Mongolian Kumis and Araka

[DavidWatkins]

Cows Milk Alternative to Traditional Mare's Milk Kumis
The following information is taken from The Complete Anachronist #5: The SCA Guide to Brewing. This is a publication of the Society for Creative Anachronism, an international organization dedicated to the recreation of the arts and sciences of the middle ages.

A. Ingredients:
•12 oz. fresh milk
•4 oz. water
•10 grams brown sugar
•1.5 grams yeast [Bread Yeast will do.]
•15 grams lactose (milk sugar)

B. Procedure:
Dissolve the lactose in the water, add it to the milk, mix the yeast and brown sugar thoroughly, adding a little of the milk mixture to make it a thin paste, then add that to the rest of the milk solution and stir well. Bottle this in very strong bottles (champagne bottles are recommended) and hold at 50 - 60 degrees F. Each day wrap each bottle individually in several layers of cloth before shaking the bottle gently for about ten minutes to prevent the casein from coagulating. The cloth is necessary as a safety precaution, as there is a great deal of CO2 buildup inside the bottle and it might explode. The kumiss should be ready in three to five days.

Hints: Agitate the bottles at least three times a day, uncork each bottle once a day to release gasses and then recork it and at least twice a day and set the bottle upright to allow the gasses to gather at the top.

=============================

My thoughts; Milk has 13g of sugars per 8oz, so this recipe has 475grams of total sugars per gallon. But lactose isn't directly fermentable. From a bit of reasearch, with a bit of Lactase enzyme this could be converted over to glucose which is directly fermentable. Lactase works best at around 77 degrees F, so this is a no heat mash and maintaining temperature should be no problem. This leads me to believe the recipe tops out at 4.5% abv, assuming perfect conversion which never happens in reality. Also, fats tend to slow fermentation, or so I read so perhaps skim milk would be better than whole milk.

A 5 Gallon wash would look like this...
•3.75 gallons fresh milk
•1.25 gallons water
•400 grams brown sugar
•60 grams yeast [Bread Yeast will do.]
•600 grams lactose (milk sugar)

Araka (or Arkhi) is distilled Kumis.

=============================

Related? Scottish drink called Blaand made from fermented whey. http://www.erringtoncheese.co.uk/pages/fallachan.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

==========================

May have to investigate this some day. I'm near Amish country now, I can get raw unprocessed milk with no preservatives. Can't say this is an immediate project, just providing the information I have gathered with other people who may appreciate it.