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Tetragammatron
Burgeoning


Registered: 08/21/10
Posts: 1,046
Loc: There! Where? There on th...
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Birch Sap Chaga tea (& Birch Sap use in Extracts?)
#21425814 - 03/18/15 08:43 AM (8 years, 11 months ago) |
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As the Birch in my area (NWUK) have just started running, I thought it would be very good to do some simmered (Not boiled) Chaga tea using Birch sap. I also have ideas to make the water extract part of the double-extract with Birch sap as well. But I have a few questions for people who may have already done this or may know some of the science behind heating the Birch sap & Chaga.
From what I understand, when making basic Chaga tea, it's best not to boil the water (or solution) as it destroys/evaporates some of the useful compounds in the Chaga. If I'm making tea I usually add warm water and top up with cold water, keeping it on a low heat for a number of hours (sometimes days).
TEA: If I use Birch Sap for the water, and heat this up, would the beneficials in it be evoporated off during the simmer (heating phase)? would they attach to the Chaga?
EXTRACTS: When it comes to making the water extract phase for double extracts, and if I use Birch sap instead of water, how high a temperature does the reader think I can take the solution to before any beneficials from the Birch sap (Not particularly the Chaga)evaporate off?
From what I read (I have a number of medicinal mushroom books, most of the popular ones) - it may be worthwhile NOT taking the Chaga solution above 50C when making tea - this would also run true for the water extraction phase in Birch Sap - would this be correct thinking?
And one last related question - would I extract all the water-soluble compounds by NOT taking the water extracts phase above 50C, Or would I miss them at this relatively low temperature?
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WillowHarvest
LC Fan Club President

Registered: 02/22/15 
Posts: 63
Last seen: 3 years, 9 months
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Re: Birch Sap Chaga tea (& Birch Sap use in Extracts?) [Re: Tetragammatron]
#21426178 - 03/18/15 10:46 AM (8 years, 11 months ago) |
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Cool idea, I'll be interested to hear how this turns out. I've never tried it with Birch sap, so unfortunately I can't help you there, but we do use Sweet Birch Bark in some of our medicinal mushroom tea blends and it imparts great flavor and extra medicinal goodies. We do those teas in water at a low simmer (93 C) for 20 minutes and I fully realize the Chaga is not fully extracted at that point. I think you'd be hard pressed to fully extract your Chaga in sap at 50 C for any length of time. But, as you say, you may lose some of the benefits of the Birch sap at higher temps. Maybe there's a happy medium. The medicinals from the Chaga (polysaccharides, triterpenes, glyconutrients, etc.) won't begin to be lost until you reach 148 C, so I wouldn't worry about that end of it.
Edited by WillowHarvest (03/18/15 12:57 PM)
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