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You’re gonna appreciate this; a simple, authentic bread kvas that doesn’t need a concentrate! My hubby’s cousin, Angelina, shared this recipe with us. We’ve made it with rye bread and with black bread and both were so refreshing! New favorite for sure – thanks Angelina!
This kvass lasts up to a week in the fridge (probably longer, but it might start tasting kinda strong). You’ll notice it loses sweetness daily as it stands. I think it’s best after a full day in the fridge.
Bread Kvas is uber popular in Russia and Ukraine. You might compare it to a sweet, non-alcoholic beer. From my research, kvass only has up to 1% alcohol content (still probably not recommended for pregos). The longer it sits in the fridge, the more slightly “alcoholic” it gets, but it’s still considered non-alcoholic.
So if you drink it in the first day or 2, there is probably no alcohol in there yet. From what my readers have said, it’s best to store kvas in plastic soda bottles since they are designed to hold pressurized drinks. I like to release the pressure from my bottles 1-2 times a day because an over-inflated bottle just makes me nervous.
Ingredients for Bread Kvas:
2.5 gallons or 10 qt of water
1 lb or 9 slices of classic black, dark or rye bread
1 handful of raisins
1.8 lb (4 cups) of sugar
1.5 Tbsp of active dry yeast
3 large plastic soda bottles
How to Make Russian Bread Kvas: (best if prepared in the evening)
DAY 1:
1. Fill giant stock pot with 2.5 gallons of water (or divide it into two large pots) and bring to a boil.
2. While waiting, toast the bread slices twice on the darkest toaster setting. Yes. Seriously. Darker bread makes darker kvass. Toast bread either outside or in your garage or your house will get smokey. We learned the hard way :). It should look like the photo below.
3. When water starts to boil, remove the pot from heat. Add a handful of raisins and toasted bread to the pot, cover with the lid and let it stay overnight or at least 8 hours.
DAY 2:
4. Carefully remove toasted bread and discard it.
5. In a medium bowl, mix together 4 cups of sugar and 1.5 Tbsp of yeast, add them to kvas mixture and stir.
6. Cover with plastic wrap or lid and leave the mixture on the counter for another 6 hours, stirring every couple hours.
7. Discard floating raisins by scooping them up with a large spoon. Using strainer or cheese cloth, pour kvass into bottles, loosely cover with lid and refrigerate overnight. The following day once the bottles are completely chilled, you can tighten the lid.
P.S. According to my readers, it’s best to store kvas in plastic soda bottles since they are designed to hold pressurized drinks.
DAY 3: enjoy
DAY 4: enjoy
DAY 5: …..did it really last that long?
How do you make your kvass?
Easy Bread Kvas Recipe
Ingredients
- 2.5 gallons or 10 qt of water
- 1 lb or 9 slices of classic black, dark or rye bread
- 1 handful of raisins
- 1.8 lb 4 cups of sugar
- 1.5 tablespoons of active dry yeast
- 3 large plastic soda bottles
Instructions
DAY 1: (best if prepared in the evening)
- Fill giant stock pot with 2.5 gallons of water (or divide it into two large pots) and bring to a boil.
- While waiting, toast the bread slices twice on the darkest toaster setting. Darker bread makes darker kvass. Toast bread either outside or in your garage or your house will get smokey.
- When water starts to boil, remove the pot from heat. Add a handful of raisins and toasted bread to the pot, cover with the lid and let it stay overnight or at least 8 hours.
DAY 2:
- Carefully remove toasted bread and discard it.
- In a medium bowl, mix together 4 cups of sugar and 1.5 Tbsp of yeast, add them to kvas mixture and stir.
- Cover with plastic wrap or lid and leave the mixture on the counter for another 6 hours, stirring every couple hours.
- Discard floating raisins by scooping them up with a large spoon. Using strainer or cheese cloth, pour kvass into bottles, loosely cover with lid and refrigerate overnight. The following day once the bottles are completely chilled, you can tighten the lid.
DAY 3: enjoy
Notes
You can make kvass in glass bottles with no problem. Like brewing beer, you just need to make sure you leave a bit of empty space at the top when filling the bottle. This will allow room for the CO2 that is produced when the yeast ferments into alcohol (the same CO2 that causes carbonation of the kvass, and the *pop* when you open the bottle). I filled my glass growler up till the neck.
I made this recipe just to try it out, made a few adjustments. I used light brown sugar, brewers yeast, and golden raisins. Day 2 it’s awesome, my Russian friend will be over in a day or so to try it. See what she thinks of it…thanks for the recipe
I like your adjustments! We’ll have to try next time. I bet the brown sugar gives it a nicer darker tint. Thanks for sharing! 🙂
what kind of raisins are used here they dont look like ordinary raisins
I assure you they are ordinary raisins 😉
The first time i made this my family loved it. thank you. Is there a way to make the kvas darker after I remove the bread and find out that it if not dark enough? I did not toast the bread enough. 🙁
Thank you for the good report Veronika. My husband made some this week. He toasted the bread 2 to 3 times on the toaster to make sure it was dark. At the end kvass did came out dark brown. If your bread is not black by the time its done toasting, toast it again. Hope this helps :).
I am going to the store to get the ingredients now. Can’t wait to make this. What I like to do with beverages I’m fermenting is place a balloon with a couple pin holes in it over the top of the bottle. As fermentation occurs, the balloon expands and excess gas is released through the pin holes. No explosions so far…
That’s a clever idea, I should try using that :).
Thanks much for your very easy recipe…I think it is fantastic!
I use a non-caraway dark rye that a local Russian market sells. The dough is actually made in Germany & shipped frozen to the market where it is baked and sold fresh.
I found cutting 1″ thick slices and thoroughly drying them a few days before toasting until very dark and burnt makes the most dark & flavorful Kvass. I also use ale or sometimes champagne yeast from a local homebrew store instead of bread yeast…either tastes way better. I often add other dried fruits to the raisins for variation, a few cut up prunes, a handful of cranberries or even apricots. Or sometime a tbsp of blackstrap molasses is nice, it also adds to a darker color.
I use coconut sugar because of it’s low glycemic index and I like the “round” flavor it adds.
This is a wonderful web site…very nice to visit, thank you.
Cheers, RonB
I really like all the suggestions and will have my husband test them out next time we make kvas which probably will be for Thanksgiving :).
I love this recipe. My girlfriend is from Kazakhstan and misses Kvas when she visits. I am an avid home beer brewer so Kvas is nice and easy. If you store it in a refridgerator for a few weeks it becomes rather entertaining. 😉
I use a sack made from cheese cloth to soak the bread (makes getting it out super easy) and use raw sugar rather than white. We don’t get the dark rye breads here so much, so it means I have to almost burn the bread to get the dark colour, but that is not a problem other than the smoke.
It is as good as the Kvas I bought while walking around Crimea in summer. I have a few Australians interested in Kvas now. 🙂
I like your idea of using cheese cloth. Even though we buy dark bread, I still toast it until its almost burned :).
I was born in Russia and miss the kvas we had there (it’s the only thing I miss about Russia really) and your recipe looks exactly like the kind of homemade bread kvas I used to like. I will try it. Only thing is my grandpa used to add a little bit of whey in it (from cheese making) like a spoonful or 2 before storing it overnight to jump-start the reaction. I make cheese at home regularly and have lots of fresh whey all the time. How do you think it will effect my kvas if I add some?
I’ve never heard of that before, so I can’t really recommend it. But that does not mean it can’t be done. If you test it please let me know how it works out. I’m very curious!
Well basically what whey does is help speed up the reaction of the yeast. I followed everything but added whey before starting fermentation and with just 1 spoon of it was waaaay too alcoholic. I repeated the process and let mine sit just 3.5 hours and it came out just right. basically it just helps start and keep fermentation faster than it would have been. I like the way it comes out and how the reaction is sped up. But I also heard it depends on type and quality of whey. How clear it is, what kind of milk or cream you used to make cheese, what acid you added when making it. Personally I like whey that appears from citric acid (like lemon juice) and regular whole milk. it’s clear and has no extra taste or strong smell. heavy cream kind is a bit weird looking and has strong smell. And if you use acid like white vinegar there is too much vinegary taste. I am going to have to experiment in using different kinds of whey. But i usually cook with the clear kind.
BTW when you make your kvas, during fermentation process (the 6 hours after you add yeast and sugar) do you cover it up completely and let no gas escape or do you put normal lid on which can let some gas escape? My pots have a small hole in the lid designed to let extra water/steam escape. I did 2 batches so far and there wasn’t much problem with that but should i cover it completely instead?
It doesn’t have to be airtight, just cover it to keep the bugs out 😉
That’s great to know! I have whey in the fridge right now. So it’s pretty potent after 3.5 hours with just 1 Tbsp of whey added?
Yes it is good to go already after 3.5 hours but i didnt freeze my whey. not sure what cold does to it. though either way with whey or not i added much less sugar. mine kept being too sweet. my dad liked both but me and my sister prefer the less sweet version. also 1 added 1tbs of whey for each pot. I separated all ingredients in half and did 2 pots since i didnt have a single pot that fit 2.5 gallons. and as for sugar i would recommend putting 1/2 of what is written in the recipe if you dont like sweet drinks. and also you can use glass containers IF you use 2 rubber gloves and and a rubber to close it. the rubber gloves (one in another to make sure they dont pop) would fill with the extra gas and it will not shatter the glass. (tip from my dad and my friend who makes beer a LOT) plus it tastes a bit better from glass because in reactions such as this plastic leaves aftertaste in the drink itself. barely there. but there is (also tip from them which i tested. put half of a pot in glass and half in plastic. for some reason glass one tastes better)
Thank you for sharing Anastasiya, I like the idea of putting rubber gloves on top of the glass containers :).
how to increase the alcohol content in it ?
by adding sugar only ? or also yeast ?
and if left to ferment longer before putting it in the fridge
will that help to increase also ?
lovely recipe ^_^
Letting it sit in the fridge longer is what will make it stronger. You can definitely taste the difference between 3 and 7 days.
My husband has been asking me to make kvas for some time and I get so intimidated by all the complicated recipes! This one seems easy:) Except one question… after day 1 where you leave it for 8 hours with the bread, do you leave it in the fridge or room temp?
leave it at room temperature :).
I made this on Sunday and tasted it about 24 hours later. It was far sweeter and lighter/opaque than kvas I drank in Russia. Also, the alcohol content was REALLY high! I drank a 12 oz glass and had to sit down (and not drive). I watered further quaffs at a 2:1 ratio and it tasted more like kvas. I followed recipe, but let it brew for around 20 hours. Too long?
Really?! Usually the longer it sits, the less sweet it is since the yeast eats up the sugar. We make this kvas all the time and it’s barely alcoholic. We don’t ever drink alcohol and the kvas doesn’t affect us one bit. I’m thinking something went wrong… At what point in the process did you let it brew 20 hours? And you put the correct amount of yeast? Hopefully it wasn’t instant yeast.
Thanks much.. I am so glad you like the homemade one better than the one with the concentrate. As a comment to readers.. a trip to the homebrew store or online will yield hygrometers if people care about alcohol levels ..and fancy bottles. I like the soda bottle idea .. safer..for such a drink
Thanks for the recipe. I can’t wait to try it. However, I just don’t have the fridge space for 3 big jugs. Does anyone have any tips for scaling it down?
You cut cut everything in half and it should work just as well 🙂
Hi Natasha,
Just started my first batch using this recipe. I used high-end artisan 100% rye bread (unfortunately without caraway). Because it was moister, it didn’t brown as well, but it smells like I remember from Lithuania. I used two packets of yeast, and cut the sugar by half a cup, as it has to be ready for Ukrainian guests tomorrow!
Regarding the rye and coloring, rye in the US simply isn’t as dark as in Europe. A German master bread baker told me that all dark rye bread in the US is colored using caramel coloring (usually artificial). This was confirmed when I browsed forums about baking European style dark breads. That probably is why the kvas in the US turns out much lighter than in GUS states.
In really looking forward to trying this!
Oh that’s great to know! My hubby does buy the rye bread in the Russian store nearby and it is almost black. Thanks for sharing. The kvas does become stronger and tastier with time.
I made this Kvas several times now and here is what I found out through trial and error. I found that proofing the yeast and dissolving the sugar first will cut the fermentation starting time. I think that 6 hours is not enough time to ferment the kvas. It is still too sweet and not very carbonated. I go for at least 8 hrs before I put mine in the refrigerator. Another thing I found out is the quality of the ingredients which go into making kvas drastically change the flavor and color of the final product. I found that good quality borodinsky bread, raisins, dry apricots, whole dried cranberries and goji berries make a very authentic tasting dark kvas.
Cheers,
Kirill
We will definitely have to try your version! Thanks for sharing!!
It’s popular not only in Ukraine and Russia. In Belarus it’s one of the most popular drink too.
Great recipe! I think it’s a good way to use the heels of bread. Using a couple of different kinds of rye or black bread helps give it more flavor. Then I like to toast the bread and raisins together in the oven. The cheap beer yeast from the brewing store is worth a try too, as it gives it more flavor than bread yeast. Otherwise, you can leave it out on a mild day (60-70 F) to catch wild yeast;)
Thanks so much for the tips!!
I made a half recipe of this by cutting all ingredients in half.
Turned out fine, but I remember the kvas I had in Odessa to have a stronger taste. Which ingredients do I alter to increase that signature kvas taste?
How long has it been since you made it? The longer it stands, the stronger it gets.
I Love Your Very Simple Recipe. I am Only making 1.6 QT but think it should turn out fine as I altered the ingredient amounts. One thing you forgot to mention is to proof your yeast. Dry yeast needs to be proofed by adding it to a little bit of water with a 1/2 teaspoon sugar to make sure it is alive and you get a reaction. If the yeast is dead, then your Kvass will not work out.
I guess that’s a great way to make sure your yeast is good 😉
The kvass was delicious! It taste just like the one they serve at weddings! Btw my mom says “ti maladetz” 🙂
Music to my ears :D, I’m glad you liked it. Tell your mom, “Thank you”.
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Welcome to the site Lyda :).