Birch kvass at home with raisins, honey and fruits

Do not believe it, but our ancestors prepared birch kvass long before the baptism of Russia. Such a drink was called birch. Later, in the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries, slightly fermented birch sap was replaced with the familiar kvass. But the sediment remained. There are also recipes for kvass from birch sap. Here we will talk about them.

As a child, I spent a lot of time in the countryside, did not shy away from hard physical labor and learned all aspects of rural life. In the summer, when there was more work than we would like, birch kvass often helped out, which my uncle prepared every year in the amount of 100-150 liters. It was an amazing drink with dried fruits (below you will find its recipe), which perfectly quenched thirst, invigorated and gave strength. Even then I was amazed by the technology of its production – after collecting birch sap, it was poured into large enamel pots, several kilograms of home drying were poured into it and … that’s it! In this form, under gauze, he stood until the summer and nothing bad happened to him. It’s that simple!

Of course, if you want to get a decent drink, you should follow some simple rules and recommendations. That’s where I’ll probably start.

1. A high-quality birch sap drink should be prepared already at the stage of raw material procurement. There is no mystery here, the main thing is not to harm the tree, collect the juice away from the roads (the most important rule, otherwise kvass will harm the body more than rejuvenate it) and do it on time. In order not to write a lot of letters on this topic, I suggest you watch a video about the intricacies of collecting birch sap from the famous survival blogger Dmitry “Tactical”. I have no doubts about his competence in this matter:

2. Use suitable containers for fermentation – an enamel pan is just right, stainless steel will do, glass is better, an aluminum can is worse. For subsequent storage and ripening, it is optimal to use PET bottles of any size. They should not be filled completely, but the remaining air should be squeezed out. During the fermentation process, the bottle will greatly inflate from carbon dioxide (it will also act as a preservative), so you need to open it very carefully. For the same reason, you should not use glass bottles – they are more likely to break.

Juice is not the only thing that birch has given to humanity. Ash, birch bark, wood and, of course, buds are used. It is on the latter that delicious tinctures are prepared, the recipes of which you will find in this article.

3. Many recipes for birch kvass use live or dry yeast. Because of this, kvass turns out with a beer flavor, which is not good for a refreshing drink. Instead of “cultivated” yeast, you can use wild yeast, which lives at its best on good raisins. You can check the “goodness” of raisins by making a starter from it, the recipe of which is easily described in the article with recipes for raisin wines. To start fermentation, you can use both the made sourdough and the raisins tested for lice – about ½ cup per 10 liters of juice. Fermentation with raisins is less intensive, so you have to wait a couple of days longer.

The easiest to prepare is birch kvass with raisins. It is enough to strain 1,5 liters of birch sap, add 8-10 raisins and 1 tablespoon of sugar to it. All this, of course, is best stored in a PET bottle, which needs to be tightly closed (see the basic rules above) and left in a cool place until the summer. You need to open kvass very carefully, slowly bleeding off the accumulated carbon dioxide. Simple, delicious, easy. But there are a couple of much more interesting recipes.

Homemade birch kvass with dried fruits

In fact, the same kvass that I drank as a child, only the technology is a little cultivated so as not to embarrass anyone. Exceptional drink!

Strain the collected birch sap through cheesecloth and pour into a container of a suitable volume, add dried fruits and raisins. Cover the neck of the container with gauze and leave everything for a week in a dark place at room temperature. After a couple of days, fermentation should begin – a hat of dried fruits and raisins must be periodically knocked down so as not to turn sour. When the drink has a typical kvass pungency, filter it through several layers of gauze (several times) and pour into small containers for storage in a cool place. Such kvass can be drunk all summer long, it will not go bad.

Kvass from birch sap with honey and lemons

Strain the juice and pour into a container of a suitable volume. Squeeze the juice from 3-4 lemons there (you can cut all the lemons into small cubes, do not forget to pour boiling water over them and rub with a hard towel before that), add honey and mix well. Pour in the yeast, cover the container with gauze and leave for 3-4 days in a cool dark place. Strain, pour into bottles or jars, add 1-2 raisins for each 3 liter of kvass, close tightly and send to be stored in a cool place. If you use raisins instead of yeast, remember to increase the fermentation time to 4-6 days.

Homemade birch sap kvass with oranges

Pour boiling water over the oranges and grate with a waffle towel, and then cut into cubes as small as possible along with the peel. Strain birch sap into a container of a suitable volume, add chopped oranges and sugar, mix well. Add yeast, which can be fermented beforehand (or use raisins instead). At your discretion, add mint, lemon balm, oregano and other aromatic herbs (it is better to place in a canvas bag). Cover the container with gauze and leave in a warm place for 12 hours for fermentation. Strain slightly fermented kvass through cheesecloth, pour into bottles, add a couple of raisins to each of which. Store the drink in the refrigerator.

About the same birch. In Scythian times, fermented birch sap was, how should I say, a kind of low-alcohol drinks, a kind of beer without boiling or even wine. I don’t even know how much it was necessary to drink to get drunk, but it seems to me that the current generation does not drink that much. It is known that until the XNUMXth century, the tradition of preparing birch trees was preserved only in Belarus, and then disappeared there due to inappropriateness – too expensive.

They also prepare birch kvass with bread and even with malt. After looking at all the recipes on the Web, you will understand that this is ordinary bread kvass, in which water was replaced with birch sap. Since we think in this vein, it would be logical to prepare such a drink on rye sourdough and with malt, as Don Anointed wrote about in this article.

Happy spring to you, my faithful reader!