Okay... Here's the tried-and-tested recipe for success!
Acidify distilled or RO water with 1 tbsp vinegar per 1 liter of water (or try to get pH 3). Never use lemon. Never use anything other than white distilled vinegar, or you will pay for it with your tongue.
Caapi and Chali can be cooked together, but for sake of limited materials and efficiency, I like to cook them separately, and drink the admixture 15-20 minutes after the vine.
Smudge the kitchen. 8)
Submerge your materials in water, in stainless steel spaghetti pots, and bring to a boil. Keep the heat at a setting where it just begins to boil. Add more water to keep the materials covered as it starts to cook off. All the while, please immerse yourself fully in the cooking, state intentions, ask her questions, get a dialogue going. Caapi can get angry if you turn your back on her (especially in the reductions phase, yikes!!).
After 3 hours, have spare spaghetti pots available. Cover one with a cotton t-shirt, and pour the liquid off your brew into the second pot. This will be saved for reductions.
Cover your materials with water again, and cook for another 3 hours, finishing with a filter.
Repeat this process one more time, for a total of 3x3 washes.
I have found no noticable increase in potency for cooking longer than 9 hours. I HAVE found decreases in potency when cooking for shorter periods of time or using less vinegar.
Combine all the filtered brew, and cook down to desired consistency (more pots with big circumferences mean faster reduction time). If I cook 1 kilo of vine, I would reduce to ~10oz of brew. The thicker it is, the better and longer it stores.
Also, take care to find the smallest/most fitting jar, and sterilize it before adding the vine. I like to let it decant for 24 hours before drinking.
Just for the sake of information, this recipe works great with Mimosa, as well. BUT, Mimosa HAS to be cooked seperately, and it MUST decant for at least 1 day and then get filtered through cheesecloth/pantyhose, because a black oily sludge will fall to the bottom that you do NOT want to drink!! (It just makes you ill.
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Also, for the 3x3 cook, you can take a break between washes, if life gets too demanding (e.g., can't stay up all night cooking for ~12 hours, after work, if you have to work again in the morning). There is no harm in letting your materials soak in acidified water a bit before cooking.
Happy brewing!!
