Kvass from malt on rye sourdough at home

Kvass is not just a folk drink with a lot of useful properties, it is also an excellent alternative to alcohol in the midst of a sweltering summer. Kvass will refresh and quench your thirst, relieve fatigue (checked!), invigorate, set you in a positive mood. And if you still couldn’t resist and knocked over a couple of cups – a glass of kvass in the morning will come in handy, it’s not only effective, but also very pleasant to get a hangover. But there is one “but” – all of the above applies only to yeast-free kvass, which we will talk about today.

Whatever skeptics say, kvass from malt at home is easy to prepare – you just need to get confused, and we will try to provide you with a theoretical base. In general, making kvass is somewhat similar to brewing homemade beer in a very simplified version, so if you still don’t dare to brew your own ale, start with kvass, this will give you basic knowledge and skills. Today we will learn recipes for kvass from barley, rye and other malts – both fermented and green, and also find out how to make the famous monastery kvass.

Last year, your obedient servant made kvass according to the usual technology – with baker’s yeast, and was very disappointed – braga-braga, only weak. And after reading the article by Signor Gudimov about bread kvass, I was so inspired that I tried a couple of recipes and came to the unequivocal conclusion: there should not be yeast in this drink, period! The difference between yeast-based kvass and rye-based kvass is simply colossal, and even a complete layman can cook it. Well, it’s time to move on to the next, more difficult stage – to make a drink not from bread, but from malt.

Sourdough for kvass from malt on rye flour

As already mentioned, preparing homemade rye sourdough is a trifling matter. All that is needed is rye flour and water, we will not add other ingredients to the sourdough, but add them directly to the sourdough. It will take time: 2 minutes for 4 days, moreover, your sourdough will be virtually eternal – it can be updated every time you make sourdough.

1. We take 100 grams of flour and one hundred grams of water, mix well, close the jar with cling film, wrap it in a towel if desired (I do without it) and put it in a warm, dark place.
2. On the second day, the mass should begin to bubble, an unpleasant sour smell may appear – everything goes according to plan, add another 100 grams of flour and 100 ml of water to the jar, stir. The substance should have the consistency of liquid sour cream, if it is too thick – add a little water, if it is too liquid – a little flour.
3. On the third day, the mass rose, began to exfoliate, the smell became pleasant – kefir-bread. We add there another hundred of water and flour, wrap it again.
4. On the fourth day, we add flour and water to the sourdough for the last time.

On the fifth day, the sourdough is ready to be added to fermented rye malt kvass or any other kvass! Further, it is extremely simple to handle it – take as much as you need and replenish this amount with fresh flour and water, put it in the refrigerator, lactic acid bacteria will not die in the cold, but will slow down their vital activity, they will eat little by little. Before the next use, put the jar in a warm place for 2-3 hours, take as much sourdough as you need, and add more flour with water. Also, the starter needs to be fed a little every week.

Simple kvass from rye malt “back to the USSR”!

A very simple recipe, which at the end will give the very “drink of childhood”, as close as possible to Soviet draft kvass.

Preparation:

1. Fry the malt in a pan until brown, do not burn. After that, it should be crushed, ideally with a special mill, but you can use a coffee grinder, meat grinder or just a rolling pin.
2. Pour the malt into a saucepan, pour a liter of water and boil. At this stage, you can add your favorite spices, such as cumin, coriander, anise – literally half a teaspoon, as well as herbs – mint, lemon balm or others. For the first time, I would advise you to do without spices, only malt.
3. When the water boils, turn off the fire, cover the saucepan with a lid, you can even wrap it with a towel and let it cool naturally, to a temperature below 30 degrees. Hot water can kill the yeast in the sourdough.
4. In a 3-liter jar we put the starter, malt infusion along with grain, add raisins. Sourdough will start lactic acid fermentation in the drink, and raisins will start alcohol fermentation, because real kvass is a product of double fermentation. We also pour sugar into the jar and add water almost to the top, mix everything well and cover with gauze.
5. After a day, the drink must be decanted with a straw – so that the malt and sediment remain in the jar, and then skip the kvass through several layers of gauze. The sediment can be reused – pour in a new infusion of malt, sugar and wait a day.
6. Try the resulting drink. Feel free to add sugar if you want it to be sweeter. The liquid needs to be poured into plastic bottles, tightly tightened with lids and wait a couple of hours – this is necessary in order for the kvass to be gassed. You will know that the carbonization has been successful by touching the bottles – if they become hard, then you are done.
7. The last stage is keeping kvass in the refrigerator for a couple of hours.

That’s it, we made homemade kvass! This recipe is varied and versatile – if you want to make, for example, white kvass – do not roast the malt, if you want the taste to be more caramel, with hints of chocolate – the malt can be roasted stronger, until smokey. In addition, in the same way, you can prepare kvass from barley, wheat, oat malt.

Recipe for kvass from fermented rye malt

A more complex recipe based on the use of specially processed rye or barley. Fermented malt is a germinated grain that languishes at a certain temperature for a long time, as a result of which the starch in it breaks down into simple sugars. In general, this topic deserves a separate article, now we will not focus on it.

In principle, you can buy fermented malt and make kvass according to the previous recipe. But a more “truly” way is to make special kvass croutons on your own from ordinary green malt and rye flour. When they are baked, the malt saccharifies the starch from the rye, and then we caramelize the resulting sugars by frying the croutons at a high temperature.

The preparation of such kvass requires some skills in baking and – very desirable – a good oven with precise temperature control. 

How to do it:

1. From crushed malt, flour and water, knead a thick dough – like for bread. The more thoroughly you knead the dough, the more starch will then turn into sugar, which means that the tastier and more transparent the kvass will be. From the indicated amount of ingredients, 2 round loaves should be obtained.
2. In a baking dish or any suitable dish, previously greased with a thin layer of vegetable oil, put the dough, close the lid.
3. Preheat the oven to 70°C, put the mold with the dough in it and bake for one hour.
4. After an hour, raise the temperature to 170-180 °, bake bread for another three quarters of an hour.
5. Take the bread out of the oven. Inside, it will remain damp – it’s okay, it’s intended. Divide the stick into pieces of 3-4 cm – tear or cut.
6. Put the pieces on a baking sheet, heat the oven to 180 °. Bake croutons for about half an hour – until the characteristic aroma of toasted bread spreads through the kitchen. After that, be sure to turn off the fire – otherwise the crackers may deteriorate (the sugar in them will turn into dextrin). Without opening the switched off oven, stand the croutons for another half an hour.

Kvass crackers obtained in this way can be stored for quite a long time – it is not necessary to use everything at once. By the way, according to this recipe, homemade kvass from rye malt turns out better from the second batch – the sediment from the first kvass is a starter for subsequent ones.

7. Next, 300 grams of crackers are taken (if they are not enough, a third can be replaced with ordinary dry rye bread), sourdough, sugar, raisins. All this is filled with water and fermented for a day under gauze.
8. After a day, the croutons will swell and float up – they need to be taken out, the must is filtered, the taste is balanced with sugar, the kvass is poured into closed bottles, kept warm for 2 hours for carbonization, after which it is rearranged in the refrigerator. In general, everything is as in the previous recipe.

According to this recipe, kvass from fermented malt – rye or barley – turns out to be a delicate golden-pink color, its taste is richer and more delicate than ordinary malt kvass. If you want the drink to be darker and more aromatic, just add caramel syrup to it before carbonation.

Monastery kvass

Monastic kvass is probably the most popular of all kvass. In principle, it is not at all difficult to prepare it, it differs only in composition – the recipe uses apples or pears, lemon, honey and other unusual additives, due to which the original and rich taste of the drink is achieved.

Preparation:

1. Flour should be poured with a couple of cups of boiling water and mixed well, until the state of thin sour cream. Cool down.
2. Cumin (if you want, you can add other favorite spices to it) also pour boiling water, cover and let cool. After that – filter through gauze or in another way, we only need a decoction.
3. Wash the lemon thoroughly, cut the zest without touching the white “subcortex” – we take only the colored layer. Squeeze out the juice. Wash the apple too, remove the core and cut into slices, add unwashed raisins to it and pass through a meat grinder or chop with a blender.
4. Brew malt, as in the previous recipe, along with raspberry leaves.
5. Cool all the broths to room temperature, add chopped fruits, lemon zest, sourdough and honey, pour everything with water.
6. This kvass ferments longer than the previous two – up to 2 or even three days. During fermentation, you can and should try it, when you began to like the taste – the wort should be filtered, separating all solid ingredients.
7. Monastic kvass is carbonized in the same way as all the others – it is bottled into plastic bottles for 2/3 of their volume, aged under the lid until the bottles are inflated, and then sent to the refrigerator.

That’s it, our “Monastyrsky” homemade kvass from rye malt is ready!

And finally, as usual, a thematic quote from the greats:

… would you replace bohemia with a class,

the class influenced you, and there would be no time for fights.

Well, does the class fill their thirst with kvass?

Class – he is also not a fool to drink.

Mayakovsky, “To Sergei Yesenin”

Cook kvass, honor the classics!