Protos
Die Schwarzbier Polizei
Continued from another thread.
I got me some Fermentis Safkvas C-73.
I tasted homemade Kwass many times in Latvia (my home country, where Dzersis is another name for the beverage, although Kvass is used more often) and in Poland. I'm familiar with three versions of Kwass: the common standard farmhouse bright yellow version made of stale Rye Bread, which I never liked neither aesthetically (the soaked-bread mud sunk on the bottom looked just yucky) nor tastewise as it's pretty sour. Each country also has its additional unique variety: in Poland it's a Kwass made of Red Beetroot (which to my liking tasted even worse than the stale bread version), and in Latvia, I tasted a much better Kwass made of fermented Birchtree Sap. My grandparents used to brew it. Sadly, I have no idea on how it's made.
The best ever Kwass that I really liked and want to emulate now I tasted in Ukraine. It was an industrially-produced beverage, much darker and sweeter than the homebrewed versions I drank in Latvia and Poland. There were several brands available, I remember by name the only one: Jarylo (which has nothing to do with the American hop, as Jarylo is the name of an ancient Slavic deity of fertility and it's here where the names both for the hop and for the Kwass brand come).
For my first own Kwass recipe, I decided to discard the sloppy traditional practice of open wild fermentation of stale bread. I made my small batch of Kwass all-grain, boiled and fermented under the hydrolock, to see what the C-73 yeast alone can achieve. Then I will adjust the recipe to replicate the Ukrainian dark sweet Kwasses. Grain to glass in 3 to 5 days, it's an ideal style for experimenting.
As I understand, Kwass differs from the rest of the small farmhouse ales in that it's double fermented: first by Lactobacillus, and then by Cerevisiae or wild strains. Fermentis state their Kwass yeast provides enough acidity, so that no additional Lacto fermentation is needed. Which means, I don't have to perform any open wild fermentation to get the necessary tartness.
Well, here's the recipe I came up with:
RUDZU DZERSIS
(Rye Kwass in Latvian)
OG 1.024
FG 1.012
ABV 1.6%
Attenuation 50%
Pale Rye Malt from Weyermann - 1/3 of the grist
Red Fermented Rye Malt from Lithuania (aka Kaljamallas in Finnish Sahti recipes) - 1/3
Rye Flour from Finland (didn't want to use adjuncts, but Rye Flour is present in each and every traditional Kwass recipe, so included it too) - 1/3
Mash 30' @48°C / 118°F (flour made the mash awfully gummy, so a beta-glucan rest was necessary)
Mash 120' @70°C / 158°F (with so little diastatic Pale malt in the grist, I wanted to give enzymes some extra time to convert all starch - which actually resulted in a 100% extraction efficiency. No beta-amylase rest, as I didn't need much alcohol in this brew).
Boil 15' (just to clarify somewhat the turbid cloudy floury wort)
Safkvas C-73 - 0.2 g per each 1L
(fermenting under hydrolock, to exclude wild yeast and Lactos impact to better assess what C-73 is capable of)
I got me some Fermentis Safkvas C-73.
I tasted homemade Kwass many times in Latvia (my home country, where Dzersis is another name for the beverage, although Kvass is used more often) and in Poland. I'm familiar with three versions of Kwass: the common standard farmhouse bright yellow version made of stale Rye Bread, which I never liked neither aesthetically (the soaked-bread mud sunk on the bottom looked just yucky) nor tastewise as it's pretty sour. Each country also has its additional unique variety: in Poland it's a Kwass made of Red Beetroot (which to my liking tasted even worse than the stale bread version), and in Latvia, I tasted a much better Kwass made of fermented Birchtree Sap. My grandparents used to brew it. Sadly, I have no idea on how it's made.
The best ever Kwass that I really liked and want to emulate now I tasted in Ukraine. It was an industrially-produced beverage, much darker and sweeter than the homebrewed versions I drank in Latvia and Poland. There were several brands available, I remember by name the only one: Jarylo (which has nothing to do with the American hop, as Jarylo is the name of an ancient Slavic deity of fertility and it's here where the names both for the hop and for the Kwass brand come).
For my first own Kwass recipe, I decided to discard the sloppy traditional practice of open wild fermentation of stale bread. I made my small batch of Kwass all-grain, boiled and fermented under the hydrolock, to see what the C-73 yeast alone can achieve. Then I will adjust the recipe to replicate the Ukrainian dark sweet Kwasses. Grain to glass in 3 to 5 days, it's an ideal style for experimenting.
As I understand, Kwass differs from the rest of the small farmhouse ales in that it's double fermented: first by Lactobacillus, and then by Cerevisiae or wild strains. Fermentis state their Kwass yeast provides enough acidity, so that no additional Lacto fermentation is needed. Which means, I don't have to perform any open wild fermentation to get the necessary tartness.
Well, here's the recipe I came up with:
RUDZU DZERSIS
(Rye Kwass in Latvian)
OG 1.024
FG 1.012
ABV 1.6%
Attenuation 50%
Pale Rye Malt from Weyermann - 1/3 of the grist
Red Fermented Rye Malt from Lithuania (aka Kaljamallas in Finnish Sahti recipes) - 1/3
Rye Flour from Finland (didn't want to use adjuncts, but Rye Flour is present in each and every traditional Kwass recipe, so included it too) - 1/3
Mash 30' @48°C / 118°F (flour made the mash awfully gummy, so a beta-glucan rest was necessary)
Mash 120' @70°C / 158°F (with so little diastatic Pale malt in the grist, I wanted to give enzymes some extra time to convert all starch - which actually resulted in a 100% extraction efficiency. No beta-amylase rest, as I didn't need much alcohol in this brew).
Boil 15' (just to clarify somewhat the turbid cloudy floury wort)
Safkvas C-73 - 0.2 g per each 1L
(fermenting under hydrolock, to exclude wild yeast and Lactos impact to better assess what C-73 is capable of)
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