What is bread wine? Yeast-free mash with wheat

Polugar is an alcohol that was drunk in Russia before vodka. But this is not its relative, but rather a distant relative of whiskey, since this drink is a grain distillate (for which it was nicknamed bread wine). Bread wine is made from wheat, barley or rye malt and has a higher strength than fruit wines - 38.5%.

History of bread wine

In the 15th-19th centuries, no one would have wondered what polugar was, because every Russian person knew this alcohol in those days. It was especially popular among aristocratic landowners who, sparing no grain reserves, prepared bread wine, keeping family recipes secret.

The first written mention of this distillate dates back to 1517, but it is known that the drink was produced earlier. It was officially called polugar in 1842 with the light hand of Nicholas I. The name is closely related to testing the quality of bread wine - poured into a special ladle and set on fire, the wine had to burn out exactly half.

Landowners not only produced and drank grain wine own production, but also sold it, thereby reducing the consumption of vodka. The monopoly on the sale of vodka belonged to Tsarist Russia, therefore, by order of the Minister of Finance S.Yu. Since 1895, Witte has banned the production and sale of bread wine.

The fashion for old recipes has not bypassed alcoholic drinks. Some recipes were found, restored and tested. Thus passed the revival of bread wine, which in the last decade has again begun to enjoy, albeit not its former, popularity.

The difference between polugar and vodka and whiskey

Those who have tried bread wine claim that it is an alcohol that resembles a cross between whiskey and vodka. Is this so, the table will help you figure it out:

As you can see, bread wine is a drink that is unlike anything else, but has more similarities with whiskey or than with vodka.

Types of bread wines

• Rye polugar - smells rye bread, prepared from selected rye using triple distillation. Polugar rye is cleaned with egg white and birch charcoal. Sometimes it is aged in oak barrels, and then the rye polugar is very reminiscent of scotch.
• Wheat malt polugar – smells like rustic white bread; undergoes double or triple distillation. Wheat polugar is soft and pleasant to the taste.
• Buckwheat polugar is transparent, with a honey smell. Buckwheat polugar is prepared from buckwheat malt using double or triple distillation.
• Polugar malt is a modern mixed alcohol from wheat and rye malt. IN different recipes the composition includes: pepper and garlic, cumin and coriander, honey. The Krivach brand has been brought to 41% and 61% strength.

How to drink and what to eat

Bread wine is drunk from lafitniks - small glasses with a capacity of 50-150 ml or shot glasses, pre-cooled to 8-10°C. Traditionally, the glass was not tipped down to drink in one sip - the wine was savored. Only leisurely drinking reveals its originality.

A good appetizer consisting of meat and pickles will help highlight this alcohol. It goes well with all traditional Russian snacks that go with vodka, including jellied meat, lard and pickled cucumbers.

Polugar recipe

By purchasing Old Russian alcohol in a store, you can easily determine its quality. It is enough to rub a couple of drops of bread wine between your palms until you feel the aroma of the bread. It will just be a pity if the money has already been paid, but the drink turns out to be fake.

To prevent such a situation from happening, gourmet moonshiners have learned to prepare polugar on their own. This is how a recipe appeared, created from ancient records found by historian Boris Rodionov, taking into account modern realities.

Prepare:

• malt (wheat, barley, rye or a combination thereof) – 5 kilos
• yeast – 300 gr. pressed or 50 gr. dry
• clean water, preferably bottled or spring (well) water - 20 liters
• thermometer (up to 100°C)

You need to prepare it like this:

Stage 1. Malt preparation. The raw material in bread wine will be well-dried malt (rye malt is most often used). It can be sprouted from grain or purchased and then ground (not into flour). The grains of ground malt should resemble chaff.

Stage 2. Mashing or saccharification. At this stage, the starch that contains the malt will break down into sugars. For this to happen, the water must first be boiled and then cooled to 55°C. A thermometer will help determine the exact temperature. Deviation from the indicated temperatures by more than 2 degrees in both directions can lead to failure - the malt will not saccharify and the wine yield will be extremely small.

Crushed malt is poured into the prepared water and mixed. There should be no lumps, especially at the bottom of the container. Next, heat the mass to 62-64°C, close the lid and wrap it up. The temperature of the wort should be maintained around 61-65°C for one and a half hours. Therefore, every 15-20 minutes you need to measure it and, if necessary, slightly warm the wort.

Stage 3. Fermentation. At this stage, the yeast must convert the sugar into alcohol. To do this, the sugared wort must be cooled quickly (in 20-30 minutes) to a temperature of 27-29°C. This is done by placing the mash container in a bath filled with pieces of ice, snow, etc.

Next, the mass is placed in a fermentation vat. Dissolved yeast (as recommended on the package) is also added here. The composition is mixed, closed with a lid with a water seal and sent to a room with the conditions necessary for fermentation: no light, temperature 20-27°C (without sudden changes).

Fermentation most often lasts 1-2 weeks. However, it may end in 4-5 days. Therefore, the condition of the mash must be monitored daily, and at the same time, the thick grain mass must be knocked off from its surface. Only after you are completely sure that the mash has “spent time” should you start distilling it. The taste of the finished mash will not taste sugar, it will be bitter, and at the same time lighten.

Stage 4. First distillation. At this stage, raw alcohol is obtained. To do this, we first filter the mash and then pour it into the distillation cube. There will be no division into factional components at this stage. Distillation stops when the output alcohol contains at least 25-23% alcohol.

After the first distillation, the alcohol turns out to be cloudy and smell sharp. This is how it should be – this is just the beginning.

Stage 5. Second distillation. At this stage, the initial release of alcohol from the harmful substances it contains occurs. Mix all the alcohol obtained at the previous stage, measure the strength and, slowly pouring in water and stirring, bring it to 20%. We pour the liquid into the cube and distill it again, separating in the process the “heads” (12-15% yield - in our case, about 180-200 ml), the “body” (the alcohol that follows the “heads” with a strength of at least 40%) and “ tails" (alcohol with a strength below 40%). We get rid of the non-drinkable, browned “heads”; only the middle part of the distillate is involved in the further process.

According to ancient recipes, malt wine was always distilled and refined three times. If you decide not to stop at double distillation, and do everything as before, then you will need to combine the “body” and “tails” obtained during the second distillation, dilute the composition again to 20% strength and carry out a third distillation. In its process, the alcohol is again divided into fractions using the technology described above.

Stage 6. Cleaning. At this stage, the final elimination of harmful impurities occurs, the formation of the taste and aroma of the wine. Typically, the resulting distillate is purified with egg white and milk, bread and charcoal. However, it is not necessary to use all methods - you can stop at one or two.

Mandatory condition: before purification, alcohol is diluted with water to 45-47%. This way, it will not lose significantly in strength (the content of pure alcohol will not fall below 40%), and the “harmfulness” will be better absorbed.

Stage 7. Dilution, stabilization, storage. The purified distillate is diluted with water to the traditional strength of 38.5%, bottled, corked and sent for a couple of days (or better yet, a week) in a cool room or in the refrigerator. During this time, the taste of the drink stabilizes.

According to this description, you should have approximately 3-3.5 liters of soft and aromatic bread wine. However, the output figure may differ from the indicated one. This depends on the quality of the constituent components and compliance with temperatures during saccharification.

Experienced moonshiners know that wheat is an excellent raw material for mash. At proper preparation The result is easy-to-drink moonshine containing a minimum of harmful substances. I present to your attention a proven recipe for wheat mash that our ancestors used. His distinctive feature– no dry or pressed yeast.

We will replace artificial yeast with wild yeast, which gives almost no unpleasant odor. Malt enzymes break down starch into sugar, which turns into alcohol during fermentation. Wheat mash requires high-quality raw materials. I advise you to take only clean, dried grain, stored for no more than one year; it should not be rotten or damaged.

Ingredients:

• wheat – 4 kg;
• sugar – 4 kg;
• water – 30 liters.

Sugar increases the yield of the finished product, while the characteristic grain aroma remains.

Wheat mash recipe without yeast

1. Pour 1 kg of grain into a plastic or metal container and spread it into an even layer at the bottom. Add water; it should cover the layer of wheat by 1-2 cm. Cover with a lid and place in a cool, dark place. After 1-2 days the grains will germinate.

2. After the sprouts appear, add 500 grams of sugar to the container and mix with your hands. If the mass is too thick, you can add a little water. Tie the neck of the container with gauze and place in a warm place for 10 days. This time is enough to create a starter that replaces yeast.

3. Pour the starter into a glass bottle, add 3.5 kg of sugar and 3 kg of wheat. Pour the resulting mixture with warm water (up to 30°C).

4. Place a rubber glove with a hole in the finger (pictured) or a water seal on the neck of the container. Place the bottle in a room with a temperature of 18-24°C. Depending on the activity of the yeast, fermentation will last 7-20 days.

5. The spent mash tastes bitter; you need to check this when the glove is deflated (the water seal stops blowing bubbles).

6. Drain the finished mash from the sediment, filter through cheesecloth and distill in a moonshine still of any design. To improve the quality, I advise you to do a second distillation, separating the “heads” and “tails”, after diluting the moonshine with water to 20 degrees.

From the wheat remaining at the bottom, you can make two or three more servings of mash, each time pouring 4 kg of sugar into the container and filling everything with water. The second and third mash turn out to be the best, then the quality deteriorates noticeably.

Rye distillate is used to make polugar. Braga is made from selected coarsely ground rye and pure spring water, which is not completely purified. When the mash is ready for distillation, it is distilled in special copper stills. Fresh egg whites and natural birch charcoal are used to cleanse the drink.
Very often, the recipe for bread wine is confused with making vodka. In fact, this drink has nothing in common with modern vodka.

A strong, clear alcoholic drink does not need to be refrigerated before drinking - the mild taste of rye bread manifests itself very well at room temperature. The aroma of fresh bread and the rich, oily structure of the drink make it look like a strong liqueur.

Polugar bread wine recipe made from flour

Pour warm water over wheat or rye flour and mix well until most of the flour dissolves.

Heat the flour mixture over low heat and cook for an hour at a temperature not exceeding 70 degrees. The starter should be stirred well until the wort acquires a light brown tint.

Remove from heat and leave to cool to room temperature. Add yeast and sugar to the wort, mix well and leave to ferment.

After 3 days, the mash will need to be distilled - it will be advisable to drain the sediment. In the case of steam distillation, the precipitate can be left.

After the first distillation, you should get two liters of alcohol. Dilute the resulting raw material with water - 1:1 and carry out a second distillation in a distiller.

To improve the taste, you can distill it a third time, then clean it with activated carbon or egg white.

Polugar bread wine prepared according to this recipe turns out to be quite strong - 42-45%. Despite this, it has a mild taste and is easy to drink.

“Then they brought a cup of one and a half buckets of green wine to Ilya Muromets...” So it was said in one of the ancient Russian fairy tales. Green wine is so named not because of its color or because it belongs to the green serpent. Cereals and grains used to be called potions. AND made especially strong drinks from grain crops, also called bread wine. Over time, the need arose to somehow standardize the strength, and therefore the quality of the drink. It was then that an interesting method was invented, which resulted in a new name for the national strong drink. The well-known Russian vodka will appear only after almost two hundred years.

First, a few words about the technology for producing alcohol from grain.

To prepare a strong intoxicating drink, they took good, mature grain and sprouted it. Then dried and crushed, thus obtaining malt. During the germination process, special enzymes are formed in cereals that can convert starch, protein and cellulose into sugar. In mash made from malt, alcohol is formed from sugar under the action of yeast. By distillation, alcohol is extracted from the mash along with accompanying substances.

To determine the strength of the resulting distillate, it was poured, measuring the volume, into a special container. They heated it almost to a boil and set it on fire, after which they waited until the liquid went out by itself, due to the natural burnout of the alcohol. Volume of remaining liquid they measured it, and if it was half of the original, then the batch was considered suitable for further improvement and use and was called half-gar. If there was more than half of the liquid, all the liquid was distilled again.

Thus, initially, polugar is the initial, reference raw material for the further production of vodka by purification and infusion. Subsequently, people begin to call the finished drink, purified and brought to a strength of 38.5, polugar. Now it is coming back into fashion, and, if available, moonshine still You can make homemade polugar vodka yourself. It differs from traditional Russian vodka in that its production uses distillation rather than rectification, this required condition.

What is needed to get polugar

The recipe for polugar bread wine is as follows:

First you need to get raw grain alcohol. Then re-distill it, separating the head fractions containing methyl alcohol, acetone and other particularly toxic substances, then purify the distillate and dilute it to the desired strength.

Obtaining raw alcohol

For this recipe you will need:

To prepare mash, you need to produce mashing - heating the malt with water to accelerate the breakdown of starch into sugars. Without this procedure, bread mash can ferment for months. The water is heated to a boil, cooled to sixty degrees, the crushed malt is poured in and stirred. Then they heat it to sixty-five to seventy degrees and maintain this temperature for an hour and a half.

The wort is cooled to 30% and the yeast is poured. Mix again and place under a water seal in a warm, dark place. The mash is kept until carbon dioxide ceases to be released. On average two weeks. The finished mash has a bitter taste, without any sweetness.

Then the resulting liquid is carefully drained from the sediment through gauze. The less turbidity there is in the mash, the higher the quality of the distillate. Distillation is carried out at the maximum temperature for the existing apparatus. From time to time, wet the paper with a few drops and set it on fire. Distillation is continued until the distillate stops igniting.

To obtain three liters of polugar, you will need:

• 6 kilograms of malt
• 24 liters of water
• 100 grams of dry baker's or alcohol yeast

Re-distillation

As a result of the steps described above, the result was raw alcohol with a strength of approximately 55-60%; for re-distillation, it should be diluted by approximately half. Clean, preferably distilled water. When the first drops appear from the moonshine still, the heat is reduced to a minimum, so that one drop of distillate drips per second. In this way, 10% of the volume of distilled raw alcohol is taken. This liquid is poisonous and should not be used as food.

The heat is then increased and distillation is carried out until the distillate no longer ignites on the paper. In principle, the result was an almost ready-made half-gar, the lowest quality so-called bread. In order to experience the delicate taste and aroma of high-quality polugar, it must be properly cleaned.

Cleaning

There are four traditional recipe to clean the distillate from impurities:

1. Charcoal. Traditionally, pencil-thin birch twigs burned without access to air were used, but modern activated carbon intended for water filters will give a better result. You can simply add half a glass of coal to a three-liter jar and let it sit for several days, stirring the contents every day. It is best to pour coal into a pipe with a diameter of 5 cm and a length of at least half a meter. The bottom of the pipe is tied with gauze, and distillate is poured on top in small portions.
2. Egg white. The white of one egg is stirred in three liters of strong bread wine and wait until the sediment has completely fallen out. Then the liquid is filtered through cotton wool, gauze or filter paper.
3. Milk. For three liters of distillate you will need one hundred milliliters of fresh fresh milk. Milk from the store is practically not suitable for this purpose.
4. Rye bread. The bread crumb, calculated at one hundred grams per liter of liquid, is crumbled and added to the product to be purified. After a couple of days, the finished drink is carefully filtered.

You should not use soda and potassium permanganate, they greatly spoil the taste of the drink.

For rye malt polugar, purification with rye bread, according to experts, is unnecessary; as a rule, it is recommended to purify with egg or milk, then dilute the distillate to 40% strength and pass through a charcoal filter. Before drinking, the drink should rest for at least two weeks.

If you don’t have a home moonshine still, you can buy ready-made malt polugar, aged rye polugar or wheat polugar made by professionals, but a drink made by yourself is much more pleasant to drink than simple vodka.

Attention, TODAY only!

Polugar - this word may seem funny to many, and maybe even ridiculous; almost no one will say with certainty that this is a long-forgotten grain wine. A century and a half ago, during Tsarist Russia the drink was popular and had many admirers among the common people and the aristocracy of those times. Unfortunately, due to great competition with vodka, bread wine was literally exterminated from the alcohol market Russian Empire. But it has survived to this day original recipe half-gara.

The history of the creation of bread wine

Polugar is a bread wine made by double distillation of rye or barley malt. The strength of the drink is about 38.5 degrees. The preparation of polugar is similar to the preparation of brandy or whiskey cognac, the difference is that it is not aged in oak barrels. The first mention of bread wine was made back in 1517. It was then that wealthy landowners prepared polugar for their own consumption, according to a recipe that was passed down from ancestor to descendant. And until the 19th century it was considered the national Russian drink. But by decree of the Ministry of Finance, then headed by S.Yu. Witte, polugar has become a forbidden drink. It was replaced by the familiar vodka.

So why the polugar? Bread wine got this name because special method checking the quality of this alcoholic drink. Bread wine was poured into a copper ladle, then a fire was lit under it. After a certain time, part of the liquid burned out, then the remaining amount was checked. If there was half as much grain wine left as there was before the test, then the bread wine successfully passed the test. Hence the name polugar. By the way, this method of checking the quality of bread wine was established by Nicholas I.

How to cook polugar

But how to cook polugar so that it turns out to be as original as possible? This method of preparing bread wine was created according to ancient methods that have survived to this day. It is adapted for ordinary preparation, even in the average kitchen, so that everyone can make this alcoholic drink at home. To prepare this forgotten Russian national alcoholic drink you will need:

• Barley or rye malt – 4-5 kg;
• Distilled water – 20-25 liters;
• Yeast, if dry - 60 grams, for pressed - 300 grams.

The malt can be anything, it doesn’t matter. In the classic version, bread wine was prepared from rye, but, accordingly, the aroma of the resulting wine will differ from the selected malt. It is better to use tap water after several stages of purification (settling, filtration), and the easiest way is to buy ready-made distilled water. The technology for creating polugara includes the following items:

Malt and its preparation

You will need dried malt, preferably very dry. The grains should be very small; if they are not, you can grind them yourself, but not to the point of flour. For beginners in this winemaking issue, ready-made crushed malt, sold in specialized stores, is suitable.

Mashing stage

Under influence high temperature and water, the starch contained in the malt is broken down into sugar. You need to pour water into a container and boil it. Next, cool the water to 55-60 degrees and add malt. Mix thoroughly until smooth, heat to 65-70 degrees and mix again. Do not allow lumps to appear at the bottom. Then, maintain this temperature under a tight lid for 90 minutes. This works best over low heat.

Fermentation stage

Sugar separated from starch by yeast is converted into alcohol. Cool the resulting wort to 30 degrees and pour it into a prepared fermentation container. Add required quantity yeast and place in the dark at a temperature not exceeding 25 degrees. Fermentation will take you from a week to two, it all depends on the temperature of the room, the quality of the malt and the yeast. Once a day, you need to open the fermentation container and mix the contents with clean hands or a wooden spoon. Braga is considered ready for distillation only if it has a light color and no bubbling along with a bitter taste.

Initial distillation

For getting maximum quantity raw alcohol, distill the mash over low heat, use a strainer so that the spent grain does not get into the distillation container and does not burn during distillation. The resulting raw material will be cloudy with a slightly stinking, pungent odor.

Secondary distillation

We clean raw alcohol from cloudy color and pungent odor. Further distillation will take place with division into fractions. “The head is the primary product” - the first thing that comes out during distillation should be disposed of immediately, since it will contain a maximum of harmful substances. “Body” is the selection product we need. We select until the strength drops below 40 degrees.

Cleansing stage

We bring a characteristic aroma to bread wine and soften it taste qualities. A typical cleaning method for polugar is cleaning with charcoal or bread with egg white.