My local vendor just got his Caapi bark in after a 2 month wait, but instead of getting in 1kg of shredded bark, he received 4 big hunks of whole vine!! The smallest piece is 160g, and neither he nor I know what to do with it. We could pound on it with rocks traditional-style for days on end, but frankly, I have better things to do than blister my hands into balloons and devote countless hours to a boulder and piece of bark (no disrespect intended).

So what on earth do i do? I haven't bought it yet, but I don't want to wait another 2 months for shredded bark - and besides, if his supplier (who usually ships shredded) sent him the chunks for the first time ever, presumably it is because he has no shredded...

Any ideas?

JBArk

depending on the vine a hammer can be quite easy to break up the vine. i just found out that different variety's and how it was dryed and cured has a lot to do with the effort needed to break up the vine into nice frizzy shreds.

my yellow vine from hp takes over an hour to prepare 325g. it doesnt really want to break up at all. while my white vine from maya practically fall apart into shreds after 4-5 whacks. i just prepared 325g in about 15 min.

take a towel and wrap the vine piece in it and pound up and down the vine. you will figure out a method pretty quick. just think shreds not chunks or sticks.

I can hammer two kilos of the toughest vine in 2-3 hours. A heavy hammer works best. A friend let me borrow this giant mason's sledgehammer once and it was awesome.

Energy in = energy out. Do it with intention and for sure the brew will be quite powerful!

what about pulverizing the vine into a powdery material (or just a bit coarser than that) by using one of those powerful blenders?

Has anyone ever tried that? I witnessed someone accidentally put a piece of cutlery through a 3-horsepower blender and it was definitely grounds for ear protection.

(Blender: 1, Spoon: 0 )

The piece is about 2-3 inches in diameter and 6 inches long and about as hard as oak. Can this be shredded that easily? All of you make it sound like a piece of cake... Judging by its hardness, it would brake the blades of any blender I know of (that is if it would even fit in...)!

I guess I'll buy it and try the hammer method, but I am not too hopeful...

BTW it is a chuck of yellow caapi vine.

Thanks,

JBArk the hammer

If you can get it into smaller pieces a blender does indeed chop vine up very well. I have done this many times. I once did over a a kilo this way and it worked wonderfully. I used a hammer to break it up as ms minxx stated and then into the blender. The chunk of vine I had was about four to five inches in diameter and about 14 inches long. It was about 1400 grams.

yup, it looks like a smaller version of that ^^^^^^^ !

Well, I feel reassured. Boy, was I disappointed when I rushed down there after a 2 month + wait to come face to vine with a veritable branch... But if you managed OK with 1.4 kg, I should probably be able to handle 165g

JBArk

PS - blender or coffee grinder?

Coffee grinder does work better

this one, it pulverizes ice cubes...it's not your tyical $25 Wal-Mart thing. It is used in numerous bars and restaurants, and runs several hundred dollars (depending on the package you get) at places like Costco (see Costco.com and vitamix.com). They sure are handy in the kitchen and definitely entheogenic research labs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vita-Mix

Sledgehammer/hammer and get to work.

Ms_machio_minxx

Ohh you're sooo awesome

Hammer always works for me. I never use shredded vine anymore. I also find that powedering the vine makes no difference..although I tend to brew for up to a week a few hours each day..bashing it up into shreds seem easily enough for sufficient brewing. Good luck jbark.

Once the pieces are small enough to break apart by hand, it also REALLY helps to hold them with two hands, twisting in opposite directions, so the threads break apart and it frays.

I used to be the victim of this technique all the time on the schoolbus as a child, it was called "Indian Sunburn."

That Caapi vine is a NURRRRRRRD and it doesn't have any more lunch money.

Does anyone really have that much success with blending the vine? I almost ruined a hardcore food processor once by trying to powder some hammered vine shreds. The thin shreds got wound up in the blade assembly a few times in a row.

HAHAHA!!! That's what happens when you are smarter than everyone else.

Thanks all - i will buy the "LOG" and smash the daylights out of it with a hammer and a towel, then maybe coffee grind it (or not, if I am fed up!) and report back.

And ya ms_manic_minxx, energy in = energy out, so I will get to work energizing that bark!! I don't want it to be TOO strong though, or i might see sexy naked men lotus positioned in clouds, and that might kinda freak me out...

Cheers,
JBArk

The whole fresh cielo vine SWIM got was super duper tough stuff. It wasn't that thick in diameter, but very very tough. SWIM couldn't easily break it in it's whole form with a normal hammer. He had to use the back end of the hammer to split it up into several pieces. There were basically 5 crevices in it and he could split it there and then it would be thinner and the hammer would more easily flatten it and then could do the twist method minxx mentioned and then hand pull the bark apart. SWIM kept the shreds as long as the vine pieces came in for the most part, only very thin. I'm sure SWIM will get better at it, but it took him 3-4 hours for 250g of vine. It was the first time.

Boy, now I feel foolish!! I went ahead and bought the 165g piece (at a discount! (is 20 bucks a good price?I am guessing YES!)), figuring I had at least a couple of hours of hammering ahead of me...

I wrapped it in a towel and began striking it with an ordinary steel hammer on my stone basement floor, AND...

within ten minutes I had pulverized it into thin strands and dust, loaded it all into a ziplock bag, cleaned up and thrown the towel into the wash!!

I guess I got an easy piece. It really looked and felt like it was as solid as a knotted oak log, but came apart like red licorice strands! Mmmmmmm... Now I just need to brew.

Any advantage to powdering it? I read your aya thread ms_manic_minxx (great BTW!), but it makes no mention of powdering, so I am guessing it is superfluous.

JBArk the smiley bark & vine cracker