Freshly picked birch sap is not recommended to be stored for more than two weeks. To extend the shelf life of such a healthy drink, it is canned or kvass is prepared on its basis.
Light, slightly sweet liquid, secreted by a birch, has no smell and pronounced taste. By preparing kvass on it, you will get a beautifully tonic soft drink. Folk healers say that if in any kvass recipe, just replace the water with birch sap, you can get a healing drink.
Kvass from birch sap - general principles of preparation
• On birch sap, both yeast and yeast-free kvass is prepared, on specially prepared starter cultures or malt.
• The technology for preparing a drink is simple and includes simple steps: preparing raw materials, combining the main components with birch sap and further fermentation of the drink. It can last from a few hours to several weeks and depends on the recipe. After fermentation, the kvass is filtered and removed for cooling.
• Raw materials for such kvass can be any berries and fruits, and not just fresh ones. No less tasty and useful will be a drink if it is prepared with frozen or dried berries or fruits. Often, birch kvass is prepared with grain (barley) or on brewed buckwheat flour, which can also be replaced with rye or oatmeal.
• Despite the fact that the juice itself is sweet, honey or sugar is added to any birch kvass to enhance the fermentation process. An exception to this rule is the hoppy birch kvass on beer and a drink made with dried fruits.
• The yeast-free birch kvass, as a rule, is less carbonated and therefore, after filtering and bottling, several raisins are placed in it, which must be washed.
• Properly prepared kvass on such a basis perfectly quenches thirst, but, in addition, it is also used as a fill for okroshka and beetroots.
Refreshing Birch Kvass with Barley and Mint
Ingredients:
• ten liters of birch sap;
• two glasses of sugar;
• a pound of barley;
• dried mint - 100 gr.;
• 800 gr. black "Borodino" bread.
Cooking method:
1. Make breadcrumbs from bread. Cut it into small pieces, centimeter thick, slightly dry and fry in the oven.
2. Pour granulated sugar into a dry frying pan and, stirring constantly, warm to brown.
3. Separately lightly fry the barley.
4. Pour birch sap into a large enameled container, for example, a bucket, and place it on a small fire to boil. Boil the juice for no more than a minute and remove from heat.
5. Then dip peppermint and roasted barley into it. Add sugar with breadcrumbs, and, stirring well, leave for three days in a warm room.
6. Strain the finished drink through a rare sieve or filter from a gauze folded with 3-4 layers and pour into prepared containers. Chill.
Simple kvass from birch sap, sugar free with dried fruits
Ingredients:
• 3 liters of birch natural juice;
• 200 gr. dried fruits (dried apricots, prunes).
Cooking method:
1. Rinse the dried fruits well, you can soak a little.
2. Then fill them with birch sap. Cover the container with several layers of gauze and remove for two weeks to ferment in heat.
3. After that, filter and cool well.
Yeast birch kvass with hops - "Golden"
Ingredients:
• natural birch sap - 3 liters;
• 30 gr. pressed spirit yeast;
• dark raisins - 25 gr.;
• 50 gr. Sahara;
• a tablespoon of white flour;
• 300 gr. toasted rye crackers;
• 40 gr. hop cones.
Cooking method:
1. Pour 100 ml of birch sap into a small bowl and heat slightly.
2. In a separate bowl, crumble the yeast, sprinkle it with sugar and stir until the yeast is completely dispersed.
3. Add the yeast mixture to warm juice, add flour and stir well.
4. Lower the rye crackers into a large bowl. Add hop cones washed with raisins. Pour three tablespoons of sugar and pour hot juice (3 liters).
5. Cool well and add the yeast mixture, mix. Pull gauze over the neck of the container and put it in heat for three days.
6. Strain and place the birch kvass in the refrigerator.
7. In the remaining yeast, add three tablespoons of granulated sugar and pour a new portion of juice.
Kvass without yeast on birch sap - "Coffee"
Ingredients:
• 2.5 liters of freshly picked birch natural juice;
• 60 gr. dark raisins;
• refined sugar - half a glass;
• coffee beans - a small handful;
• 200 gr. crackers (rye).
Cooking method:
1. Rusk well in the oven. You can just take rye bread, chop it lightly and fry in a toaster.
2. Put the fried crackers in a clean three-liter jar. Add sugar, washed dried raisins and coffee.
3. Pour in unboiled juice and stir well to dissolve the granulated sugar.
4. Put a rubber glove on the neck and place in a cool, darkened place.
5. When the glove is filled with air, after about two days, the drink will be completely ready.
6. Strain and, after bottling, clean for another two days, but already in the refrigerator.
Cherry kvass on birch sap with rye crackers
Ingredients:
• birch sap, fresh harvest - 10 l .;
• 400 gr. sugar
• fried rye crackers - 300 gr.;
• 350 gr. fresh or frozen cherries;
• 50 gr. stalks of dried dill;
• pharmacy oak bark - 100 gr.
Cooking method:
1. Put crackers on cheesecloth, tie in a bag and dip in juice. Put the container in a darkened, warm place.
2. After three days, add the stalks of dried dill, oak bark and cherries. Transfer for further infusion in a cool room, for fifteen days.
3. Then filter and use as directed. Use as a drink chilled, or use as a fill for okroshka.
Birch kvass on raisins
Ingredients:
• twenty liters of birch, natural juice;
• dark raisins - 100 berries;
• one kilogram of granulated sugar.
Cooking method:
1. Put cheesecloth folded in three layers into a funnel or sieve and strain the juice through it.
2. Add the whole measure of sugar and stir it to make the crystals dissolve.
3. Then add raisins and leave for up to 4 days.
4. Filter the finished drink, pour into tightly closed containers and place in a cool, darkened place.
5. Kvass can last up to 4 months, but usually drinks faster.
Honey kvass from birch sap
Ingredients:
• 5 l of birch sap;
• two large lemons;
• 50 gr. fresh baker's yeast;
• 100 gr. liquid honey;
• raisins.
Cooking method:
1. Crush the yeast and dissolve in fifty milliliters of heated water.
2. Rinse the lemons and dip them in hot water for two minutes. Then cut each lengthwise, in half, wring out the juice and strain it through a sieve.
3. Pour yeast and strained lemon juice into the birch sap. Add honey and stir so that it is well dispersed in the juice.
4. Pour liquid into the bottle. Add five raisins and close tightly and refrigerate for several days.
Hoppy birch kvass on beer
Ingredients:
• 500 ml of light live beer;
• 2.6 liters birch, natural juice.
Cooking method:
1. Pour beer into a clean bottle of three-liter volume and bring the volume to the neck with filtered fresh juice.
2. Close the capron lid tightly and clean for two months in a cool room or refrigerator.
3. After this time, the hoppy birch kvass on beer will be ready.
Kvass from birch sap on a sourdough bread
Ingredients:
• 700 gr. rye crackers;
• two glasses, "with a hill" of sugar;
• a tablespoon of bread sourdough;
• a small slice of orange peel;
• ten liters of fresh birch sap.
Cooking method:
1. Place rye crackers on a roasting pan and dry in the oven.
2. Add all the sugar to the juice, mix well, and pour the dried crackers in it.
3. Add a tablespoon of sourdough bread, orange zest, stir again and leave warm for 4 days.
4. Next, strain the almost ready-made drink from soaked crackers and pour into bottles. Add a pinch of raisins to each, close tightly and place in a cool, if possible without light, place for 3 days.
5. After this short exposure, kvass from birch sap can be drunk.
Birch kvass with malt on buckwheat flour with lemon
Ingredients:
• one glass of powdered kvass malt;
• medium-sized lemon;
• a tablespoon of honey (buckwheat);
• a small handful of dark raisins;
• a glass of buckwheat flour;
• a handful of raspberry leaves;
• two liters of birch sap.
Cooking method:
1. Sift buckwheat flour into a bowl, pour one and a half cups of boiling water, rub and stir, leave to cool completely.
2. Rinse well and grind with a meat grinder along with lemon. At the same time, you do not need to cut the zest from the lemon.
3. Wash the raspberry leaves, wipe dry and chop with a knife.
4. Mix the components twisted in the meat grinder with raspberry leaves and honey.
5. Add steamed buckwheat flour and malt. Stir well and fill with birch sap.
6. Wrap the neck of the container with a bandage or gauze and clean for 4 days in a fairly warm room.
7. After this, drain the finished birch kvass from the sediment and strain.
8. The leaven that remains at the bottom of the tank can be used repeatedly.
Apple kvass on birch sap with ginger and mint
Ingredients:
• two liters of birch sap;
• five medium-sized apples;
• 40 grams of fresh ginger root;
• a teaspoon of light honey;
• three tablespoons of raisins;
• half a lemon;
• high-speed yeast - 0.5 tsp;
• eight leaves of mint;
• 100 gr. sugar.
Cooking method:
1. Rinse and sort out the mint leaves, raisins and put everything on a towel.
2. Without peeling the apples, cut them into medium-sized slices, remove the seeds and fill with birch sap. Put the pan with apples on a small fire and boil it after boiling for three minutes, cool.
3. In half a glass of warm broth, dilute the yeast. Add sugar (1 tsp) to the mixture, stir and put in a warm place for a quarter of an hour.
4. In the cooled broth, pour the approached yeast. Add the remaining sugar, honey and squeeze the juice from the lemon. Dip ginger grated, chopped mint leaves and raisins.
5. Stir thoroughly, cover with several layers of gauze on top and let stand for up to 12 hours.
6. Be sure to strain and cool well.
Birch sap kvass - cooking tips and tricks
• The juice secreted by the birch tree is harvested in spring, when abundant sap flow begins.
• In the bark of an adult tree, the girth of which is more than 20 cm, a hole is made to a depth that allows you to reach the wood, and a tube is inserted into it. It is in it that juice will stand out.
• The diameter of the hole should correspond to the diameter of the tube inserted into it, otherwise the juice will stand out past.
• For convenience, you can use a tube from a medical dropper. One end is inserted into the hole on the tree, and the other into the hole on the nylon cover, which is worn on a three-liter jar. When filling the tank, it is replaced by another. Juice collected by this method is obtained clean without impurities of forest debris.
• Freshly harvested juice must be filtered off from any accidental debris before making kvass.
