches room temp (while it is still dark colored)..it then stays that dark color when frozen as well.

There is just something about putting it in the fridge that causes stringy like oils to fall out and I just don't like the sight of the stuff, as not even cotton balls will take it out. I don't like the stomach/mind connection when viewing the fridge cooled brew as the thought of seeing the stringy oily leaf materials in the brew is a bit unsettling nausea brain connection wise to me. I prefer to see the brew either really hot and dark colored and dreamed right away or frozen in this state of homongenization ie cream, oils, etc. do not thus seperate out.

That is also the definition of homogenization as nothing tends to settle out when hot, only when fridge cold. Also when put in fridge the super dark color of the brew tends to go away, and you get a lighter colored brew with perhaps cream or (stringy creamy like oils falling out in my case) as shown like in your picture.

Try heating it up hot again and see if the creamy milky state goes away, if it does then the opposite of homogenization is what is occurring when the brew is fridge cold.

I think it might be something saturating the water and hanging in suspension. Perhaps saturated tannin in the tea.
When straining the tea, it tends to be hot or luke-warm. The strained product made just after brewing is then bottled and put in the fridge, and once it cools, there is much precipitation.
Heat the brew back up though and it turns back clear.

This has been consistent for my rue+confusa brews.

Does it keep at room temp?

Acacia bark and Psychotria viridis teas keep a lot better than rue. Reduced caapi too for that matter. They can be kept out for a few days to a week to indefinitely without doing anything visibly funky, depending on how much they've been reduced.

Rue tea seems to go bad quite quickly though. Mold will grow on the top in a matter of days if it's in a warm place, in my experience.

sorry, had not realized that you never put it in the fridge, it looked like that when hot?