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Home Cooked Hemp - How should it look!!

M

Michael Hall

Senior Member
I have just received a bag of CC More hemp seeds to cook at home and have now cooked my first batch, but am unsure if I have ended with the right result.

I put 5 kg of seed into a cool box and covered it with boilig water, added some bicarb of soda and closed the lid and left it for 24 hours. When I loooked at the result I would say about 20% of the seeds had turned black and split with the white 'tongue' visible, the rest of the seeds were soft with some black and some brownish.

The prepared hemp you can buy in the shops (bait tech or sonubait) looks great, nice black seeds, all split with the white 'tongue' showing.

I wasnt happy with mine so I took some of it and cooked it further in a pressure cooker but the end result was still the same, some black and split but alot very soft but not split.

Is this still OK to use like this? Does it matter that not all of it has split? It it just a case of me being paranoid at the perfect looking prepepared stuff? or does it need cooking further?

Appreciate your views, cheers

Michael
 
whereas you put yours straight into boiling water for 24 hours, you should really soak it in cold water for 24 hours-drain, then place in boiling water for 24 hours, placing in the cold water obviously softens the seeds ready for the boiling water!
 
I soak for 24 hours then boil till im happy with the split, i add bi carbonate of soda at the boiling stage and get jet black perfect hemp. Allot of people like to add salt to their hemp nowdays but dont do this till the seed had split otherwise it prevents this happening. Hemp will struggle to split when it is not fresh, the way to check if its fresh is to crush a couple of unsoaked grains of hemp between your fingers, if the hemp leaves a oily film on your finger tips the hemp is fresh.
 
Soak for a minimum of 24hours I have had hemp on the soak for a couple of weeks and after that time it splits nice and quickly, just make sure you open a window if you cook it inside as it stinks! Bring to the boil and simmer for 40 minutes or less. I have never worried about a percentage not splitting to be honest, why would you? I don’t add anything to the hemp during preparation as I don’t feel you benefit from it. Work on the principle of increasing soaking time to decrease the cooking time. :)
 
It's been said before that Fred Crouch just soaked his hemp overnight, no cooking. He reckoned that the Barbel don't care if it's split, you only need to split them if you are using them on the hook. I believe he caught a few barbel.
 
Andy Millichamp said:
It's been said before that Fred Crouch just soaked his hemp overnight, no cooking. He reckoned that the Barbel don't care if it's split, you only need to split them if you are using them on the hook. I believe he caught a few barbel.
Click to expand...

Not sure this method is safe; not cooking it. I soak 12 pints for 3-4 days, bring it to the boil for 10 mins then place in a cooler box overnight. From this i generally get around 20 pints which should last a session or 2.
 
I soak the day before cooking. I simply cover with boiling water and cover the bucket with foil. It does the job and I don't have to stink out the kitchen like in the old days. TBH the barbel don't care as much as the angler. Split or not split they will still eat it so does it really matter?
 
Have to agree with the point above that there seems to be a lot of hemp around which is well past it's best i.e refuses to split and is brown inside.
 
Cc moores hemp is good stuff and doesn't sit on the shelves long.

It doesn't have to split, in fact you could argue that boiling it to smithereens makes it less effective.

Use with confidence.
 
i like keep the water from my home cooked to mix my groundbait with. either in a container kept cool for a day or three, or frozen & then thawed the day before i need it.
 
sounds like I'm the only one who doesnt soak it. I just put a couple of pints in a big saucepan, bring it to the boil, then simmer it on a slow rolling boil for about an hour. I then drain it (saving the boiling water) bag it up and if not using it in the next couple of days, freeze it.

Always have about 30-40% split with the white shoot showing.

I put the boiling water ( ie the water I boiled the hemp in, not water which is actually boiling) in an empty plastic milk botle then store it in my bait fridge. I then mix it with my feeder mix instead of river water. I have used it up to 2 weeks old, but I always have a good sniff to see if it is smelling sour. usually stay ok for 2 weeks if kept in a 2deg fridge

seems to work OK
 
Soak for 24 hours in the burco baby 20 ltr boiler with a little sea salt then bring to boil[roughly 20 mins]then simmer for about 20 or so minutes,let it cool down add some extra oil[sometimes other extras]and bag up and put in freezer.perferct every time but still cant catch me a fish[ha ha ha]

titmuss hemp everytime.

P

mh
 
I dont bother with all that fuss, I just buy it prepared and its cheaper than CC Moore's unprepared stuff.
 
Mark is that frozen or tinned??
 
When its split it does look like the small water snails that form a large part of the natural diet in some rivers, unsplit it looks like lots of insect pupa; so visually, if you think visual is that important to barbel feeding, it doesn't really matter. However I am given to understand that if undercooked they can be undigested and that may not be good news for the fish. Not so sure on that one, as fish, particularly Barbel, take in loads of gravel and other stuff when feeding, they seem to just eject this without problem, so why hemp would be any different....
I like mine to look shiny, black and split; but I don't think it makes much difference. I soak without salt overnight. Pressure cook it for 10 mins or so. Leave it off the hob until cooled. Rinse under cool water and then add salt. Works as long as the hemp is decent quality, some is rubbish, in which case mash it up and add it to a feeder as an attractant.
If all this is too much bother, Dragon carp , do 2.5 Kg buckets, ready prepared and PVA bag friendly. I tried some and it is good stuff. Less hassle by far.
 
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