[cmorrin]

Hello fellow home brewers,

I'm looking to brew a kvass, does anyone have any recommendations for brewing an all grain batch rather than going the traditional stale rye bread route?

Thank you,
Catherine

[gail]

Hi Catherine,
Nice to have another brewster (or "alewife" as you may or may not prefer) here.  Glad you posted.
A Kvass is on my "to-do" list of brews, haven't yet gotten to it.  Randy Mosher ("Radical Brewing", Brewers Publications) gives this for an all-grain recipe:
1.75 lb rye flour
1 lb 6-row malt
1 lb rye malt
9 oz. toasted buckwheat (kasha)
Mash at 150 degrees for one hour.  To the mash add:  .12oz fresh peppermint (beware that grocery store fresh mint is often actually spearmint), and the juice and zest of one lemon.  The wort is traditionally unboiled.  Ferment with 1/4 cake of compressed bread yeast or an ale yeast (I'm thinking maybe European or German Ale might work here?).  Target starting gravity 1.024.
Good luck and if you try it either from all grain or rye bread, let us know how it works out.
Gail

[pjj2ba]

I make a beer that is half malt, half homemade bread (Swedish Rye).  I've thought about skipping the bread making process and just adding the flour, but then I wouldn't have leftover bread for eating!!

I've used the Trappist Ale twice for this beer.  The first time the rye and yeast flavors clashed for a while before finally coming together.  Judges thought it tasted thinner than they expected, but to me this makes sense as much less malt is used.  I added some wheat malt for a bit more richness without adding sweetness.  I'll be brewing this again soon and am contemplating using either a different Belgian yeast, or possibly an Alt yeast

Non-malt ingredients are part of the bread recipe - including the sugar.

I think my potential values are too high for the flours (as baked)
OG has been lower than predicted both times.  For this batch the actual OG was 1.054

Half-Baked Swedish Rye Beer

A ProMash Recipe Report

Recipe Specifics
----------
Batch Size (Gal):         5.00    Wort Size (Gal):    5.00
Total Grain (Lbs):       10.50
Anticipated OG:          1.062    Plato:             15.13
Anticipated SRM:          18.4
Anticipated IBU:          20.8
Brewhouse Efficiency:       80 %
Wort Boil Time:             60    Minutes

Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin        Potential SRM
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  4.8     0.50 lbs. Crystal Extra Dark            Great Britain  1.033    160
 23.8     2.50 lbs. Pale Malt(6-row)              America        1.035      2
 23.1     2.42 lbs. Wheat Flour                   USA            1.038      2
  9.5     1.00 lbs. Pale Malt - Optic             Great Britain  1.038      3
  9.5     1.00 lbs. Rye Malt                      Germany        1.030      4
  9.5     1.00 lbs. Wheat Malt                    Germany        1.039      2
  4.8     0.50 lbs. Aromatic Malt                 Belgium        1.036     25
  3.8     0.40 lbs. Rye Flour                     USA            1.036      4
  3.6     0.38 lbs. Beet Sugar                    Generic        1.046      0
  4.8     0.50 lbs. Special B Malt                Belgian        1.030    120
  2.8     0.29 lbs. Molasses                      Generic        1.036     80

Hops
   Amount     Name                              Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  6.00 g.     Palisade                          Plug     9.00   7.4  First WH
 10.00 g.     Cluster                           Whole    7.00   9.4  First WH
 16.00 g.     Spalter Select                    Whole    5.00   4.0  20 min.

Yeast    White Labs WLP500 Trappist Ale

[dimik]

I've been drinking kvass since childhood (my parents used to make it), and now that I brew, I make it for them.
To be honest, I've never seen or heard of it made with malted barley. Rye or wheat bread (rye is better IMO) is pretty much the main ingredient. And traditional kvass most definitely does not have lemon peels. It is also quite sour.
I did a few batches with used steeping grains, and all they did was add a bit of color but I suppose using malted rye or wheat could be OK... But anyway, try what you feel is right. There aren't guidelines for making it, other than keeping OG at about 1025, because it's a summer drink, intended to quench thirst and get back to work rather than quench thirst and knock you out on the lawn
Basic recipe is this:
Dry and toast about a loaf of rye bread. The darker you toast, the darker kvass will be, but don't burn it. Heat up about 3-4 gal of water. You can boil it if you want, but it won't make any difference. Put your dry bread into a bucket, and pour the hot water in.
Now here, you can either add some sugar to this "wort" or you can mash some grains in that water, like you do with beer, before pouring it over the bread. That's pretty much it. Ferment with the bread in there. I usually use baker's yeast and ferment at room temperature, but tried Nottingham and found it gives drier result. If using beer yeast, ferment cooler to avoid unpleasant flavors... unless you're using belgian yeast... hmmm I'll have to try that. And don't keep it in there for long because after some time it'll get "stale bread" flavor.
Usually it is done in 4-5 days. Keep tasting it as it gets more sour with age. By day 5 it's sour enough for me. Then you can bottle it like beer and wait 2 weeks to carb (when I do that, I use plastic and use about 1 cup sucrose for 3-4 gallon) or you can keg it and enjoy in a day. It'll be pale straw color if you don't use color grains.
Maybe this isn't what you're after, but this sour bread thing is what kvass is. These days there is black kvass that tastes like tar with sugar and other cloying junk that you can buy in a store. So if you're after the sweet stuff, I can't help you.