Racking & bottling!

Trying not to make a mess. Racked the finished kvass into a couple of growlers and a 22 oz flip-top bottle. Activity in the airlock was pretty slow, and the gravity read at 1.000.

The finished kvass was not as good as my last batch... there was too much lemon juice, and the mint tea was not as good as fresh or dried homegrown mint. Even still, once it is carbonated and chilled it should be refreshing.

It's alive!

Peak of fermentation.

The fermenting liquid is turbid, and there's plenty of activity in the airlock.

Promised pictures!

As promised, here are some photos to help you walk through the kvass-making process. Here is one U.S. pound of stale bread ends I have saved in a freezer bag, brought to room temperature.

I have added one campden tablet (available at any homebrewing store or website) to 1.5 U.S. gallons of water, since our city water has quite a bit of chlorine and chloromine.

Once the water is 150 degrees F., add the bread, ripped into chunks (this temperature is about the threshold for pain, so a thermometer is not necessary). Let stand until it is nearly room temperature, usually four to five hours.

In the meantime, assemble the equipment and ingredients. Here we are going to make kvass using lemon zest & juice, ginger, mint tea (spearmint & peppermint), turbinado sugar, and crasins.

Once the liquid has cooled, strain through a cheese-cloth lined strainer. An extra pot comes in handy to catch the liquid. Make sure everything is clean and sanitized beforehand. Discard the leftover bread, compost, or grow mushrooms in it!

The remaining liquid should be pale and cloudy.

Using a funnel, pour the strained liquid into a gallon container (preferably glass, cleaned and sanitized). The yield from this is about 1 U.S. gallon, as the bread absorbs about a half-gallon. Make sure to leave some "head space..." the yeast will need room to expand.

Here I am coarsely chopping some ginger, divided evenly and placed into the jugs.

Zesting the lemon and placing in the jugs (fermenters).

Juicing the lemon halves and adding to the fermenters.

Weighing out 1 oz of tubinado sugar to add to each fermenter. This is about 2 tablespoons.

Weighing out 1 oz of crasins for each fermenter. This is about a small handful.

Here I am getting ready to add room-temperature soughdough starter to the unfermented liquid. This "mother" is over a year old, and I use it every week to make bread.

Plopping about a tablespoon-sized chunk into each fermenter.

Regardless of what you are brewing, making sure the unfermented liquid is properly oxygenated is key. Shaking the jug for approximately one minute usually does the trick.

Stopper the jugs and place the airlocks (with water). If you are using plastic wrap, make sure you rubber-band them. Place the jugs in a warm (60-70 degree F. ), dark place, away from sunlight. After a few days, you should see activity in the airlock and a raft of yeast forming at the top of the liquid. Once the activity has slowed and most of the yeast has dropped out, rack (or decant) the yeast to another vessel in which you will refrigerate and drink within a week. I will post pictures of this process once this kvass is ready.

For all you homebrewing nerds, the original gravity of the unfermented liquid is 1.024, not accounting for the sugars contributed from the dried fruit. This will probably put the finished product at around 3% alcohol.