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Drink

Koumiss, or Milk Beer

A fermented milk beverage made by diluting fresh milk with water, adding rennet or sour koumiss, and allowing it to curdle and rest.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Koumiss, or Milk Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Dilute the new milk with water.

  2. Add rennet or sour koumiss.

Ferment

  1. Cover and let sit in a warm place for 24 hours.

  2. Stir or churn until curd and whey are mixed.

  3. Let it rest for another 24 hours.

Finish

  1. Transfer to a tall vessel and agitate until homogeneous.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

New milk
Provides the proteins and sugars that the culture curdles and sours.
Rennet or sour koumiss
Rennet curdles the milk proteins, while sour koumiss adds live cultures that sour and thicken it.

The step that matters

Stir or churn until curd and whey are mixed. Curd forms as firm protein clumps in the whey. Agitating breaks these clumps and blends them evenly, so the final texture is smooth rather than lumpy or separated.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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