Morning Glory Seeds

[coop]

I got a load of organic wheat in and it appears to have morning glory buds and or seeds in it. Will this have any effect on fermentation or starch production in my mash? Coop

[Gwydion Stone]

I don't know if it'll have an effect on fermentation or starch production, but if there's enough of it it'll have an effect on the brain of anyone who consumes it. Morning glory seeds contain an ergoline alkaloid, Lysergic Acid Amide (LSA) which is very similar to Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD), and many people do use them as a recreational drug.

It's doubtful in the extreme, though, that there would be enough in your mash to have any perceptible effect. I don't know if the stuff would even survive distillation, but considering how picky the TTB and FDA are about adulterants, I thought it would be worth knowing about. Read about it here.

[coop]

I don't know if it'll have an effect on fermentation or starch production, but if there's enough of it it'll have an effect on the brain of anyone who consumes it. Morning glory seeds contain an ergoline alkaloid, Lysergic Acid Amide (LSA) which is very similar to Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD), and many people do use them as a recreational drug.

It's doubtful in the extreme, though, that there would be enough in your mash to have any perceptible effect. I don't know if the stuff would even survive distillation, but considering how picky the TTB and FDA are about adulterants, I thought it would be worth knowing about. Read about it here.

There is only about 1/2 to 1/4 table spoon per 350# of grain. I just wondered if the strychnine might be killing the yeast cells. Coop

[eggfarmdistillery]

There is only about 1/2 to 1/4 table spoon per 350# of grain. I just wondered if the strychnine might be killing the yeast cells. Coop

There is a very good chance that if you check with your grain source you are dealing with buckwheat seeds that look a lot like morning glories. Organic farmers commonly use buckwheat in their green manure rotations and the buckwheat

easily establishes and is sometimes hard to "clean" from the grain. One of the older distilling references refers to buckwheat as a workable but inferior fermentable "grain" event though it's not truly a grain. Not sure of effect on yeast, though.

Even if they were morning glory seeds, it takes about 100-200 morning glory seeds to be psychoactive for a 70kg person anyway and they don't really have strychnine, though rumored to in the sixties.

The other common field weed would be hedge bindweed but the seeds are much smaller.

Hope that helps.

Aaron