Making Kvas (so far it's not going well)...

Hello, I've been recently trying to brew up some kvas but the results were unfortunate to say the least. When it comes to fermentation I had almost no problems when trying things like sauerkraut or sourdough starter but this brewing business isn't going well so far.

The problem I am experiencing is that by the end of the fermentation the brew smells horrid and reminds me of the pong coming from the half-rotten orange peels in my compost heap. One time I even tried tasting it and ended up feeling sick for the rest of the day. I think that was a bad idea.

If you're unfamiliar with kvas I can explain: kvas is a a vague traditional drink in Eastern Europe that's brewed from either malt, flour or fermented bread. Unlike modern beer no hops is used in kvas and the yeast that is used for brewing it is the of the same kind that you'd use for baking. In Russia kvas is legally defined as a brew that has to be made only from rye and barley malt, flour, water, and sugar with an alcohol percentage of no more than 1.2% and is not legally considered an alcoholic beverage.

I found rye malt in the shop and decided to try my hand at making the brew at home. I tried twice and both times the result was nasty. First I used: clean drinking water, rye malt, honey, ground coriander, dried chamomile (tea), and fresh orange peels. I brought the mixture to a boil in my cast iron pot, let it cool down, and added my homemade yeast made from rye (sourdough starter). I tasted the liquid before letting it ferment in a glass jar and it wasn't too bad. After 12 hours of fermenting in a warm dark place it became toxic. The second time I took out the ground coriander, dried chamomile, and fresh orange peels. Instead of my own yeast I added store-bought yeast. After 12 hours the outcome was the same (this time I didn't want to taste it but it smelled quite foul).

An interesting thing that happened is that my sourdough starter started to stink too which is why I didn't use it the second time. The pong was similar to the stench from the would-be kvas. Right now I am thinking everything went wrong for me because of a contamination somewhere in the brewing process. I did not sterilize anything and my kitchen is a bit of a mess. Though in the past a lack of sterilization was not an issue neither when making sourdough bread nor when making fermented pickles. Did my filthy luck just run out this time around? Or is there something I may be doing wrong?

The German recipes I found stress that the rye bread has to be totally dry before using (some even roast it in the oven).
It is then added to the water once it came to a boil. Before adding the yeast, the bread rests get strained out.

After brewing for some hours or overnight, the liquid is filled into sterilized bottles and ripens in the fridge for three more days.
Disclaimer: I have never tried it myself.

the brew smells horrid and reminds me of the pong coming from the half-rotten orange peels in my compost heap.

The orange peel may be your problem.  A google search talked about adding fruit such as raisins or apples.

How much honey did you use? 4 cups of sugar was what I saw mentioned.

Kvass is made by the natural fermentation of bread, such as wheat, rye, or barley, and sometimes flavoured using fruit, berries, raisins, or birch sap. Modern homemade kvass most often uses black or regular rye bread, usually dried, baked into croutons, or fried, with the addition of sugar or fruit (e.g. apples or raisins), and with a yeast culture and zakvaska ("kvass fermentation starter")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvass

Anne Miller wrote:

the brew smells horrid and reminds me of the pong coming from the half-rotten orange peels in my compost heap.

The orange peel may be your problem.  A google search talked about adding fruit such as raisins or apples.

How much honey did you use? 4 cups of sugar was what I saw mentioned.

Kvass is made by the natural fermentation of bread, such as wheat, rye, or barley, and sometimes flavoured using fruit, berries, raisins, or birch sap. Modern homemade kvass most often uses black or regular rye bread, usually dried, baked into croutons, or fried, with the addition of sugar or fruit (e.g. apples or raisins), and with a yeast culture and zakvaska ("kvass fermentation starter")

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvass

I thought the orange peels caused it until the second batch met the same grizzly fate without the involvement of those peels.

I added around 100 grams of honey (couldn't find an easy way to measure it out properly). The recipe I read called for 300 grams of sugar for a 3 litre batch but that seemed way too much for me. Store bought kvas ranges from 21-40 calories per 100 grams and I wanted to stick to those numbers. Not sure what that would be in cups. Cups are not something I would rely on since everyone has different sized cups and even though there are standard measuring cups and specific methods of correctly using them for various ingredients you can never be certain if the recipe author respects that or not.

Though kvas can be made from bread from what I've read it doesn't specifically have to be. Indeed, you'd be hard pressed to find store bought kvas made from bread in Russia. Historically a wide variety of fermented drinks were called "kvas" and the word itself roughly means "ferment" or "fermented". In my case I was using rye malt to try and make it though it is not uncommon for people making it at home to use bread.

Maybe you caught a bad strain of bacteria if it even messed with your sourdough.
I would clean up the kitchen and wipe down everything thoroughly, including all pots and cups.
Look if you can inoculate your ferment with a starter, not sure which would be appropriate.
Remember that bad bacteria cannot thrive in pH below 4.2 so if in doubt you can do a pH test.

I've tried for a third time after cleaning and sanitizing all my equipment and ran into a similar issue - the third batch tasted bad and weird but not utterly revolting... still nothing you'd want to drink voluntarily.

I've reviewed some more guides on beer making and am trying for a gruit now. An interesting difference between the beer guides and the kvass guides is the length of fermentation. The minimum fermentation time for beer is two weeks and it's recommended to split into into two parts where the wort is poured into a secondary fermenter to improve the final product. The kvass guides on the other hand advise to only ferment the wort for a few days. Another difference is that the kavss recipes call for a large amount of sugar to be used while the beer guides only call for it to be used in small amount after the fermentation is already finished to add a bit of extra carbonation while the beer is cooling... this may be my issue since I've added a some honey instead of sugar to my kvass attempts which was not the equivalent of the called for sugar. I don't even know how much I added exactly since I roughly measured the honey additions in spoons.

Besides my gruit I am also fermenting a fourth portion of kvass made with bread which was a failure and had little use... though if this one doesn't taste right I will also leave it to ferment for some weeks to see what happens. Considering I didn't add any sugar in this attempt either I think this is exactly what may just happen.

Maybe by using less sugars than called for you are inadvertently fostering a less-tasty fermenter than what was intended?  The bread kvass (or Estonian Kali) recipes I have seen use a large amount of honey or sugar, it is almost like a short-fermented mead.  The botanicals may only be used for part of the fermentation too.

Mk Neal wrote:Maybe by using less sugars than called for you are inadvertently fostering a less-tasty fermenter than what was intended?  The bread kvass (or Estonian Kali) recipes I have seen use a large amount of honey or sugar, it is almost like a short-fermented mead.  The botanicals may only be used for part of the fermentation too.

I think you're right.

The other day I went out of my way and actually tried some live beer and was in for a shock... it tastes nothing like the live kvass that I often bought from the store! In fact I couldn't even drink it and my former brew actually wasn't too bad in comparison.

Now I am thinking that my main mistake was conflating kvass with beer and forgoing following the sugary recipe due to my aversion to refined sugar. I am still relatively new to brewing so I didn't realize just what difference the sugar made. I decided to try and make the kvass with the sugar that's required for it (50-75 grams of sugar per liter) though I did use honey instead in a relatively larger amount to make up for its lower sugar content. I had this batch of sitting for two days and I am about to stick it in the fridge. It both smells and tastes very similar to some of the store bought variants now though I do need to wait for it to chill since drinking warm kvass is unacceptable.

This batch of kvass was made with 20 grams of rye malt, 20 grams of rye flour, 1.3 liters of water (some of it was lost during the transferring of the liquid from one container to the other, 0.9 liters in the end), approximately 110 grams of cheap supermarket honey, and a spoonful of my homemade rye sourdough starter. I'll get a proper taste of it in a day or two once it rests in the fridge for a bit but the fact that I can drink it now makes me optimistic.

As for my other batches I'll have go through all the motions before giving up on them. I've read that hops were added to beer to make it bitter and fight of the sweetness but my brews without any hops didn't seem sweet to me at all. Though considering that I couldn't drink live beer it may just be that I suffered from a misunderstanding and conflated the sugary drinks I was used to with the real stuff. I also did taste some other brews including a cherry beer, a pear cider, and some mead and I more or less liked all them... perhaps the fact that I drank sugary drinks my whole left me more predisposed to sweeter things. After another week of fermenting I'll bottle and refrigerate by batches of gruit and after another half a month I'll finally taste them to see if it's possible to make a sweet-ish drink without much sugar, honey or fruit. I don't have much hope for it but there's no point giving up now.

   Hi Ivan,

          What your doing sounds interesting and fun; I'd like to add a few comments. Having brewed a few things beer, gruit, mead and such, my point of view is the primary idea to be successful is something like the following: You have "sugar", any kind of sugar that is, which small things like to eat and then they reproduce. Some of these small things, specific kind of yeasts, are fantastic because when they eat sugar they make ethanol and co2. Okay, when we make alcoholic drinks we put these good yeasts, into our warm sugary liquid which for them is like the perfect place to be. The thing is this the good yeasts must outnumber the bad yeasts so they can colonize the wort. This is why we clean everything and pitch a good amount of active yeast into the wort. In my opinion it really is just about numbers, then.
          I'm curious what you're putting into the gruit? Furthermore and a funny bit of history, adding hops to make beer, to the best of my knowledge, is really a Protestant thing. Hops is a sedative and anaphrodisiac; they really didn't want people to get down and party like they did for centuries prior to the Reinheitsgebot. Imagine that. Anyway, good luck on making Kvass and all other manner of ferments you're trying.


  Thomas,


       Mitama farm

I loath beer in general but I have tried a few un-hopped beers and they are nice, you do not have to use hops in beer. I'm watching your experiments with interest since we often have rye bread left over, I will say that there is only 1-2 tbs of malt inb an entire loaf so making it with bread will probably come out very different from you flour/malt mix.

My husband has made it quite a few times. He burns the bread, like burnt burnt, in the toaster (outside of course). Then he puts it in the liquid to boil, etc.

Thomas Agresti wrote:I'm curious what you're putting into the gruit?

Coriander, chamomile, and a bit of honey. Though my second batch was without that and was just a brew based on a wort of cooked sourdough bread (that was way too sour to be eaten).

elle sagenev wrote:My husband has made it quite a few times. He burns the bread, like burnt burnt, in the toaster (outside of course). Then he puts it in the liquid to boil, etc.

Yes many of the recipes I've read recommend to do that to the bread. In my batch I just cooked it into a wort without first baking to a crisp and my brew turned out light in color.


Some homemade kvass with some homemade sourdough bread.

The kvass tastes very similar to some store-bought variants I tried before. It looks like the extra sugar (honey) makes all the difference.

Though it's not as good as some of them. I probably need to mess around with the ingredients and their proportions. I have tasted over a dozen various kvass brands and it amazed me how some of them are simply revolting while others are on the opposite end of the spectrum and I could be chugging them all day long. All of them have more or less the same ingredients which are (legally required in Russia to be called kvass): water, rye flour, rye malt, barley malt, and sugar.

Do you malt you own rye?  I have never seen rye malt for sale in the store.

Mk Neal wrote:Do you malt you own rye?  I have never seen rye malt for sale in the store.

No, I just bought the malt at a store. That store is a large supermarket chain that prides itself on having an immense choice and obscure products like flours and oils of all kinds.

Today, after a month of fermentation and cooling, I tried my earlier concoctions.

The first batch was the gruit and it tasted a lot better than my earlier quick-fermentation attempts. However, it is not a taste that I enjoy too much and I believe that the malt itself is the culprit - without additional strong flavours the outcome isn't something that I enjoy. A couple days ago I experimented with making short-fermented kvas with honey but without any flour. The batch with just malt and honey tasted way too sweet and was overall worse than the batches with flour and malt combinations.

The other batch, which I am not sure what to even call, made from cooked-down bread tasted surprisingly pleasant. It had kvas-like taste but was less sweet. I think it turned out better than the malt batch did.

I think I will continue to experiment with gruit but due to long fermentation times it certainly does take a while. I'll look into other ingredients I can or should add in to improve. As for kvas I think I have gotten the hang of it. I don't think I'll be buying much of it in the future seeing as it's simple enough to make for me now.