Kvass is an old Russian low-alcohol drink. In Rus', everyone drank it everywhere, from boyars to serfs. Even in those ancient times, there were dozens of kvass recipes. Kvass had a strength of up to 15° degrees!!! They used to say about a person who drank too much kvass and was slightly drunk: “he’s sour.” There was even a profession called kvassmaker, who was engaged in the preparation of various kvass (bread, malt, fruit, okroshka). Kvass was primarily made to quench thirst; it had a refreshing property and a pleasant taste. Kvass prepared at home turns out much tastier than store-bought, and the cost of the foamy drink is several times lower. It’s not difficult to make kvass from malt, all the ingredients are available, all you have to do is choose the appropriate recipe.

Basically, two types of malt are used in the production of kvass: fermented and non-fermented. The malt itself can be made from wheat, barley, or rye. Fermented rye malt is most often used, producing dark, sweet kvass with a bready aroma. For okroshka kvass, unfermented rye, wheat or barley malt is suitable; it produces a light drink with a characteristic sourness in taste.

Recipe for kvass from barley malt

A simple recipe for delicious kvass that will be ready in a few hours. The basis of kvass is homemade rye crackers made from flour and malt.

Ingredients:

Preparation:

1. Grind light barley malt in a coffee grinder. If there is no store-bought malt, then how to make it at home is written.
2. Mix rye flour, malt, add 400 ml of water and knead into a stiff dough. The dough must be thoroughly kneaded so that the starch from the flour dissolves better in the water. Form the dough into a kolob.
3. Grease a baking dish with oil. Place the bun in it, lightly distribute it in shape. Heat the oven to 70°C, place the pan with the dough in the oven and leave for an hour. At this temperature, starch under the action of malt enzymes will turn into sugar.
4. Increase the oven temperature to 175°C and leave for another 45 minutes.
5. Remove the baked kolob from the mold, divide it into small pieces of 3-4 centimeters. Place the pieces on a baking sheet and place in the oven for 30 minutes at 180°C, during which time the sugars caramelize, which will ultimately give the color and taste of kvass. Important! You cannot raise the temperature above 200 degrees, at this temperature you will get dextrins instead of caramel and this will spoil the taste of kvass. Let the crackers cool.
6. Pour water into the pan, add sugar, stir. Place 300 grams of prepared crackers on this amount of water. Add diluted yeast, cover the pan with a lid and leave for a day. Strain the finished kvass into bottles and leave for several hours to fill the bottles with carbon dioxide in a warm place. Then put the bottles in the refrigerator or cellar; when the kvass has cooled, you can drink it.

Recipe for rye kvass from fermented malt

The same unique kvass that we drank in childhood, with the aroma of bread and sweetness in the taste.

Ingredients:

• Water - 6l;
• Fermented rye malt -150g;
• Granulated sugar - 200 gr;
• Dry yeast - 10 gr.

Preparation:

1. Pour water into a saucepan and boil. When it cools to 50-50 degrees, add malt and stir well. Leave to infuse for 3 hours.
2. When the kvass wort has cooled to 30°C, add sugar and stir. Pour 100-150 ml and dilute dry yeast in it. After 10 minutes, add the raised yeast to the wort. Leave to ferment for 8-10 hours.
3. Strain the finished kvass, pour into plastic bottles and place in a cool place. After 3-4 hours the drink will be ready to drink.

Video recipe for making kvass:

Kvass on malt with sourdough

This is a recipe for homemade kvass without yeast, almost like the second option; instead of yeast, sourdough is used. You can read how it is prepared.

Ingredients:

• Fermented rye malt - 150g;
• Granulated sugar – 150g;
• Rye sourdough – 150 g;
• Water – 5 l.

Preparation:

1. Stir malt in warm water (50° degrees), add sugar. Leave for 2-3 hours.
2. When the wort has cooled to 25-33 degrees, add the starter and leave the container for fermentation. After 10-12 hours, filter the kvass and bottle it. Cool the bottles and you can drink kvass.

Monastery kvass recipe

Very healthy and aromatic monastery kvass, a very popular recipe among many housewives. It contains fruits, herbs, honey. This whole combination makes the taste of this drink unforgettable. And it is prepared quite simply, but a little longer than the recipes described above.

Compound:

• Rye fermented malt – 200 g;
• Rye or barley flour – 200 g;
• Rye sourdough – 2 tbsp. l.
• Apple – 1 piece;
• Lemon – ½ pc.
• Raisins – 1 tbsp;
• Honey – 50 g;
• Cumin – 1 tsp;
• Dried raspberry leaves – 15 g;
• Water – 2.5 l.

Preparation:

1. Pour 0.5 liters of boiling water into the flour, stir the mixture thoroughly until smooth. Let cool.
2. Separately, soak the cumin in boiling water and filter the cooled infusion. Wash the lemon, cut off the zest, squeeze out the juice. Cut the apple into pieces, remove the core and seeds. Instead of an apple, you can take a pear. Pass the apple slices through a meat grinder along with the raisins.
3. Pour hot water heated to 50-55°C over the malt, add raspberry leaves and leave for two hours.
4. When the wort has cooled to 30 degrees, combine all the ingredients (fruit, cumin decoction, lemon juice with zest, honey and starter) and stir.
5. Leave in a warm place to ferment for two to three days. Tests can be done to determine readiness. Strain the finished wort through a fine sieve or cheesecloth and pour into plastic bottles, leaving 2-3 cm of air in them. Wait until the bottles are filled with gas and put them in the refrigerator to cool.

There have already been reviews on beer preparation, but there haven’t been any about kvass yet, and I decided to fill this gap.

Kvass- a traditional Slavic sour drink, which is prepared on the basis of fermentation from flour and malt (rye, barley) or from dry rye bread, sometimes with the addition of fragrant herbs, honey, wax; also prepared from beets, fruits, berries. Previously, it often served as the basis for cold stews.

And not only earlier, the beloved okroshka immediately comes to mind, although it can be prepared not only with kvass, but also with whey, ayran, etc.

According to Russian GOST for industrial production, it is a drink with a volume fraction of ethyl alcohol of no more than 1.2%, made as a result of incomplete alcoholic and lactic acid fermentation of wort.

Indeed, many people make homemade kvass based on bread, and not only rye, but to be honest, I don’t like this kind of kvass for drinking, although it’s quite suitable for okroshka. According to the classic recipe and GOST, kvass is a product of not only alcoholic fermentation, but also lactic acid fermentation, but I, like many, cannot imagine how to correctly combine both of these points, so we will prepare kvass only with alcoholic fermentation based on malt extract, and also comparable to kvass based on red rye malt.

The concentrate under review is produced at the Polotsk Drinks and Concentrates enterprise from the fraternal republic of Belarus.

And it is sold in the Novopermsky Pivovar online store, delivery is carried out by Russian Post, or one of the fairly large transport companies. Personally, the transport company turned out to be the most profitable for me, delivery cost me 400 rubles, and this is the minimum tariff for this direction, and it is the same for 5 kg from my first order and for 30 kg from my second order, delivery time is within a week.

Kvass is supplied in canisters with a volume of approximately 3.3 liters, which contain 4 kg of concentrate, or in sealed plastic ones and the price is 157 rubles.
The first time I ordered a concentrate to try in a bag (unfortunately I didn’t take a photo), I liked it and ordered a canister.

A few words about the composition:
brewing barley malt - 50%,
fermented rye malt - 42%,
unfermented rye malt - 3%,
triticale-5%.
The composition is completely natural, barley malt is roughly speaking sprouted and dried barley grain, unfermented rye malt is similar to rye grain, and fermented rye malt is additionally subjected to a fermentation process, as a result of which it gets its red color, specific aroma and taste, and is used in including when baking Borodino bread. The ingredient that raised the most questions was called triticale, but it turned out that it was just a hybrid of wheat and rye.

I believe that kvass concentrate, like any malt brewing extract, is prepared by boiling the wort with all the necessary temperature breaks, and then evaporating excess water. The concentrate is quite sweet in its pure form, so no additional preservatives are required, and it can be stored in a cool place without fear of it turning sour or moldy.

Perhaps that's enough poetry, let's start cooking. The manufacturer gives, for drinking and for okroshka, in the first case, 50 g of concentrate and 35 g of sugar per 1 liter of water are used, in the second case, 100 g of concentrate per 1 liter of water. I’ll say right away that I tried to make it according to the second recipe, I didn’t particularly like it, so we prepare 2 liters of kvass according to the first recipe.
Take scales and an empty mug:

Pour 100g of concentrate (by the way, it is dark brown, the consistency is similar to liquid honey):

Add 70g sugar:

Place in a saucepan with 2 liters of clean water and bring to a boil:

Cool to 30 degrees:

Add a few grams of yeast, carefully scattering it over the surface of the wort:


I use these, which were left over from buying a moonshine still, but this is unimportant, I used both regular Pakmaya baker’s yeast and liquid brewer’s yeast, I didn’t notice a fundamental difference in taste, the only thing is that this yeast probably ferments faster:

After which we cover the pan with gauze (or a colander, as I do), let it ferment for 12 hours (I usually leave it overnight), then pour the kvass into bottles and let it ferment to saturate the drink with carbon dioxide (carbonation) for a few more hours, after which we put it in refrigerator, and you can drink.
I warn you right away: carbonation is very strong, if you immediately unscrew the cap, then you are guaranteed a fountain :-) so carefully release the pressure by slightly opening the bottle cap and pour it into a glass:

I really liked this version of kvass, dark color, velvety taste, very different from kvass prepared with bread crusts, close to store-bought kvass, but not so sweet, or rather almost not sweet at all, so I advise sweet lovers to add sugar during the bottling process , and reduce the carbonation time, but since sugar is food for yeast, I can offer an alternative sweetening option - add, in theory, yeast should not eat stevioside, I added a teaspoon per 2 liters, this light sweetness is enough for me.

Now for a little math.
According to information from the website, 1 kg of concentrate is enough for 10-20 liters of kvass, depending on the recipe, respectively, 4 kg is enough for 40-80 liters. Let's calculate the cost for the most expensive option - 1 kg bag per 10 liters of kvass: 157 rubles for concentrate, 400 rubles for delivery, 15 rubles for a bag of baker's yeast, plus water and gas for heating, totaling about 60 rubles for 1 liter of real live kvass, which is comparable to the prices of store-bought kvass kvass. But, of course, you shouldn’t do this, let’s calculate the cost for a 4kg 80l canister: 457 rubles for concentrate, 400 rubles for delivery, 150 rubles for 3kg sugar, 50 rubles for a pack of yeast, plus again water and gas. As a result, we get less than 15 rubles for 1 liter of kvass, which in my opinion very profitable .

For comparison, let's try to prepare kvass based on it for 68 rubles.


Take half a glass of malt:

Sugar:

3 liters of water with a temperature of 50 degrees:

Mix the ingredients, leave to cool, add yeast, bottle and cool. Everything is similar to the recipe with kvass concentrate.
For this kvass, I used a square pet bottle, it swelled up funny, after which it stopped being square, even the bottom squeezed out:

When bleeding off the excess carbon dioxide, the presence of malt sediment immediately catches the eye, which, although I tried to filter out when bottling the kvass, it still got there:

Pour into a glass and try:

You can immediately see that the color is not so dark and rich, the taste is also unique, the leaven sediment gives off a burnt taste. In general, I didn’t like this kvass, although the price is about 2 times more profitable than the concentrate. There is a lot of sediment left at the bottom of the glass:

Well, for the complete set, we will test rye malt purchased at the nearest market at a price of about 20 rubles per 1 kg:

The preparation process is similar to the previous one, so we will limit ourselves to a photograph of kvass in a glass:

I liked this malt kvass better, there is no burnt aftertaste, overall the taste is not bad, but perhaps a little sweet, IMHO you need to add less sugar. Of the minuses - again, sediment.

Results: I personally really liked the kvass from this concentrate. Simple, tasty and inexpensive.
I don’t recommend malt from this store, it’s better to look offline.