Kvass

Howdy all,

I had a loaf of bread stick to the pan while baking last week (tried a new no-stick method and it failed), but I managed to salvage some of it by cutting it out with a knife. My smart wife suggested I make some Kvass (fermented bread-based drink) with it and twist-my-rubber-arm I did. It’s very light and refreshing and has some bready/toastiness, honey sweetness, hint of mint from the honey, and a bit of yeast spice from the sourdough.

Recipe:

  • 1 loaf of bread
  • 1/4 cup sourdough starter (or some other wild ferment or packaged yeast)
  • 1/2 cup honey
  1. Cut up bread into chunks or slices and toast heavily in the oven (a little burnt is ok)
  2. Boil enough water to cover
  3. Add cooled bread to BIAB inside fermenter or other vessel
  4. Pour boiled water over (should still be hot but not necessarily near-boling still)
  5. Leave it overnight
  6. Pull the bag and squeeze
  7. Top with filtered water to around 1 gal
  8. Add starter and honey
  9. Mix it up
  10. Let ferment 1-2 days
  11. Bottle it up in plastic bottles cause it’s still fermenting and will continue in the bottle to carb it
  12. Leave bottles 1 day
  13. Refrigerate

6 Likes

Thanks for the process. I’m going to try this. It looks refreshing.

1 Like

Very interesting.

I believe that traditionally it’s made with a darker rye bread and there are tons of different variations with molasses and other sugars, herbs, etc. It could be a tasty way to make use of stale bread ends - keep a bag in the freezer and chuck them in whenever you have them and then harvest when the bag is full.