There are plenty of drinks to quench your thirst on a hot day. A worthy place among them is kvass. This drink has always been popular and in demand.
Kvass not only helps to refresh in the summer heat. The components it contains contribute to the improvement of the condition with reduced immunity, avitaminosis and dysbacteriosis.
Today kvass filled shelves of stores, sell the drink in the open air. This is not bad if it were not for one “but”: purchased kvass can be dangerous. Unscrupulous manufacturers add to the drink a lot of harmful chemical elements that simply mimic the taste of the drink. It is not known what kind of water they use in their production: clean or from the tap.
Therefore, it is better not to risk it and cook the kvass yourself. Moreover, the technology is quite simple. It will make it easy and fun to make kvass tasty and healthy.
Dark Kvass - General Cooking Principles
Kvass is made from the simplest ingredients: bread crackers, fruits, vegetables and berries. Dried fruits, malt, yeast are also used. In the drink, you can add odorous herbs, honey.
For dark kvass, rye bread is most often used.
It must be cut into small pieces and dried for a few minutes in the oven, preheated to 160-180 degrees. Crackers need to be well roasted. They must have an intense brown color to convey a dark shade of kvass.
We can not allow the crackers to burn. Otherwise, we get kvass with a bitter taste.
Then you can start cooking sourdough. For this process, you will need a clean liter jar, crackers, yeast, water, and sugar.
Use need boiling water. This is done in order to pull out the color of the crackers and get a dark brew.
There are recipes for making kvass dark at home without a leaven. They involve the use of yeast and chicory, or yeast and kvass wort concentrate. Kvass ripens for several days in a dark place at room temperature. Then it needs to be filtered and poured either into bottles or into a jug.
Dishes with a drink must be kept in the refrigerator.
To make kvass, you will need a large glass container, cotton napkins or gauze, a sieve and a long wooden spoon.
The water used in the cooking process must be either boiled or purified.
Recipe 1. How to make kvass dark at home
Ingredients:
• half of rye bread;
• seven table l. sugar;
• pinch of dry yeast;
• a handful of raisins;
• water.
Preparation:
- First you need to make a sourdough.
- Slice the rye bread into small pieces and dry in the oven to an intense brown color.
- In a liter jar pour three handfuls of crackers, add two tablespoons of sugar and pour boiling water over half of the jar.
- We get gruel from bread. The consistency of it should be neither thick nor liquid.
- After the bread mixture has cooled, pour dry yeast into it. Stir again.
- Cover the jar with a light cotton towel. Leave in a warm room for a couple of days. At this time, inside the pot is fermented.
- Gas is emitted and there is a leavening smell. He's quite nice.
- After two days, the leaven should ferment. You can start cooking kvass.
- We take a three-liter can. We pour into it three handfuls of crackers.
- Add four tablespoons of sugar. Pour boiling water in a jar for 2/3 volume.
- Hot water is added a little bit to prevent the jar from bursting.
- Leave the bread mixture to cool. It should be warm.
- Add the leaven. We transfer the jar to heat for fermentation and leave for a day or two.
- As the mixture starts to foam, it must be stirred periodically.
- Place a fine sieve on a bowl. Put a double layer of gauze on it and filter kvass.
- We leave the bread leaves as it can be used to make the second portion of kvass.
- The resulting drink is poured into a three-liter jar.
- Add a handful of raisins to the drink.
- A tablespoon of sugar is dissolved in warm water and also poured into kvass. Carefully stir with a spoon.
- Cover the jar with kvass with a napkin and leave for another day. After that, send in the fridge. Jar necessarily cover the lid.
Recipe 2. Dark kvass with chicory
Ingredients:
• five table l. ground chicory;
• two tea l. yeast;
• 800 gr. sugar;
• two tea l. citric acid;
• four mint leaves;
• 10 liters of water.
Preparation:
- In an enamelled bucket pour four liters of water and boil.
- Put sugar, chicory and mint leaves in boiling water. Mix and leave for half an hour.
- Fill six liters of cold water. Stir again.
- Then you need to measure the temperature of the water. It can not be higher for 38 degrees.
- Pour the yeast and stir.
- We leave the bucket with kvass for two hours. Cover it is not necessary.
- Two hours later, a foam appeared on the surface of the kvass. It must be removed with a spoon.
- Add citric acid. We arm ourselves with a big wooden boat and stir well.
- Kvass should be poured into glassware and left in the fridge overnight.
- The next morning you can enjoy the already prepared dark kvass.
Recipe 3. Dark kvass on kvass wort concentrate
Ingredients:
• 180 gr. sugar;
• teaspoon dry yeast;
• water;
• two tablespoons of kvass wort concentrate.
Preparation:
- Pour three liters of water in a saucepan. Heat it to boil.
- Pour water into a four-liter jar and wait until it cools to room temperature.
- We pour sugar and yeast into the pot.
- Put the kvass wort concentrate and mix everything well.
- Cover with a lid and leave in the corner of the kitchen table for twelve hours.
- We pour the kvass into bottles, twist the caps and leave in the fridge for another twelve hours.
Recipe 4. How to make kvass dark at home without yeast
Ingredients:
• 300 gr. rye bread;
• three liters of boiled water;
• 30 gr. raisins unwashed;
• 130 gr. sugar immediately and 50 gr. after fermentation.
Preparation:
- Cut bread into small pieces. Cooking crackers in the oven. They should not be over dried.
- We pour the croutons into a prepared vessel with a capacity of at least four liters. Put the raisins.
- In a saucepan with boiled and cooled water, we divide 130 grams of sugar. After it is completely dissolved, pour the sweet syrup into a bowl with croutons. All mix with a wooden spoon.
- Cover the neck of the pot with gauze and tie it. We transfer to a dark and warm place. We leave it there for two days.
- We put the remaining sugar in a large and clean container.
- Pour fermented kvass into it through cheesecloth. Shake several times to dissolve the sugar.
- Put three or four raisins in the bottles prepared for kvass. Fill the dishes with kvass and close tightly.
- Bottles must stand for at least ten hours. To do this, choose a place dark and warm. Kvass is filled with carbon dioxide.
- We transfer the finished drink to the refrigerator. After it has cooled a little there, you can start a tasting.
Recipe 5. Dark kvass on rye malt and leaven
Ingredients:
• four table l. rye sourdough;
• three liters of water;
• half a cup of toasted rye malt;
• seven table l. sugar;
• one dining l. raisins;
• 1/2 tea l. cumin and coriander.
For the leaven:
• Rye flour;
• 0.05 L of water. Preparation:
- The process of making kvass should be started with the leaven. Without it, the drink will not work.
- We prepare a clean plastic tray and pour three tablespoons of rye flour into it. Pour some water and mix to a consistency that resembles thick sour cream.
- We cover the tray and place it in the corner of the kitchen for the night.
- The next morning, add three tablespoons of flour and mix. If the concentration is too thick, add more water.
- The procedure with the addition of flour must be repeated over the next four days, that is, four more times.
- The result is a yeast-free yeast, which can be used not only for making dark kvass, but also for baking bread.
- Next we start to prepare the drink.
- Lightly fry the malt in a skillet and grind in a mortar.
- Pour it into a liter container. Add sugar, cumin and coriander.
- Fill with boiling water and leave for about two hours.
- In a three-liter jar, pour the rye sourdough.
- Filter the malt tincture and also send it to a glass container.
- Pour raisins.
- Add clean water to the neck of the jar.
- Cover with gauze and ship to a warm place.
- In summer, the drink will ripen within 24 hours.
- Kvass is drained from the sediment, filtered and left for a couple of hours so that it settles.
- The drink can be poured into plastic bottles and sent to the refrigerator.
- Ready-made brew quenches thirst well, has a pleasant sourness and sharpness.
Recipe 6. How to make kvass dark at home in a rustic way
Ingredients:
For the leaven:
• one tea l. dry yeast and sugar;
• 0.4 l warm water.
Kvass:
• three table l. with a hill of dry kvass and sugar;
• one dining l. kvass wort concentrate;
• five handfuls of rye crackers;
• one dining l. raisins dark. Preparation:
- Pour yeast and sugar in a clean half-liter jar.
- Fill with warm water, close with a napkin and leave for 48 hours.
- The mixture should be stirred approximately three times a day.
- We mix the prepared leaven and pour into a three-liter jar.
- Pour dry kvass, sugar and kvass wort.
- Rye crackers and raisins are also added to the jar.
- Fill the jar with water, leaving eight centimeters to the neck.
- Cover with a napkin and leave for 72 hours.
- Pour kvass through a gauze filter into a clean jug. We send it to the fridge.
How to make kvass dark at home - tricks and useful tips
- To prevent rye crackers from burning in the oven, add slices of white bread to the baking sheet. According to their condition, it will be possible to determine how the black bread was dried.
- To make dark kvass, you need to use glass or enamelware. Metal containers are not suitable, because the oxidation process cannot be allowed.
- Borodino bread is most suitable for tasty kvass. It has a lot of delicious seasonings.
- In order not to dirty the kitchen, we put a jar of sourdough on a plate.
- It is necessary to open dishes with ready-made kvass carefully - foam may leak, because the drink is carbonated.
- We pour the drink into bottles or cans, but we don’t pour it to the end. Leaving space for foam and bubbles.