Kvass

Cloudy brown drink lightly fermented from toasted dark rye bread, poured from a jug with raisins and mint

Origin: Moscow & Russia

From the journey of Rye.

Kvass is a drink brewed from rye bread. Dark rye loaves, or rye malt and flour, are steeped in hot water, the liquid is sweetened and fermented, and the result is cloudy, brown, sharp, faintly sweet, lightly sparkling, and only barely alcoholic, usually well under two per cent. It tastes a little like a very mild, sour beer and a little like bread, and it is drunk cold, in quantity, all summer. It is very old. The Russian Primary Chronicle, compiled at Kyiv in the early twelfth century, records under the year 996 that Prince Vladimir, newly baptised, ordered carts to be driven through the city laden with bread, meat, fish, vegetables, mead in casks, and kvass in others, to be given to the sick and the poor who could not come to his court. The word itself is Slavic and meant leaven, or sourness. The drink belongs to the whole eastern Baltic and East Slavic world rather than to Russia alone. Ukrainians and Belarusians call it kvas, Latvians kvass, Estonians kali, and Lithuanians gira, and every one of those countries makes it at home and sells it commercially. In the Soviet period it was sold on street corners in summer from yellow tanker barrels on wheels, dispensed by the glass or into the customer's own jar, and that image is still the one people over a certain age associate with it. Kvass is also an ingredient. It is the liquid in which okroshka, the Russian cold summer soup, is served, and for that purpose it is made sourer and less sweet than the kvass that is drunk on its own.

Ingredients

Brew

  • 500 g dark rye bread, such as Borodinsky, sliced
  • 3 litres water
  • 1 handful fresh mint leaves (optional)
  • 100 g caster sugar
  • 0.5 tsp dried yeast

Bottling

  • 50 g caster sugar
  • 20 whole raisins

Method

  1. Lay the bread slices on baking trays and dry them in the oven at 160 °C for 25 to 30 minutes, until very dark and completely crisp, but not burnt.
  2. Bring the water to the boil. Put the toasted bread and the mint into a large pot or food-grade bucket, pour over the boiling water, cover, and leave to steep for four to six hours, until lukewarm.
  3. Strain the liquid through a sieve lined with muslin, pressing the bread gently. Stir in 100 g of sugar until dissolved.
  4. When the liquid is below 35 °C, dissolve the yeast in a cupful of it, stir it back in, cover the pot with a cloth, and leave at room temperature for 8 to 12 hours, until foaming on top and pleasantly sour.
  5. Strain again, stir in the remaining 50 g of sugar, and pour into strong plastic or swing-top bottles, leaving 5 cm of headspace. Drop three or four raisins into each bottle and seal.
  6. Leave the bottles at room temperature for four to eight hours, until plastic bottles feel firm or the raisins have floated, then refrigerate for at least 24 hours before drinking.

Notes

For kvass to serve in okroshka, halve the sugar at both stages, which gives the sharper, drier okroshechny kvas that the soup requires. A sourdough starter can replace the yeast: stir 100 g of active rye starter into the lukewarm liquid instead, and expect the first ferment to take a little longer. Kvass keeps for four or five days in the refrigerator and grows sourer as it goes. A little of the sediment from the bottom of one batch can be used to start the next.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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