Chicha Recipe
From: xb-70.com/beer/chicha/ch_recip.htm
Ingredients for 3 gallons (split into two 1.5 gallon batches)
• 1.6 lbs jora
• 1 lb piloncillo (a cousin to brown sugar)
• 1/2oz curacao orange peel and 1tbs coriander (one half)
• 2 sticks cinammon, 1tsp allspice (the other half)
• Nottingham dry yeast
• OG ~1.055
Procedure
We 'mashed in' by adding our crushed jora to 2 gallons of 140F water. The water was still being heated at this point and there was no reason for chosing this temperature. The addition of the jora brought the temp of the mash down to some temperature we never knew because we didn't care because it didn't matter. We applied heat until the temperature rose to 160F. My 1/2bbl mash tun with manifold was used for this process.
The 160F rest was held for about an hour, but the mash ended up sitting for the better part of three hours while we attempted to break into a Sankey keg of Alehouse Rock (Huntington Beach, CA) Altbier which included a "quick" trip to the brewery.
Upon our return, we brought the mash up to nearly boiling and simply ran the liquor out of the mash tun into the kettle. The runoff behaved very strangely, at times slowing to a mere trickle, and others at full bore, all seemingly of its own volition. Stirring and/or heating had no effect. A lot of flour found its way into the kettle. When most of the liquor had run out of the tun, we added another 2 gallons of water, and brought the mash to a boil. These second runnings were run off into the kettle and then we repeated this step once more. The result was 5.25 gallons of wort at a specific gravity of 1.016.
At this point we split the wort into two ~2.5 gallon batches and boiled each separately.
A pound of sugar (!) in the form of piloncillo was added to each kettle once boiling was achieved. About 10 minutes from the end of the hour-long boil, we added ~1/2oz curacao orange peel and ~1tbs crushed coriander to one batch, and ~1tsp allspice and two sticks of cinammon to the other. Because of the small volumes involved, cooling was performed by immersion.
The OG was 1.055 (I think). Each batch went into a separate 5 gallon carboy (glass bottle) and a packet of Nottingham dry yeast was added to each.
Tasting
Fermentation started within four hours and was quite vigorous. Even so, a sample drawn 24 hours later was (predictably) too sweet to enjoy. I did not get a chance to taste it 2 days later, but after 3 days Dirk and I both sampled. At this point, the chicha was still actively fermenting, but had become fairly dry. I suspect that there are very few big sugars to slow things down, and if my test batch was any indication, the stuff was almost fermented out at this point. I regret not measuring the SG.
I also purchased some strawberries to try some frutillada. I popped a dozen or so 'berries in the blender, added a little chicha, and whipped it into spooge. To about 16oz of chicha I added ~1/2 cup of the 'berry mush and stirred it in. I'm here to tell ya that frutillada is heaven! The fresh berries add a little body and sweetness and are a perfect complement to the corn. It was very difficult not to gulp this treat.
The verdict was that chicha is mighty fine stuff! I admit I enjoyed my initial schooner of chicha much more than I thought I would. Frankly, my expectations were low. While the chicha was thin-bodied, it had retained some sweetness, and the spices were luckily in good balance, though the curacao/coriander batch was a little too subtle. The piloncillo appears to have contributed surprisingly little taste-wise. Obviously, the predominant taste and aroma was that of corn. Also, the giggle-factor derived from witnessing active fermentation in the glass is not to be understated. Perhaps my initial impressions are colored by how much fun I thought this culmination of several months of preparation was, but then, chicha appears to be fun stuff.
After two weeks, the chicha had fermented completely out, and I combined the remainder of each carboy (about 2 gallons total) in a short Cornelius (soda) keg. At some time during the second week, both carboys had picked up a lactic infection. One carboy spent it's entire life covered with only aluminum foil ("I thought I had seven airlocks..."), but the other did have an airlock. The source of the infection must have been my method of sampling: I'd fill my glass by pouring directly from the carboy. This must have sucked something back in that took hold. Useful knowledge to have, but I hope I'm not doomed to make only sour beer from now on.
In any case, the resulting sour chicha is wonderful! When the chicha was young, I found additions of lactic acid in the glass not to my liking. But now that the chicha is dry, and perhaps because the lactic acid was the result of a natural infection, it is perfect. It has little body, but the corn aroma and flavor are still evident. The spices are very subtle and have almost completely faded.