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No Substitute
Apparently a hot, black, grain- and molasses-based beverage can’t compete among today’s jazzy energy drinks and highfalutin specialty coffees, so Kraft Foods has discontinued Postum, the century-old coffee substitute invented by C.W. Post.
And that would be well and good in our fickle always-something-new society, except that one group of people was still enjoying Postum—Mormons.
According to the Deseret Morning News, Mormons (who are prohibited from drinking caffeinated beverages) are heavy Postum users, often beginning their appreciation of it in childhood.
Needless to say, many are up in arms. The comments section for this three-year-old post by blogger Jeff Werner seems to be where many are expressing the seven stages of discontinued product grief, with some calling for a mass boycott of Kraft.
Devotees of this recipe are said to be frantically searching for a Postum substitute.
Posted by | Thursday, January 3, 2008 at 9:12am | 20 comments
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OK, here's an opportunity for someone to fill a niche: buy the rights and recipe and go into production.
Inka coffee subsitute would likely do - my Dad loves this. You can get it here in Canada at various polish stores and health food stores.
http://www.inkacoffee.com/index2.htm
I'm the owner of the blog in your first link. Since I wrote that post I get hits from people searching for Postum multiple times a week, but the hits really started to pick up about a month ago. Now the internet thinks I'm one of the world's leading Postum experts.
Oddly, I quit drinking the stuff after about a week because I got sick of it. I gave my 4/5's full jar of Postum to my sister a week or two back.
Pero and Cafix are very similar to Postum. They are all natural caffeine free grain beverages. They can be found in natural and organic retailers such as Whole Foods. Check them out online at www.internaturalfoods.com.
I can't believe Kraft in their infinite wisdom would yank the plug on a healthy, low calorie, naturally caffeine free coffe alternative that apparently had a huge share of the coffee substitute market. I hope it turns into their "New Coke" marketing strategy.
Doctor's orders, I am down to just one cuppa joe in the morning to jump start my nervous system. Postum is (or was) the only drink with the "body" of coffee. I have tried Pero, Roma, and a couple other substitutes, but they taste terrible.
I hope Kraft at least has the good business sense to sell the rights to a smaller company. They may not want to bother with a niche market, but I think Postum would make an incredible cash cow for a smaller company.
I am researching making Postum in small batches at home. I figure C.W. Post probably started with small batches for his sanitarium, made in an 1895 commercial kitchen, so it should be possible.
Three of the four ingredients are available in health food stores, the other one, maltodextrin is a modified starch used commercially. While Maltrin is available in retail quantities, (Body builders use it as a supplement) it probably wasn't in Post's original formula.
I have a good idea how to proceed, and just need to work out the exact proportions. I am interested in hearing from others who are trying to duplicate the Postum recipe.
Here's the procedure I will start with:
1. Mix together cracked wheat and wheat bran
2. stir in molasses, allow to set for awhile so the grains absorb\ the moisture from the molasses.
3. Spread on a cookie sheet, and roast at a low temperature (around 300 F)
4. When the grains are roasted, process in a coffee grinder to get the right granule size. ( I may have to add some kind of starch at this point)
I still have to work out the proportions of all the ingredients.
Anyone else who is experimenting, or has information on the formula or manufacturing process please contact me. I promise to post all results on this page.
ohb0b@comcast.net
I just made two quarts of my version of Postum this morning. I'm a chef, so I looked at the label, looked at the online recipes and developed my own very good alternative. I'm not going to sell it because I use it as an alternative to coffee for health reasons. Coffee, chocolate, tea, and barley malt all block iron absorption because of the high tannin content. I almost died of severe anemia last year, so I started drinking postum because Pero and all of the other substitutes have barley malt.
Here is my recipe:
Make sure you have at least 6 hours to do this. I do it on my day off.
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F
4 cups wheat bran
2 cups cracked wheat ground in coffee grinder to corn meal consistency. Grind before mixing with molasses so it doesn't gum up the grinder. Use an automatic burr mill because it does a fabulous job and it's FAST! This is the one I own. http://www.amazon.com/Cuisinart-DBM-8...
1 cup black strap molasses
combine all of the above ingredients in a bowl and mix well with your hands. make sure the grain and bran are well combined and that the molasses is thoroughly mixed into the grain/bran mix. This will take about 5-10 minutes to make sure there are no pockets of molasses and that it looks like dark very damp sawdust. Spread this mixture on two baking sheets with rims and put in the oven. Stir mixture every 20 minutes for about 5 hours, or until the mixture is a very deep dark mahogany. Don't try to toast this in a hotter oven because it will burn. This is a recipe that requires patience in order to caramelize the molasses, and not burn it. When you open the oven to stir it you will notice a very slight smokiness during the last hour and a half. This is alright.
Remove the baking sheets from the oven and cool on wire racks stirring occasionally to release heat faster.
To prepare: This is not instant and needs to be brewed the same as coffee, or steeped as you would tea.
The ratio is 2 Tablespoons mix per cup of water.
If you need to make this for the carob postum cooler, I suggest making a cup of this mix, then putting it into a sauce pan and reducing it on high to medium high heat until ithere are about 2 TBSP left in the pan. Yes, that may seem like a lot of work, but I do things like that all the time and it only takes about 10 to 15 minutes. Just keep a close eye on it and be ready to put in an ice cube if you reduce it too far. It will bring it back to the amount you need and cool the mix at the same time. Swirl the cube around the pan a couple of times until you have the amount you need.
Hey Toffee!
Sounds like you came up with a similar to the one I have been trying.... only I didn't leave it in the oven long enough.
I had tried 3 cups bran, one cup cracked wheat(run through a coffee grinder) and 2 Tbsp. molasses, but I think it was too much molasses. I want to try your proportions. How much molasses are you using?
Also, what temperature oven?
I also found if I add a quarter cup of water, it helps disperse the molasses. You just have to bake it longer to evaporate the water.
I also noticed I had to use 2-3 tablespoons, and it didn't dissolve completely, I had what looked like brown farina in the bottom of the cup. I ate it, and it tasted good.
I am going to try a different method this weekend. I am going to add a little cornstarch, and boil the mixture first, like making porridge.
Then I will bake the porridge (Like polenta, or "corn meal mush.")
after it is baked, I will run the "cake" through a food processor. Maybe I can acheive something that will dissolve a little better.
Please reply with the amount of molasses and the oven temperature.
Thanks, BoB
Hey Toffee!
Sounds like you came up with a similar to the one I have been trying.... only I didn't leave it in the oven long enough.
I had tried 3 cups bran, one cup cracked wheat(run through a coffee grinder) and 2 Tbsp. molasses, but I think it was too much molasses. You are using twice as much molasses as I tried.
Also, what temperature oven?
I also found if I add a quarter cup of water, it helps disperse the molasses. You just have to bake it longer to evaporate the water.
I also noticed I had to use 2-3 tablespoons, and it didn't dissolve completely, I had what looked like brown farina in the bottom of the cup. I ate it, and it tasted good.
I am going to try a different method this weekend. I am going to add a little cornstarch, and boil the mixture first, like making porridge.
Then I will bake the porridge (Like polenta, or "corn meal mush.")
after it is baked, I will run the "cake" through a food processor. Maybe I can acheive something that will dissolve a little better.
Thanks, BoB
I used 1 cup of molasses. That is what gives it the lower notes. It isn't sweet any more if you keep it in the oven long enough. The oven is 300 degrees F
The only way you can make an instant beverage is if you have a freeze dryer. You would have to brew all of the "postum" then freeze dry it.
Another thing you can do is take the mix after it is finished in the oven, brew it like you would for regular coffee, then put it in a pan and reduce it to a concentrate.
If you make 8 cups of coffee, reduce it to 1 cup and then all you need to do is put 2 Tbsp of the concentrate into your cup and add boiling water.
Does this make sense to you?
BoB, I just read what I wrote and I want you to know I wasn't trying to be a smart alec, I was just trying to make sure I explained myself well enough.
I am going to try a different method this weekend. I am going to add a little cornstarch, and boil the mixture first, like making porridge.
Then I will bake the porridge (Like polenta, or "corn meal mush.")
after it is baked, I will run the "cake" through a food processor. Maybe I can acheive something that will dissolve a little better.
_______________________________________________________
I want to discourage you from making a porridge. If you cook the ground wheat, bran and molasses with corn starch you are going to get a gummy mess. What is going to happen is that the protein in the wheat will start to form gluten strands and you can end up with a very gritty ball of rubber. Rice and corn meal don't have much if any gluten, and they are very starchy, so the starch gets between any protein strands in the grains and acts as a barrier so they can't bind up. Unfortunately with wheat, the gluten is so high that it will bind. Also when you cook starch it becomes gelatinous and completely changes structure. It gets gluey and smeary, then it will get hard and brittle when dried. It will not be what you want.
Try my measurements
4 cups bran
2 cups ground wheat (cornmeal consistency)
1 cup molasses
Put the wheat and bran into a food processor and slowly drizzle in the molasses until completely combined. Then bake in a 300 degree oven stirring every 20 minutes for about 5 hours. Rotate the pans several times during baking.
I just got banned from the Kraft Foods Site. They won't accept my posts because they "violate community standards"
Here is the Post I tried to get on their Postum thread:
OK Folks, we need to quit complaining here, and start getting the word out.
FOX News, NPR, and the New York Times all have contact forms to suggest a story.
I have also filled out customer request forms at Safeway, Albertson's and Kroger, asking them to tell their buyers and wholesalers to put the screws to Kraft.
I plan on filling out the forms at Wal-Mart, Rite-Aid, Walgreens, PCC Natural Markets, and all the smaller grocery and drug store chains.
You may also want to contact grocery wholesalers like Associated Grocers or Saia.
We need to let all these people know there is a market out there.
We need to create enough fuss that they see the error of their ways.
As I have suggested before, if you know of any smaller fodd processors who might be interested in buying the rights to Postum, you also need to let them know.
So, get those card and letters in the mail.
So, if anyone out there doesn't care if they get banned or not, please copy and paste this on to the Postum thread at "Ask Kraft Kitchens."
Thanks,
ohb0b
In the 70's I got introduced to Postum while traveling with the College Choir. A nice retired couple hosted 4 of us in their home near Bronksville. Their evening buffet included Postum, a drink I had never tried. It was the instant kind and they made it fairly strong, serving it with heavy cream and sugar. I told my parents about it when I was home on break from school, and I guess they tried it/liked it. From then on, there was always a jar on their kitchen counter.
In the 80s my dad gave me a container of Postum for drip coffee makers. What I remember was that it was roasted barley STRAW. Little rectangular pieces of barley straw with their edges all browned. Along with that were distributed brown lumps that had a sweet molasses flavor. The idea was to measure this into the brew basket of a drip coffee maker and brew like coffee.
I'm not sure where Mr Post got the idea but its just another case of taking a poor-man's homebrew replacement and turning it into a profitable product. I have always heard it was originally developed on the Prairie to enjoy like coffee when coffee beans were too expensive or too far away.
So, this is all you need to make postum: Barley Straw and molasses. If you roast your straw, you probably can just add the molasses after you brew. It might make a difference if you drizzle the molasses over it before roasting. I would also try dark corn syrup or sourghum. I would make sure you get food-grade straw as there could be some thats treated for decroative purposes. In the spririt of the Pioneers, you could try any other straw to vary the flaor: Wheat or oat might also be available.
Follow-up I should make is that it must be Wheat Straw I saw in the can. Someone on another thread posted the ingredients: Wheat Bran, Wheat straw, molasses, maltodextrin. That last was used to keep the instant from absorbing water and turning to a solid lump in the jar, I think.
So, toasted wheat bran and straw drizzled with molasses, or dark corn syrup and you probably get close. Roast it and then steep it (farmhouse coffee style) or use a drip brewer. A french press would also be interesting, if you have one.
I wouldnt actually attempt to make postum myself, as for one you might end up with a gummy mess and the other possibility is that the long baking process could release this acrylamide in the air that you are breathing in your kitchen....
Please think about this
Eva
It has taken me a while , but I have finally given up on the idea of Postum...I was an everyday user too. but I can get used to the idea of a nice cup of hot tea occasionally and just try to drink more water , which is the purest thing you can most likely drink. And I think that every once in a while I will have a nice brewed cup of folgers with my husband...a cup once in a while wont hurt me....and I understand that the brewed kind of coffee's do not have but a smidget of this acrylamide chemical in it...
Hey
I am actually starting to get used to Pero or Cafix...I am starting to look forward to drinking them...
I recommend that anyone that liked postum to try them...and dont give up after the first taste... give it a few weeks
:-)
Has anyone tried Celestial Seasonings 'Roastaroma"? Personally, I enjoy it and it's much cheaper than, say, Roma. But, to each their own.
Postum Fans,
I have solved our Post-Postum problem! (Actually, my Japanese girlfriend has solved it and I'm merely reporting it to you.)
We found a Polish product called INKA Instant Grain Beverage that is about as close to the taste of beloved Postum as one can imagine.
It is truly delightful.
A little research yielded the fact that it is imported into the US by a firm in Brooklyn, called Adamba Imports.
Details below:
New York Office
585 Meserole St.
Brooklyn, NY 11237
phone:718.628.9700
fax: 718.628.0920
www.adamba.com