Polugar or bread wine is an old Russian drink. What is the difference between bread wine and vodka

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

What is polugar

Many are interested in polugar - what is it. This is the name of homemade, restored using traditional technologies, on grains of wheat or rye. This drink has been produced since the 16th century, has a strength of 38.5% vol. and the aroma of rye bread. Traditional Russian vodka got its name from "semi-burnt wine" and "semi-burnt wine".

The production technology of a polugar is similar to the manufacturing process, or. The only difference is the cleaning method. Modern connoisseurs of traditional drinks are reviving polugar recipes by making it at home. As a purification, natural filtration methods are used - charcoal, milk, bread.

For the last 120 years, polugars have not been produced or sold. Among the alcoholic products, the old polugar was not the last place, because it had a low cost. But he prevented the vodka monopoly in Tsarist Russia from making big 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, types such as:

Choice of wheat or rye distillate

If you choose which is better - wheat polugar or malt polugar, you should keep 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 polugar it is necessary to add rye as well. In the modern version of the alcoholic beverage, additional ingredients are added to improve the taste. There are no spices in wheat.

Polugar Recipes

If we consider the classic polugar, 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 produce a traditional Russian drink called rye polugar.

From the inventory you will need a container and a thermometer, because 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 polugar is drunk from glasses with a capacity of 50-150 ml. Pre-cool the dishes or rinse with cold water. According to the old Russian tradition, a glass is not drunk to the bottom in one gulp. Bread wine, polugar, is savored, 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, then Russian snacks will be good - jelly, lard, pickles.

Most of our contemporaries consider vodka to be the original Russian alcoholic drink. However, long before it, a recipe for polugar was invented, which was rightfully considered the pinnacle of the craftsmanship of domestic distillers.

Polugar is a double distilled malt distillate. Its traditional fortress is 38.5 degrees. Depending on the feedstock, rye, wheat and barley polugars are distinguished. The ancient name for this drink was bread wine.

Unlike aged cognac, whiskey and other distillates, which can also boast of world fame, after the preparation of the polugar it was not infused for years in barrels. Instead, he went through a filtering process. Milk, charcoal and bread were used for cleansing. This made it possible in just a few days to obtain a high-quality alcoholic product, distinguished by outstanding taste.

Polugar recipe for cooking at home

Fortunately, not all books published in Tsarist Russia burned down in the fire of revolutionary ovens in 1917. Only thanks to this, it was possible to find, restore and adapt the traditional recipe for bread wine to modern conditions. Now aged malt polugar can be prepared by anyone who has general knowledge in matters of home brewing.

You will need these ingredients:

• rye, wheat or barley malt - 2.5 kg;
• clean, better spring or well, water - 10 liters;
• dry yeast - 25 grams.

If you are used to using pressed yeast, then you will need 150 grams of it.

Whatever malt you decide to use, if you follow the right technology, you will still get a delicious semi-gar. We recommend that you make all varieties of bread wine and experiment to see which one you like best. Your humble servant prefers barley polugar.

However, if we turn to history, then the traditional raw material is still rye malt.

The correct sequence of actions in the preparation of bread wine.

Malt processing.

The malt must be properly prepared. The main thing is to keep it dry. Malt grains must be finely crushed. Please note that the cereal we have chosen should not turn into powder.

If you do not know how to bring, say, rye malt to this state, then there is a simple solution to this problem. Now you can buy already prepared ground malt. It is just possible to cook polugar from it.

Mashing.

To those who are interested in the details, let us explain, this is the process by which the starch contained in the malt is processed into sugar.

Here it is extremely important to accurately maintain the described technology. Otherwise, if little sugar is obtained, you can get serious problems with the fermentation and strength of the polugar. Correct temperature conditions are especially important.

Pour water into the pan, place on the burner and wait for it to boil. After that, let the water cool down to 55 degrees. At this point, pour the malt into the pan and stir until a homogeneous mass is formed. Make sure there are no lumps on the bottom. Bring the temperature of the wort to 62-63 degrees and mix well again.

Then cover the wort with a lid and keep on low heat for an hour and a half. The temperature in our pan should be between 61-65 degrees.

Fermentation.

Let the wort cool down to 29 degrees. Next, pour it into a fermentation container. Add yeast following the directions on the packet. Mix everything well. Install a water seal on our container and place it in a pantry where there is no access to light. A suitable temperature regime is 19-26 degrees.

Fermentation time is almost always different. It may take 5-15 days. Every day, remove the water seal and mix the wort ahead of time with a prepared wooden stick.

The readiness of the mash is determined by appearance. It becomes lighter and does not emit gas for a couple of days.

Distillation.

We pour our mash into the distillation cube of the moonshine still. At the same time, we pass it through a small colander. This will allow particles of undissolved malt to be separated from it.

Distillation is carried out on low heat. The division into fractions is not performed in this case. We stop taking the distillate when its strength drops below 26 degrees.

Second race.

The distillate selected at the previous stage is diluted with water. The correct proportions are 50:50. Again we pour our product into the moonshine still and proceed to distillation. Here we already separate the “heads” and “tails” from the “body”.

"Heads" are the first 180-200 ml of output (pervach). We select them and collect them in another container. Do not drink this liquid. It consists almost entirely of acetone and other hazardous components.

The "body" is collected until the strength of the product is below 40-41 degrees. That is what our goal is.

The distillation process can be continued by selecting the "tails". They can be used to get new mash. However, they should not have the slightest relation to the polugar.

Cleaning.

Polugar can be cleaned with four methods: milk, charcoal, bread and egg white. You can use one of them or use all of them.

We consider the simplest and most effective method of cleaning a polugar with charcoal. You can see it with your own eyes in the video posted at the end of this article.

Remember, before proceeding to clean the polugars, it is necessary to dilute it with water to a strength of 45-46 degrees. In this case, absorbent substances will better absorb dangerous impurities.

The final.

Dilute peeled rye, barley or wheat polugar with water to a strength of 38.5 degrees. Pour into clean storage bottles and close with caps. Before tasting, it should be insisted for a couple of days in the same pantry room.

From the given amount of ingredients, you will get 1-1.5 liters of bread wine at the output. To get more volume, simply increase the number of required components in proportion. Happy tasting!

You can ask your questions in the reviews after this article.

Difference from vodka

We think connoisseurs of spirits have already noticed them. First of all, they lie precisely in the technological sphere.

The main thing is that vodka is obtained by rectification, and the preparation of wheat or rye polugar is carried out by distillation.

In addition, these drinks will vary greatly in taste. Bread wine is much more pleasant.

How to drink?

The optimum temperature of the chilled polugar when it is served to the table is 9-10 degrees. It is worth pouring it into glasses, piles or lafitniks.

Try drinking bread wine in small sips. This method helps to understand the full depth of its unique taste. But if it is still more customary for you to drink strong alcohol in one gulp, do not deny yourself the pleasure.

For snacks, any national people of Russian cuisine are perfect.

The desire to improve, updating wine experiments with modern nuances, is only one vector of the development path. It is much more interesting to find out more about the traditions of antiquity by trying to adapt some outlandish old recipe to the realities of our time. An excellent option would be bread wine, which was a favorite drink of the distant 17th century. Let's dive into the past - let's travel back in time!

Bread is the head of everything

Today, among connoisseurs of alcohol, bread is often associated with vodka, moonshine or beer, and few people know that bread wine, or polugar, its original name, was the first to occur. The first recipe, according to historians, could have originated as early as the 15th century. Until the end of the 17th century, it gained universal recognition, even in the 19th century it had various variations in strength (from 38 to 75 °): polugar, foamy wine, three-trial wine, four-trial alcohol, double alcohol.

The popularity of this drink is confirmed by the lines of many works of Russian fiction of those times, the characters of which are not averse to touching the “beautiful”.

The name "polugar" comes from the outdated technology of determining the strength of the drink - annealing, which consisted in determining the amount of evaporated alcohol under the influence of heating. Since bread wine “burned out” by half (up to 38 °), they began to call it “semi-burning”; over time, the word was simplified - and this is how polugar arose.

In 1895, polugar was forbidden to produce independently, monopolizing the production of a drink that was considered the standard of strength. After the technology and the exact recipe became unavailable, an erroneous opinion appeared that polugar can be obtained by diluting alcohol with a quarter of water.

Depending on the type of grain used during the preparation of an alcoholic beverage, polugar can be malt, wheat or barley. Each of the cases involves a careful approach to the selection of the main ingredients, namely cereals (they must be recent) and water (unrefined spring water is best).

Dictionary

• Wort - a mixture of the main ingredient with water aged for a certain period;
• Braga - wort after fermentation;
• Raw alcohol - alcohol obtained during distillation, without purification;
• Moonshine cube (distiller, moonshine still) - a device for distillation; alcohol settles from the steam formed by heating the mash;
• Distillation (distillation) - the process of evaporation in order to condense the resulting vapor.

Old Polugar Recipe

For those who are familiar with the simple technology of making wine at home, but are unfamiliar with moonshine, this recipe will not seem completely clear. Although, in reality, all the complexity is dissipated, and knowledge, experience and high-quality semi-gard are multiplied.

Proportions

• malt - 1 kg;
• water - 4.5 l;
• yeast - 1 pack. (for sourdough);
• milk, egg or bread (for cleaning).

Cooking process

Polugar looks very ordinary, but the taste that lies in its strength and grain origin puts it on a par with other noble alcoholic beverages. The advantage of this bread wine is its closeness to people for more than 200 years.

If you take this recipe with its proportions, but instead of distilling the polugar, using the standard water seal that is used to make most wines at home, you get a bread beer - a great mash drink.

Polugar stronger

If you want to get a polugar with a strength above 40 °, that is, stronger than the classic polugar, we offer the following recipe, which will differ in a few, but quite important points.

Ingredients

Let's start cooking

Such a drink reveals its taste characteristics in combination with meat or fish dishes, helping them to fill up with new shades too.

Finally

Whatever the recipe turns out to be, whatever the result - but still making alcohol at home - has always been and will be a great hobby for lovers of various experiments with their tangible products. Today you made bread wine, and tomorrow it could be a single malt whiskey or a new beer that not only makes you proud of your work, but also brings a lot of joy to tasting lovers around you!

Rye distillate is used to make polugar. Braga is made from selected coarse rye and pure spring water, which is not completely purified. When the mash is ready for distillation, it is distilled in special copper stills. To cleanse the drink, fresh egg whites and natural birch charcoal are used.
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 drink does not need to be refrigerated before drinking - the mild taste of rye bread comes out very well at room temperature. The aroma of fresh bread and the rich oily structure of the drink makes it look like a strong liquor.

Recipe for bread wine polugar from flour

Pour warm water over wheat or rye flour and mix well so that the bulk of the flour dissolves.

On low heat, heat the flour mass and cook for an hour at a temperature not exceeding 70 degrees. The sourdough should be well mixed 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 overtaken - it will be desirable to drain the sediment. In the case of steam distillation, the precipitate can be left.

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

To improve the taste, you can overtake a third time, and then clean with activated charcoal 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.

Each country has its own traditional alcoholic drinks. In Russia, such a drink is polugar. Unfortunately, in the competition with vodka, he was defeated. Many recipes have been lost, but today wine made from bread is again popular.

History of bread wine

Polugar or bread wine has been known since the 15th century. This was the name of an alcoholic drink obtained from grain wort. The wort was prepared on the basis of malt and rye flour. It was possible to use other flour, but rye flour was the most common. Most often they took barley and rye malt, wheat was rarely used.

The strength of wine on bread was checked by setting fire to a small amount (a stack). Then the volume of the remaining liquid was compared with the original one. The less left, the stronger the drink. If more than half remained, then the wine was considered to be of poor quality. In addition to being strong, quality bread wine should not smell like smoke or burnt.

The very word "polugar" appeared because exactly half of the stack remained after the wine burned out. The strength of this drink was approximately 38%. Until the 19th century, vodka was called a tincture of herbs and roots in alcohol or other alcohol. It was used mainly for medicinal purposes. Later, strong alcohol diluted with water began to be called vodka.

Types of bread wine

Unlike grape and fruit wine, bread wine was not aged in bottles or barrels, so there were many impurities in it. For purification, the polugars were distilled 2-3 times. Filtration through a layer of birch charcoal was also used, which retained fusel oils and gave the drink a special smell and taste. As a result, to ensure the quality, the wine was distilled one more time.

Depending on the fortress, bread wine was divided into several varieties. The standard was polugar containing about 38% alcohol. The strongest drink with 74.4% alcohol content was called double alcohol.

Initially, there were three types of bread wine:

• rye;
• wheat;
• barley.

In recent years, trying to improve the classic recipe, manufacturers have begun to produce drinks with the addition of
honey and pepper, cumin and coriander, juniper. In terms of taste, they compete with vodka and whiskey. This makes it possible to expand the range of alcoholic beverages and draw additional attention to the polugar.

Differences from vodka

Bread wine should not be confused with vodka. Vodka is obtained from highly purified alcohol, it is devoid of foreign odors. Polugar smells slightly of bread, has a specific aftertaste. It has more similarities with whiskey than with vodka, only unlike whiskey, it is not aged in barrels.

Wine based on bread is made, trying to follow the old recipe and production traditions. It is distilled three times in copper stills, purified with charcoal and protein.

If we compare the method of consumption with vodka, then there are also differences. Vodka is drunk in one gulp chilled, and bread wine is better to drink in small sips at room temperature. This allows you to fully taste it, appreciate the taste, strength.

old way of cooking

Each polugar recipe is distinguished by the choice of grain for malt, while the production process itself is practically unchanged. First, malt is made. To do this, grains of cereal crops are germinated, crushed, dried and ground to the size of large cereals. The old recipe is as follows.

The malt is finely ground, placed in a vat and poured with hot water to form a mass similar to jelly. It will be must. Then the wort is poured into another vat, and the malt is washed three times with hot water. All are collected together, yeast is added and left to ferment under a closed lid while the foam goes. When fermentation slows down, it is distilled in copper stills.

Malt Bread Wine Recipe

The following polugar recipe is more detailed and modern. To make bread wine, you will need:

• 5 kg of malt from any grain (you can buy ready-made or make it yourself);
• 20-25 liters of pure filtered or spring water;
• 50 grams of dry yeast in granules or 300 grams of fresh pressed.

It is necessary to take a large saucepan, pour water into it, bring to a boil and cool to + 55 °. It is convenient to use a digester for these purposes. Next, malt is poured into the water, mixed and heated to +64 °. Stir again, cover the pan with a lid and boil for 1 hour 30 minutes at the same temperature to obtain a wort.

To start the fermentation process, the pan is cooled to + 27-28 °. Yeast is bred in 2-3 liters of wort. All the wort is poured into a tank or bottle, where it will ferment, diluted yeast is added there. The tank should stand in a warm place under a water seal for 4-16 days. When the fermentation stops, the mash is distilled, having previously been filtered. In the process of distillation, the fractions are not separated, they are simply driven until 25% raw is poured.

Then the raw alcohol is diluted in half with water and distilled a second time, the head and tail are now separated, taking only the middle. Distillation is stopped when the fortress becomes 40%. But this is not yet wine made from bread, it is necessary to clean and dilute to the desired degree.

The second run is diluted so that the fortress becomes in the range of 40-50%, and filtered. You can filter through coal, with the help of protein, potassium permanganate, milk or bread, to whom it is more familiar and convenient. Now it remains to dilute the drink prepared on bread with water to a strength of 38.5%, and bottle it. Keep it tightly closed in a dark and cool place.

Polugar based on flour

A popular recipe for wine on bread, which uses rye or wheat flour. There is no need to pre-make malt. If you decide to try this recipe, then you need to prepare:

• 2 kg flour;
• 8 liters of water;
• 100 g of pressed yeast;
• 100 g sugar.

You should take a convenient wide container, pour flour into it, pour warm water over it and mix to get a rare homogeneous dough. Then you need to put the container on a slow fire and heat, not bringing to a boil. The temperature during cooking should be about 70 °, the wort is boiled for an hour, stirring constantly.

When the mixture acquires a brownish tint, the container is removed from the heat and left to cool to a temperature of + 20 ... 22 °. Sugar, yeast are poured into the cooled wort and everything is mixed. It must ferment for at least 3 days.

As a result, you will get a mash, which must be distilled on a moonshine still. From 2 kg of flour and 100 g of sugar, about 2 liters of alcohol will be obtained. The same amount of water is added to it and the distillation is repeated.

If desired, a third distillation can be made, and then filtered through charcoal or using protein. The strength of the drink is 42-45% vol, the taste is mild and it is easy to drink. The best snack for such a half-gar is pickles, borscht, vinaigrette or meat dishes.