Bread wine is a type of distillate considered to be a fortified drink by Russians. That is, it is a high-grade alcohol made from fermented. Such a drink is obtained almost like - with the help of malt and bread flour, adding grains of wheat, oats, barley or rye.

What is a semi-scar

Many people are interested in what it is, half a lump. This is the name of the homemade homemade on wheat or rye grains restored using traditional technologies. This drink has been produced since the 16th century and has a strength of 38.5% by volume. and the aroma of rye bread. The traditional Russian vodka got its name from "semi-vygary wine" and "semi-hard wine".

The production technology of a semi-car is similar to the manufacturing process, or. The only difference is in the cleaning method. Modern connoisseurs of traditional drinks are reviving half-milk recipes by making it at home. Natural filtration methods are used for cleaning - charcoal, milk, bread.

For the last 120 years, semi-garments have not been produced or sold. Among alcoholic beverages, the old semi-alcohol did not take the last place, since it had a low cost price. But he prevented the vodka monopoly in tsarist Russia from making large profits, as a result of which in 1895 the drink was banned and replaced with vodka.

Types of bread wines

Among the variety of bread wine, there are types such as:

Choice of wheat or rye distillate

If you choose which one is better - a half-wheat or a half-malt, it should be borne in mind that the second type of drink will be more modern and the ingredients for it will be slightly different.

For the production of a wheat drink, only wheat grains are required, while for a malt half-bar, rye must also be added. In the modern version of the alcoholic beverage, additional ingredients are added to improve the taste. In wheat, however, there are no spices.

Semugar recipes

If we consider the classic semi-lager, the recipe will consist of a minimum of ingredients. Among them:

1. Barley, rye or wheat malt - 5-6 kg.
2. Drinking water - 20-25 liters.
3. Yeast - 60 g dry or 300 g fresh.

Which malt to choose depends on taste preferences, but according to the classic old Russian recipe, rye was used to obtain a traditional Russian drink called rye half-bar.

From the inventory you will need a container and a thermometer, since during the production process it is necessary to measure the temperature of the wort.

The manufacturing process will be as follows:

How to drink and what to eat

The resulting rye semigar is drunk from glasses with a capacity of 50-150 ml. Previously, the dishes are cooled or rinsed with cold water. According to the old Russian tradition, a glass is not drunk to the bottom in one gulp. Bread wine, half-bar is savoring, because only in measured use its taste qualities are revealed.

To emphasize the taste of the drink, use a good meat appetizer or pickles. Since the drink is traditionally Russian, Russian snacks will also be good - jellied meat, bacon, pickles.

"Then they brought Ilya Muromets a bowl of one and a half buckets, green wine ..." So it was said in one of the old Russian fairy tales. Green wine - so named not for the color and not for belonging to the green snake. Potion used to be called cereals, grain. AND made especially strong drinks from cereals, calling them also bread wine. Over time, it became necessary to somehow standardize the strength, and hence the quality of the drink. Then an interesting method was invented, as a result of which a new name for the national strong drink arose. The well-known Russian vodka will appear only in almost two hundred years.

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

To prepare a strong, intoxicated drink, they took a good, ripe grain and germinated it. Then dried and crushed thus obtaining malt. In the process of germination in cereals, special enzymes are formed that can convert starch, protein and cellulose into sugar. In mash made from malt, alcohol is formed from sugar under the influence of yeast. By distillation, alcohol is extracted from the wash together with related substances.

To determine the strength of the resulting distillate, it was poured, measuring the volume, into a special dish. They heated it almost to a boil and set it on fire, after which they waited until the liquid extinguished by itself, due to the natural burnout of alcohol. Remaining liquid volume measured, and if it was half of the original, then the batch was recognized as fit for further improvement and use and was called a half-bar. If there was more than half of the liquid, the entire liquid was distilled again.

Thus, initially, semi-alcohol is the initial, reference raw material for the further production of vodka by purification and infusion. Subsequently, people begin to call the ready-made, refined and brought to a strength of 38.5 a half-bar drink. Now he is back in fashion, and, if available moonshine still you can make homemade half-bar vodka yourself. It differs from traditional Russian vodka in that distillation is used in its production, not rectification, this is a prerequisite.

What is needed to get a half-garment

The recipe for semugar 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 especially toxic substances, then purify the distillate and dilute to the desired strength.

Obtaining raw alcohol

For this recipe you will need:

To make mash, you need to produce grout - 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 and stirred. Then it is heated to sixty-five to seventy degrees and this temperature is maintained for an hour and a half.

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

Then the resulting liquid is carefully poured through cheesecloth from the sediment. The less turbidity is in the mash, the higher the quality of the distillate will be. The distillation is carried out at the maximum temperature for the available apparatus. From time to time, a few drops are moistened with paper and set on fire. The distillation is continued until the distillate ceases to ignite.

To obtain three liters of a semi-grain, you will need:

• 6 kilograms of malt
• 24 liters of water
• 100 grams of dry bakery or alcohol yeast

Re-distillation

As a result of the above actions, the obtained raw alcohol with a strength of about 55-60% for it should be diluted by about half. Clean, preferably distilled water... When the first drops from the moonshine appear, the heating is reduced to a minimum, so that one drop of distillate drips in one second. Thus, 10% of the volume of distilled raw alcohol is taken away. This liquid is poisonous and cannot be used for food.

Then the heating is increased and distillation is carried out until the distillate again ceases to ignite on the paper. In principle, it turned out to be an almost ready-made half-grain, of the lowest quality, the so-called bread-baker. In order to feel the delicate taste and aroma of a high-quality semi-tan, it must be properly cleaned.

Cleaning

There are four traditional recipes for removing impurities from distillate:

1. Charcoal... Traditionally, pencil-thick birch rods burnt without air access were used, but modern activated carbon intended for water filters will give the best result. You can simply add half a glass of charcoal to a three-liter jar and let stand 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, the top is poured in small portions of distillate.
2. Egg white... The white of one egg, stir in three liters of strong bread wine and wait until the sediment completely precipitates. Then the liquid is filtered through cotton wool, gauze or filter paper.
3. Milk... Three liters of distillate will require one hundred milliliters of fresh fresh milk. Store milk is hardly suitable for this purpose.
4. Rye bread... Bread crumb and calculation of one hundred grams per liter of liquid is crumbled and added to the product to be cleaned. After a couple of days, the finished drink is thoroughly filtered.

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

For a malted rye semi-bar, cleaning with rye bread, according to experts, is unnecessary, as a rule, it is recommended to carry out, then dilute the distillate to a strength of 40% and pass it through a charcoal filter. Rest for at least two weeks before drinking.

In the absence of a home-brewed moonshine still, you can buy ready-made malt semi-stew, matured rye semi-stew or wheat semi-stew made by professionals, but a drink made with your own hands is much more pleasant to consume than plain vodka.

Attention, only TODAY!

Rye distillate is used for the production of semi-steels. 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 the preparation of vodka. In fact, this drink has nothing to do with modern vodka.

A strong, clear alcoholic beverage does not need to be refrigerated before drinking - the mild taste of rye bread is very evident at room temperature. The aroma of fresh bread and rich buttery structure of the drink makes it look like a strong liquor.

Recipe for semi-flour bread wine

Pour wheat or rye flour with warm water and stir well to dissolve the main part of the flour.

Heat the flour mass over low heat and cook for an hour at a temperature not exceeding 70 degrees. Stir the sourdough well until the wort acquires a light brown hue.

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 desirable 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 crude with water - 1: 1 and carry out the second distillation in a still.

To improve the taste, it can be distilled a third time, and then cleaned with activated charcoal or egg white.

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

Nowadays, few people know what a half-bar is, although even in the 19th century this word was on everyone's lips. So called bread wine, which our ancestors made from wheat, rye or barley.

It got its name due to the original verification method. After cooking, some clear liquid was poured into a copper saucepan and set on fire. When the flame burned out, the remainder of the drink was measured. If there is half left, then the half-grain has turned out wonderfully well and can be served on the table.

Gradually cooking technology bread wine was forgotten and replaced by regular vodka. But in the old books there are unique recipes, according to which you can cook a half-bread and enjoy a traditional Russian drink.

Bread wine - a classic recipe

You will need:

• Malt made from rye, barley or wheat grains, 5 kg.
• 20 liters of filtered or settled water.
• 300 grams of fresh yeast.

It is very important to choose the right raw material for malt. To do this, you need to grind the grains by coarse grinding or purchase a finished product in the store. Make sure it is dry and clean.

Preparation:

1. Pour water into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Wait until it cools down to 55 ° C and add prepared malt to it. Stir all the lumps thoroughly and heat the mixture to 61-64 ° C.

Place the lid on the container and let the malt stand for an hour and a half, maintaining the temperature in it at 65 ° C.

2. Then cool the liquid slightly and transfer to a large glass bottle. Dissolve yeast in warm liquid and stir.

Put a water seal on the neck and leave in a warm place for two weeks. Open container and stir daily.

3. When the raw material brightens and tastes a little bitter, strain it through a sieve and pour into a vessel for distilling moonshine. Put on the stove and distill the mash until its strength drops to 25 degrees. It will be white and tasteless. requires re-distillation.

4. Dilute the cloudy liquid by half with water and use a moonshine still to get a clean, transparent drink.

Collect about 200 ml of pervak ​​in a separate bottle. It contains harmful impurities and it is best not to use it. As soon as the fortress of the half-bar drops to 40 degrees, turn off the heat and stop distilling.

5. When the high-degree drink has cooled down, dilute it with distilled water to 45 degrees and start cleaning the liquid from harmful impurities.

In Russia, they gave softness and delicate taste to semi-tan with the help of bread, milk, charcoal or whipped egg white.

You can use all cleaning methods, or try just one, such as charcoal. Put some black pebbles in a deep sieve, strain bread wine through them, or immerse several tablets of activated carbon in liquid for a day.

6. Measure the drink with an alcohol meter, and dilute to 38.5 degrees. Bottle the semi-garbage and store in the cellar.

You can drink it in a few days. Pour the chilled liquid into a tall glass and sip. This will give you the opportunity to feel all the softness and aroma of a semi-tan made according to an old recipe.

The Chronicle of 1517 is the first source in which the use of a half-bar is mentioned, but it may have been prepared in Russia before.

Bread wine, the recipe of which goes back centuries, is a strong alcoholic drink (35-50 °) prepared by distilling grain mash.

We will find out how it differs from ordinary vodka, and how to independently prepare this natural drink for home meals!

Why is bread wine called semi-tar

This wine is called bread wine because it is prepared on the basis of cereals: rye, barley, wheat and others. And they began to call him a half-bar even in tsarist times, and here's why.

The origin of the name of the half-bar

Then the optimal strength of bread wine was 38.5 ° - no more, no less! In order for the drink to have just such a strength, in 1842 Nicholas I issued the "Decree on testing alcohol for strength by an original method."

The wine was poured into a copper container and set on fire: if it was of high quality, half of the liquid should have burned out. Hence the name of the wine - "half-tar", which means "half-burned out".

Not a single royal feast could do without a half-bar with a pronounced rye aroma!

For four centuries (from the 16th to the 19th), the polugar had the status of a national Russian alcoholic drink. It was produced on any estate, and it could be bought at any drinking establishment, be it a tavern or a tavern.

What is the difference between bread wine and vodka

Polugar differs from vodka in the following nuances:

1. Manufacturing process

Polugar is obtained through distillation, which allows preserving the taste of wheat, rye or other grain raw materials. Real bread wine smells like bread and tastes like it.

Vodka alcohol, for the production of which rectifying columns are used, has neither taste nor smell of the feedstock.

2. By the drinking process

They drink vodka cold and in one gulp, pouring it into glasses. The semigar is cooled to 10 ° C, poured into 100-150 gram lafitniks and sipped to enjoy the taste.

But the appetizer can be the same for vodka, and for a half-drink! It is good to eat them with pickles, sauerkraut, dishes with garlic and meat, traditional Russian snacks.

Many factors affect the taste of a semi-tan: what the malt consists of, what quality water and yeast are used, what material the devices for its production are made of, how correctly the temperature regime is observed during mashing, how the wine is refined ...

And, of course, the correctness of the half-bar recipe is important! We will learn how to make bread wine at home according to an old recipe.

Polugar: a recipe for an ancient intoxicating drink

Ingredients

• - 24 l + -
• Rye malt - 6 kg + -
• - 60 g + -

It is better to use spring or bottled water. If there is no rye malt, use wheat, buckwheat or barley malt.

We also stock up on a thermometer to maintain the required temperature when mashing the wort.

How to make bread wine

Bread wine preparation consists of the following processes:

Malt crushing

Grind well-dried malt using a grain grinder. It should not be ground into flour: it is desirable to get a medium grind.

Mashing

Pour water into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Now we proceed to saccharification, or mashing, to break down the malt starch into fermentable sugars:

1. Cool the water down to 55 ° C.
2. Pour the ground malt into a saucepan and stir well to get a lump-free mixture.
3. Heat the mixture (mash) to 63 ° C, stirring it all the time.
4. We close the pan, insulate it and keep the temperature at 62-65 degrees for 1.5 hours.

This temperature must be maintained throughout the saccharification process so that the mashing is successful and the wort ferments.

Wort fermentation

Quickly cool the saccharified wort to 26-28 degrees by placing the pan in a container with very cold water. You can also buy a chiller and use it to cool the wort. Go ahead:

1. Pour the wort into a bottle, where it will ferment.
2. We pour in the yeast, diluted according to the instructions.
3. We install a water seal on the bottle.
4. We remove the bottle with wort in a warm place, where the temperature is kept at 20-25 ° C.

The fermentation process can take from 4 days to a couple of weeks: it depends on the temperature maintained and the quality of the raw materials. The finished mash tastes bitter and becomes lighter.

At the same time, bubbles of carbon dioxide cease to evolve. If so, the fermentation process is complete.

Distillation of moonshine, or raw alcohol

We filter the mash and pour it into a cube for distillation. We distill the mash for the first time at full capacity in order to drive out more moonshine, so we do not select tails and heads. We complete the selection when the stream of alcohol has a strength of 15-20 °. As a result, we get an opaque and sharply smelling moonshine, or raw alcohol.

Purification of raw alcohol

To clear it of unnecessary fractions, we proceed as follows:

1. Pour moonshine into a cube and dilute with water to 20-30 °.
2. Drop by drop at low power we select the head fraction in a volume of 150 to 200 ml.

You can't try this liquid if you don't want to end up in a hospital bed!

Then we increase the heating power and select the main fraction so that the strength of the moonshine in the stream is 40-45 °. After that, we select the "tails" in another container, which can be useful in subsequent distillations of the brew.

Distillate purification

To ennoble the taste and smell of a semi-tan, you need to cleanse the distillate from impurities. The pungent smell hitting the nose will disappear, a bready aroma and aftertaste will appear, the wine will become soft, pleasant and easy to drink.

To achieve this, we dilute the distillate with clean water to 45-50 degrees and purify it by passing it through a carbon filter. To bring the bread wine to readiness, we dilute pure moonshine to a strength of 38.5 °. The output should be about three liters of excellent semi-tan.

We seal it in glass bottles and let it stand for a week.

Then you can start tasting a delicious homemade half-drink, having arranged a friendly feast.

Now you know how to make your own bread wine, the recipe of which has been tested for more than one century! It remains to be engaged in the process of making a half-car and enjoy the result.