This, for every Russian household, necessary national beverage, which is also used for different soups and other dishes, is manufactured for the family use in the following way:

Ten pounds of rye flour, one pound of malt, and one pound of buckwheat flour are stirred in a tub with three quarts of warm water; then pour over it three quarts of boiling water; after half an hour add again six quarts of boiling water, and repeat this in half-hourly intervals three times more; stir the flour in the water well; let it get cool, cover, and let it stand in a rather warm place; the following day you thin the kvass with cold water; put it in a cool place; let it thoroughly sour, and bottle. When the kvass is nearly used up, leave a couple of quarts of the beverage in the tub for the next souring; the thick sediment at the bottom is then thrown away, but it may be used on farms successfully as food for the beasts of burden.

Another recipe is the following:

Twenty pounds of rye flour, and as much malt flour are stirred with cold water, and kneaded well; then form loaves of bread from ten to twelve pounds each; press with the fingers some deep holes into them; pour cold water into these holes; place the loaves in a very hot baking-oven, and bake them brownish black; leave them over night in the oven; break forty pounds to moderate-sized pieces; put them in a tub; pour fifty to sixty quarts of boiling water over them; cover the pot with canton flannel and a wooden lid very well, and let soak for two hours. Pour the entire quantity into a cask, the bottom of which is covered with cross-laid slats, which again are covered by straw to prevent the falling through of the bread; through a side-faucet decant the kvass, and fill it again into the cask; repeat this a few times to clear it sufficiently; in a vessel already soured it need stay for only twenty-four hours, but in a new cask it must stand for a few days until it is sufficiently sour.

Besides this bread-kvass, this beverage may be made also from fruits: so you may make apple-kvass by rowing apple-slices and whole pears on strings, and drying them in the sun; in a cask of about fifteen gallons you put twenty-four quarts of dried apples, and as many dried pears, and fill the cask with boiled but cooled-off water; let it stand for three days on a rather warm place; then bring it into the cellar; cover the bung-hole with canvas, and let the kvass ferment. After fermentation bung the cask; bottle after four weeks; add to each bottle a handful of raisins; cork, and seal, and let them lie a few months in a cellar; cover them with a layer of sand.