Potatoes "in uniform" in the monastery are jokingly called "in cassock" - after all, the monks do not wear uniforms

Recently, I began to notice that when talking about products, dishes “monastic ...”, or “like a monastery ...”, people mean: “high-quality”, “real”, “delicious”. Honey, bread, lunch...

Observing it on purpose, it struck me that this trend is not only expanding, but is already being used by various product manufacturers, conscientious and not so good. Then the question arose: what is modern monastic food, monastic products? What stands behind the recognition of the consumer - the traditional respect for the religious way of life, which excludes deceit and laziness, or the absence of intelligible state quality guidelines, the same GOSTs, for example?

For answers to these questions, we turned to Father Micah, Hieromonk of the Holy Danilov Monastery. The path that led this wonderful person to the church, was not easy.

Let's start with the fact that Father Mikhey was a paratrooper and knows the concept of "hot spot" firsthand. Already, while in the monastery, Father Mikhei performed difficult obediences: setting up a skete in the Ryazan region, organizing a monastery apiary, acting as a cellarer in the St. Danilov Monastery itself, and many others that I don’t know about.

As a result, we managed to build a picture of how a Russian Orthodox monastery lives today from questions and answers: what it produces, what it eats, whom and how it feeds.

AIF.RU: It is known that the vast majority of monasteries in Rus' were self-sufficient in the production, storage and distribution of products. The monasteries owned gardens, fields, orchards, ponds and apiaries. Also, since ancient times, the tradition of feeding monastic products not only to the brethren, but also to workers, pilgrims, students, and guests has been preserved. Is this tradition alive in St. Daniel's Monastery today?

O. Mikhey: From a century in Rus', monasteries were not only centers of spiritual life, but also economic ones. Not only did they feed themselves, but they also carried out selection work, grew new varieties of plants, searched for and found new ways to store and preserve food. For many hundreds of years, monasteries not only fed themselves, but also widely helped those in need. As in normal times, and especially in war years, during lean periods, during epidemics.

There is no other way in the monastery: today the economy of the St. Danilov Monastery feeds up to 900 people daily. We have a little over 80 brethren, almost 400 laity workers. And also pilgrims, guests of the monastery, those in need - every day the monastery kitchen, with God's help, provides food for all these people.

Most of the products we have are our own production. This is flour, from the monastic fields in the Ryazan region, and vegetables, and fruits, and honey. For the time being, we mainly buy fish, but we want to dig ponds in the same place, on the lands of the skete, and start raising fish. We keep cows - for butter, cottage cheese, milk. They don't eat meat in the monastery.

- How did the revival of the monastic economy begin?

— The revival of the monastic economy began from the moment it was handed over to the Church in 1983. Over the next five years, the monastery as a whole was restored, and the economy providing it began to function along with it. However, up to a truly independent structure that produces, preserves and nourishes – we are still just going to this all.

Until 1917, the monastery had vast lands, arable land, apiaries, and ponds. There were many good products. The monastery sold a lot, incl. in their own shops and shops. People have always loved them - both Muscovites and pilgrims. Then everything was destroyed, literally - to the ground.

But over the past 17 years, of course, a lot has been done. If you look back today, you see how much we, with God's help, have achieved! And we ourselves grow wheat on the monastery lands, grind flour, bake our famous muffin. And we grow and preserve all the vegetables we need: we preserve, sour, salt.

And now the monastery has more than one apiary - in the suburbs at the monastery farm, near Ryazan, near Anapa and from Altai, honey is also supplied from the apiaries of the Church of the Archangel Michael. Near Ryazan is the largest apiary. Now we have about 300 hives here, and during the season we manage to get more than 10 varieties of honey in apiaries. This is sweet clover, and linden, and buckwheat, and forest and field forbs honeys. Every new season, before the departure of the bees, special prayers are performed to consecrate the apiary, and the beekeepers receive a blessing for the upcoming work.

Honey is such a product - God's blessing. He should be treated that way. After all, if you put an apiary, for example, near the road, then there is nothing coming out of the exhaust pipes: both lead and all kinds of heavy metals. And the bees also collect all this and transfer it to honey. We are responsible before God for the fact that we have apiaries in good, ecologically clean places, and now we offer pure honey to people.

We love our people and want people to be healthy and beautiful and that children are born healthy. Beekeeping is a traditional Russian craft. Back in the 16th century, they said: "Russia is a country where honey flows." Almost every house was engaged in honey. It was also supplied abroad with wax. All Russian people ate honey. It is a necessary product for every person.

It is now customary for us to eat honey only when we are sick. Only this is wrong. Honey should be eaten three times a day: a spoonful in the morning, afternoon and evening. Honey contains everything the body needs, including vitamins. After all, honey is a natural product that people have been eating for centuries to improve their health. Warriors of the past on campaigns always had honey with them. Tasting it, they increased their strength before the upcoming battle.

They began to revive the tradition of monastic bread. People come for our pastries from all over Moscow and even from the Moscow region. A variety of pies, which are prepared according to old monastic recipes, are very popular. Made with soul - and people love it!

Our parishioners and guests of the monastery really appreciate the fact that we use recipes not only from our monastery, but also from other holy places: for example, we have yeast-free bread baked according to Athos recipes, we eat bread from sisters from the Serpukhov Convent.

- And all this is managed by a small brethren of St. Danilov Monastery?

— Of course not! Lay workers and volunteers help us. There are really few monks, especially those who know how to work on earth. Many came to the monastery from the cities, some are not able to do physical labor. But work in honey apiaries is called "sweet hard labor" ...

Not everyone knows how much work you have to put in order to good products hit the table and the monastery.

— Tell us, please, about the monastic food system. What products and dishes make up the monastic table for the brethren?

— We don’t come to the monastery to eat delicious food – we come to reach the Kingdom of Heaven through labor, prayers and obedience. The highest virtue is fasting, prayer, rejection of worldly temptations and obedience.

By the way, according to the monastic charter, about 200 fast days. Fasts are divided into multi-day (Great, Petrovsky, Assumption and Christmas) and one-day (Wednesday, Friday of each week). It was during the days of abstinence from fast food that thousands of original, simple, accessible to the population dishes were developed in the monastery refectories.

The main difference between the monastic table and the worldly table is that we do not eat meat. In the monastery they eat vegetables, cereals, dairy products, pastries and fish, mushrooms. In the storerooms of the monastery there is always a lot of sauerkraut, cucumbers, tomatoes, mushrooms.

The cellar supervises this, and the monk brothers and the laity workers do it. And it goes to the table for everyone without exception. According to the charter, the monks eat only twice a day: at lunch and at dinner. The cellar of the monastery especially makes sure that the meals are tasty, varied and supportive - after all, the interval before meals is long, and no one sits idly by, everyone has their own housework - obedience.

The everyday menu usually consists of fish soup, if allowed on that day, pickle, vegetable, mushroom or milk soup, and fish with a side dish. For dessert - tea, compote or jelly, pies, cookies. The Sunday menu consists of fish borscht, fried fish with a side dish of mashed potatoes or rice with vegetables, fresh vegetables, cold cuts of fish and products from the monastery courtyard - cheese, sour cream and milk. On the holidays of Christmas and Easter, a festive menu is served at the meal.

We have Father Hermogenes - he was the cellar of the monastery for more than 10 years, so he even wrote a book about the monastery meal, "The Kitchen of Father Hermogenes." At the moment, the cellar in the monastery of Fr. Theognost. I was a cellarer for several years, and before that I carried out obedience in the construction of the skete, the restoration of the Church of the Archangel Michael, the care of apiaries, the bakery ...

Now I have an obedience - I offer monastic products for Muscovites, in a honey shop and 2 monastic stores "Monastyrsky honey" and "Monastic grocery store", where you can buy our products: honey, beekeeping products, honey jam, an assortment of fish, cereals, monastery pastries, yeast-free bread, pies, health products: alcohol-free balms, sbitni, teas, herbs.

And also I have an obedience in the department of making posters of spiritual and patriotic content by modern and classical artists.

— We thank you, father Mikhey for your attention and story. We wish you joy in your work!

Ingredients you will need to prepare the dish:

• 1 kg. honey
• 2 teaspoons hops
• 3 liters of water

Monastic honey - recipe:

Mix honey with water and boil over low heat for 3 hours. Put hops, a small pebble in gauze and, tying it in a “knot”, dip it into a pan with honey (the pebble is necessary so that the hops do not float. Boil the honey with hops for an hour, periodically, as it boils away, adding hot water.

Remove the honey from the heat and, while still warm, strain through cheesecloth into a glass or wooden bowl. In this case, the container should be filled no more than 4/5 of its volume.

Leave the dishes in a warm place (near the stove, battery) for honey to ferment. As a rule, it begins a day or two after the honey is cooked. When the honey ferments (stops hissing), pour 1/2 cup of good brewed tea into it (1 teaspoon of tea per cup of boiling water).

Then, without stirring, strain the honey through a flannel (preferably several times). Strained honey is already ready for consumption. However, it acquires a particularly excellent taste after a year of storage in a cool place.

Even 2-3 extra minutes of frying beef liver can spoil its taste, make it dry and hard.

From 1 kg of raw boneless meat, about 600 g of boiled meat or 650 g of fried meat is obtained.

The unpleasant smell in the cupboard where food is stored will disappear if you put ground coffee there.

The mousse should not be whipped in an aluminum bowl as it may darken and acquire a metallic taste.

Roast beef and steak, back leg and lamb chops can be eaten undercooked. Veal and pork should always be cooked through.

About ours, about women's... wrinkles– causes of appearance, classification, modern methods used in cosmetology, allowing them to be removed quickly and efficiently, without surgery…

PRODUCTION OF MONASTERY HONEY.

Monastic honey is one of the most beloved delicacies since ancient times and is in great demand among buyers. Monastery honey is a sweet product produced by bees from plant nectar, consisting of fructose, glucose, a small amount of sucrose and water. Bees collect nectar along with pollen. They process this juice in their body and deposit it in wax honeycombs, where it ripens under the action of enzymes. Monastic honey- This lean product. This - natural products, healthy products. These are homemade products

The main process that occurs with nectar when it turns into honey is the decomposition of sucrose into glucose and fructose. Therefore, honey contains equal amounts of these simple sugars. The composition of honey includes 18% water, 36.2% glucose, 37.11% fructose, 2% sucrose, 2.8% dextrins, 3.89% pollen.

MONASTERY HONEY - BENEFITS FOR HEALTH.

Benefit monastery honey for the human body has been known since ancient times. Honey contains vitamins K, A, C, B1, B2, B6. Honey has a high degree calorie content, therefore, its ability to restore strength after serious illnesses, sports training, sports competitions, and high loads on the human body is widely known. Honey helps a lot in the treatment of colds. Boiled milk with honey is a folk remedy proven since early childhood in the treatment of a sore throat and cough. Monastic honey is an excellent antiseptic. Monastic honey and bee products are natural products, healthy products that are classified as environmentally friendly products. These are homemade products. Prices monastery honey and bee products in our online store MONASTERY STORE "OBITEL" low and affordable.

MONASTERY HONEY IS A NATURAL ENVIRONMENTALLY PURE PRODUCT.

Monastic honey contains a number of enzymes that positively affect digestion. Doctors recommend to use honey for patients diabetes because honey has a high fructose content. Honey has an antiviral, antibacterial, antifungal effect on the human body, due to its special composition, reminiscent of human blood plasma. The calorie content of monastery honey is on average from 304 to 415 kilocalories. Monastic honey- is one of the best lean products. These are natural products, healthy products. These are homemade products.

ASSORTMENT OF MONASTERY HONEY AND BEE PRODUCTS.

In our and in a wide range of assortment of monastery honey and bee products, where can buy at low and affordable prices very tasty monastic products. The most popular among buyers are: acacia monastery honey, linden monastery honey, flower monastery honey, buckwheat monastery honey, bee pollen, flower pollen, dry propolis, etc.

Monastic lime honey- is considered one of the most valuable. Its antibacterial properties are good for laryngitis, bronchitis, colds, runny nose and others. colds. Linden honey is taken for the treatment of the genitourinary system. Monastic buckwheat honey taken for liver disease, diseases of cholelithiasis and kidney stones, strengthening the heart muscle and for many preventive purposes for the cardiovascular system. Buckwheat honey contains a lot of iron, magnesium, vitamins, amino acids. Monastery acacia honey is the most fragrant and light. It contains a high content of glucose and fructose, so it does not sugar for a long time. Increases hemoglobin, lowers high pressure. Expands blood vessels, improves blood formation - in this regard, it is considered a very necessary product for the elderly. These are natural homemade products.

MONASTERY HONEY AND BEE PRODUCTS TO BUY.

In our online store MONASTERY SHOP "OBITEL" and in retail stores: Moscow region. Korolev, 20A Cosmonauts Ave. (Helios shopping center) Can buy at low and affordable prices Can buy a wide range of monastery honey and bee products. These are natural products that are classified as environmentally friendly products. These are homemade products.

EAT MONASTERY HONEY AND BEE PRODUCTS DAILY! AND BE HEALTHY!

Chapter:
RUSSIAN KITCHEN
Traditional Russian dishes
55th section page

Traditional cold drinks
hoppy honey, mead, honey, monastery honey, honey

Since time immemorial, this drink has been known in the Slavic land. Many generations of our ancestors drank and praised it: "And I was there, I drank honey-beer."

According to the method of production, honey was divided into boiled and set, and by type - simple, boyar, red, white, fragrant, fruit and berry, etc.

The strength of honey was different depending on the purpose of the drink.

Along with low-alcohol drinks, strong intoxicated meads were also prepared.

Very ancient and favorite drinks of the Slavs mead - honey together with honeycombs, diluted with water and yeast, maple - juice with honey and ground barley, homemade beer, fruit drinks, drinking honey.

NOTE:
* - according to the recipes marked with an asterisk, you can cook on fasting days.

Ingredients:
1 kg of honey, 1 kg of sugar, 5 liters of water, 15 g of yeast, 50 g of hops, 1 sachet of vanilla sugar.

Grind yeast with a little sugar and water well.
Put honey, sugar, vanilla sugar, hops into cold water and boil. When the liquid has cooled, add the risen yeast.
Place the dishes for fermentation in a warm place for 3-5 days. Hops should float to the surface.
When the honey begins to foam, strain, bottle, cork and put in a cool place for 2 weeks.

Ingredients:
1 kg of honey, 2.5 liters of water, 1 liter of cranberry juice, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon, 10-12 clove buds, 100 g of yeast.

Boil honey with water, remove the foam, pour into a glass bottle, add cranberry juice, cinnamon, cloves, yeast, leave for fermentation for 2 days.
Then close the dishes tightly, keep in the cold for about 3 weeks, then pour into bottles and cork.

Ingredients:
1 kg of honey, 3 liters of water, 10 g of spices, pepper, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, 100 g of yeast.

Bring fresh honey to a boil, remove the foam, add spices, water, boil again and cool.
Then add yeast and put in a warm place for 12 hours. After that, close the dishes tightly and leave in the cold to ripen for 2-3 weeks.
Pour the finished honey into bottles and cork.

Ingredients:
1 kg of honey, 3 liters of water, 1/2 cup of vodka, 2 tbsp. spoons of yeast, 4 pcs. cloves, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon lemon balm, 1 teaspoon violet, 1 teaspoon cardamom.

Combine honey with water, put on low heat and cook until the consistency of molasses. Remove from heat, strain, pour into a barrel, add yeast.
At the end of fermentation, pour in vodka, lower the canvas bag with spices.
After 1 month, strain, pour into bottles, cork and put in a cold place.

Ingredients:
2 kg of honey, 2 liters of water, 1 liter of alcohol, lemon peels.

Combine honey with water, boil for 4 hours, periodically removing the foam.
Then pour into a barrel, add alcohol, previously infused with lemon peels, put in a warm place for 2 weeks.
Strain and bottle.
For the best taste, it is desirable to withstand at least 6 months.

Ingredients:
5 liters of water, 2 kg of honey, 300 g of dried blueberries, 2 tbsp. tablespoons of yeast, 10 g of gelatin, 4-5 drops of rose oil.

Dissolve honey in warm water and boil for 1 hour, removing foam. Add an infusion of dried blueberries, yeast and leave to ferment for a week.
Then strain, add dissolved gelatin, rose oil, cork tightly and leave for 2 months in a cold place.

Ingredients:
5 liters of water, 2 kg of honey, 200 g of molasses, 100 g of mint, 3 tbsp. tablespoons of yeast, 10 g of gelatin.

Dissolve honey in water and boil. At the end, pour the boiled mixture of molasses and mint leaves into it.
Strain the resulting wort, add yeast and leave to ferment for 3-4 days.
At the end of fermentation, add dissolved gelatin and leave in the cold for 2 days, and then bottle.

Ingredients:
500 g of honey, 2.5-3 liters of birch sap, 1 slice of black bread, 20 g of yeast.

Put honey in an enamel pan, pour it with birch sap and boil the syrup for 1 hour over low heat.
Dip a slice of black bread smeared with yeast into warm syrup and leave to ferment in a warm place for 1 hour.
If during this time the honey does not ferment, add yeast.
When the honey begins to ferment, remove the bread, cover the dishes with a cloth and leave in a warm place until the honey has fermented.
Then pour it into bottles, cork and put in a cool place.
Honey will be ready for consumption in 4-5 months.

Ingredients:
2 kg of honey, 1 liter of water, 4-5 kg ​​of cherries.

Put honey in an enamel pan, add water and boil the syrup, stirring occasionally and skimming off the foam.
Pour the washed pitted cherries into a glass bottle with a narrow neck and pour the cooled syrup over it.
Cover the dishes with a damp cloth (and periodically moisten, not allowing to dry) and leave in a warm place for 3 days to ferment.
When the mixture ferments, take the dishes to a cool place and, closing the hole with a tightly folded canvas, leave to mature.
After 3 months, honey is ready for use.

Ingredients:
1 l honey, 3 l fruit juice, 50 g yeast.

Heat fruit juice without boiling, dissolve honey in it, cool, pour in the yeast dissolved in water and leave for 1-2 days to ferment.
Then pour the honey into bottles, cork tightly and put in a cool place for 2-3 weeks.

Ingredients:
1.5 kg of honey, 4 liters of water, 2 tbsp. spoons of yeast.

Bring water to a boil, cool to 55 ° C and combine with honey.
Add yeast and put in a warm place to ferment for 2-3 days.
At the end of fermentation, put in a cold place for 2 weeks, then strain, bottle, cork tightly and leave for 6 months.

Ingredients:
500 g honey, 500 g sugar, 4 l water, 100 g yeast.

Dilute sugar and half of honey with water and boil, removing foam, for 10-15 minutes.
Then cool to 25-30°C, add pre-diluted yeast, stir and put in a warm place for fermentation.
After 2-3 days, strain, transfer to a cold place and stand for 3-4 weeks.
After that, strain again, add the remaining honey, completely dissolving it.

Ingredients:
150 g honey, 1 l water, 30 g yeast, 1 g citric acid or juice of 1/2 lemon.

Dissolve honey in boiling water, cool to 40-50 ° C, put yeast and leave for 1 day for fermentation.
Then strain, add citric acid or lemon juice, chill and serve.

Ingredients:
1 kg of molasses, 3 liters of water, 1 tbsp. a spoonful of yeast, 1 nutmeg, 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.

Dissolve the molasses in water, pour into an enamel bowl and boil over low heat, removing the foam, until 1/4 of the liquid has evaporated.
Then strain, cool, add yeast and leave to ferment in a cold place.
After fermentation, put crushed nutmeg and cinnamon in a canvas bag and let it brew for 6 weeks.
Pour the finished meduha into bottles.

Ingredients:
2 kg of honey, 5 liters of water, 1 cup of sugar, 4 lemons, 2 tbsp. tablespoons of yeast, 10 g of gelatin.

Add sugar, honey to the water and boil, removing the foam.
Pour into a wooden barrel, pour in lemon juice, yeast and leave to ferment for 1 week.
Then strain, add dissolved gelatin, put in a cold place for 2 weeks, then bottle.

Ingredients:
1 kg of honey, 2 liters of water, 1 liter of cherry juice, 5-10 g of spices (cloves, cinnamon), 2 tbsp. spoons of raisins, 50 g of yeast.

Dissolve honey in hot water and boil for 5 minutes, removing the foam. Cool, add cherry juice, spices, raisins and diluted yeast.
Stir and leave for 2-3 days in a warm place for fermentation.
Then pour into bottles, cork and put in a cool place for 10-20 days.

Ingredients:
1 kg of honey, 3 liters of water, 2 teaspoons of hops, 1/2 cup of strong tea (1 teaspoon of tea per 1 cup of boiling water).

Stir honey with water and boil over low heat for 3 hours.
Put hops, a small pebble in gauze, tie it in a knot and lower it into a saucepan with honey.
Boil honey with hops for 1 hour, periodically, as it boils away, adding hot water. Remove the honey from the heat and strain it while still warm through cheesecloth into a glass dish (it should be filled no more than 4/5 of the volume).
Put the dishes in a warm place for fermentation (it usually starts in 1-2 days).
When the honey has fermented, pour in the brewed tea.
Then honey, without interfering, strain several times through the flannel.
Strained honey is ready to eat, but it becomes more delicious when bottled and kept in a cool place for several days.

Ingredients:
6 liters of water, 250 g of honey, 5 g of hops, 3 g of cardamom, 1 teaspoon of burnt sugar, 10 g of yeast.

Boil honey in 2 liters of water, remove the foam.
Boil hops separately in 1/2 liter of water. Connect together, pour 4 liters of boiling water.
Cool down to warm state, add yeast, burnt sugar, cardamom and leave for fermentation, covered with gauze, at a temperature not exceeding 8-10 ° C until foam appears on the surface.
After removing the foam, strain the honey and can be consumed (or left to store in bottles for 1-2 weeks).

Ingredients:
2 kg of honey, 4 liters of water, 25 g of hops, 15 g of ginger, 2 lemons, 2 tbsp. tablespoons of yeast, 7 g of gelatin.

Stir honey in warm water, add hops, ginger, lemon juice, chopped zest and boil for 45 minutes.
Strain the mixture, pour it into a wooden barrel or enamel bowl, add yeast and leave to ferment for 5 weeks.
At the end of fermentation, add gelatin diluted in water.
Close tightly and infuse for 6 months.
Then strain and bottle.

Then drain the liquid into another bowl and put in a warm place to end fermentation.
Honey is ready in 1-2 weeks.

Honey is an intoxicating drink obtained by fermenting some food products, the main of which is honey. If you know the technology of making kvass or wine, you can easily master the process of making honey.

The strength of honey as a product of free fermentation does not exceed 10-11 degrees, but usually it is no more than 5, since during the manufacture the process is stopped before all the sugar has fermented: honey is a sweet drink.

Honey is a traditional Russian drink, sometimes called mead. Its recipes have been known in Rus' since time immemorial. No holiday is complete without honey.
Remember the end of any Russian fairy tale: "And I was there, drinking honey-beer ..."

With prolonged storage, the color of honey becomes darker.

If you notice that the honey is frothy, then this indicates its fermentation.

It happens that during storage, honey forms a crystallized layer from below, and a syrupy layer from above. This indicates that the honey is immature and contains an increased amount of water.

Light varieties are considered the best. However, this is not always fair.
For example, dark-colored honey, say, buckwheat, may contain more iron, copper, manganese and other important substances and be more valuable to the body than light honey.

The aroma of honey is an important sign of its quality. Valuable varieties of honey are usually distinguished by a delicate, pleasant aroma (linden, acacia, etc.).
There are varieties of honey with an unpleasant odor (tobacco, etc.).

To improve the organoleptic properties of honey, it can be blended (mix several varieties of honey). This improves the color, taste and moisture of its low-value varieties (for example, honey containing little water is mixed with honey that has an excess of it (for example, watery-transparent fireweed honey is mixed with honey of a denser yellow or dark consistency).

When blending, one must be careful not to spoil high-grade honey by adding even a small amount of bad honey to it.
It is also impossible to interfere with high-quality honey that is too liquid, because it can turn sour during storage.

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Traditional cold drinks
hoppy honey, mead, honey, monastery honey, honey

Since time immemorial, this drink has been known in the Slavic land. Many generations of our ancestors drank and praised it: "And I was there, I drank honey-beer."

According to the method of production, honey was divided into boiled and set, and by type - simple, boyar, red, white, fragrant, fruit and berry, etc.

The strength of honey was different depending on the purpose of the drink.

Along with low-alcohol drinks, strong intoxicated meads were also prepared.

Very ancient and favorite drinks of the Slavs mead - honey together with honeycombs, diluted with water and yeast, maple - juice with honey and ground barley, homemade beer, fruit drinks, drinking honey.

NOTE:

* - according to recipes marked with an asterisk, you can cook on fasting days.

*Nectar

Ingredients:

1 kg of honey
1 kg of sugar
5 liters of water
15 g yeast
50 g hops
1 sachet of vanilla sugar.

Cooking

Grind yeast with a little sugar and water well.
Put honey, sugar, vanilla sugar, hops into cold water and boil. When the liquid has cooled, add the risen yeast.
Place the dishes for fermentation in a warm place for 3-5 days. Hops should float to the surface.
When the honey begins to foam, strain, bottle, cork and put in a cool place for 2 weeks.

* Cranberry honey

Ingredients:

1 kg of honey
2.5 liters of water,
1 liter cranberry juice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
10-12 cloves,
100 g yeast.

Cooking

Boil honey with water, remove the foam, pour into a glass bottle, add cranberry juice, cinnamon, cloves, yeast, leave for fermentation for 2 days.
Then close the dishes tightly, keep in the cold for about 3 weeks, then pour into bottles and cork.

*Honey spicy

Ingredients:

1 kg of honey
3 liters of water
10 g spices
pepper,
ginger,
cardamom,
cinnamon,
100 g yeast.

Cooking

Bring fresh honey to a boil, remove the foam, add spices, water, boil again and cool.
Then add yeast and put in a warm place for 12 hours. After that, close the dishes tightly and leave in the cold to ripen for 2-3 weeks.
Pour the finished honey into bottles and cork.

*Mead with spices

Ingredients:

1 kg of honey
3 liters of water
1/2 glass of vodka,
2 tbsp. spoons of yeast
4 things. carnations,
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon of lemon balm
1 teaspoon violets
1 teaspoon cardamom.

Cooking

Combine honey with water, put on low heat and cook until the consistency of molasses. Remove from heat, strain, pour into a barrel, add yeast.
At the end of fermentation, pour in vodka, lower the canvas bag with spices.
After 1 month, strain, pour into bottles, cork and put in a cold place.

*Honey liquor

Ingredients:

2 kg honey
2 liters of water
1 liter of alcohol
lemon peels.

Cooking

Combine honey with water, boil for 4 hours, periodically removing the foam.
Then pour into a barrel, add alcohol, previously infused with lemon peels, put in a warm place for 2 weeks.
Strain and bottle.
For the best taste, it is desirable to withstand at least 6 months.

*Pink honey

Ingredients:

5 liters of water
2 kg honey
300 g dried blueberries
2 tbsp. spoons of yeast
10 g gelatin,
4-5 drops of rose oil.

Cooking

Dissolve honey in warm water and boil for 1 hour, removing foam. Add an infusion of dried blueberries, yeast and leave to ferment for a week.
Then strain, add dissolved gelatin, rose oil, cork tightly and leave for 2 months in a cold place.

*Green honey

Ingredients:

5 liters of water
2 kg honey
200 g molasses,
100 g mint
3 art. spoons of yeast
10 g gelatin.

Cooking

Dissolve honey in water and boil. At the end, pour the boiled mixture of molasses and mint leaves into it.
Strain the resulting wort, add yeast and leave to ferment for 3-4 days.
At the end of fermentation, add dissolved gelatin and leave in the cold for 2 days, and then bottle.

*Birch honey

Ingredients:

500 g honey
2.5-3 liters of birch sap,
1 slice black bread
20 g yeast.

Cooking

Put honey in an enamel pan, pour it with birch sap and boil the syrup for 1 hour over low heat.
Dip a slice of black bread smeared with yeast into warm syrup and leave to ferment in a warm place for 1 hour.
If during this time the honey does not ferment, add yeast.
When the honey begins to ferment, remove the bread, cover the dishes with a cloth and leave in a warm place until the honey has fermented.
Then pour it into bottles, cork and put in a cool place.
Honey will be ready for consumption in 4-5 months.

*Honey cherry ( old recipe)

Ingredients:

2 kg honey
1 liter of water
4-5 kg ​​of cherries.

Cooking

Put honey in an enamel pan, add water and boil the syrup, stirring occasionally and skimming off the foam.
Pour the washed pitted cherries into a glass bottle with a narrow neck and pour the cooled syrup over it.
Cover the dishes with a damp cloth (and periodically moisten, not allowing to dry) and leave in a warm place for 3 days to ferment.
When the mixture ferments, take the dishes to a cool place and, closing the hole with a tightly folded canvas, leave to mature.
After 3 months, honey is ready for use.

* Fruit honey

Ingredients:

1 liter of honey
3 liters of fruit juice
50 g yeast.

Cooking

Heat fruit juice without boiling, dissolve honey in it, cool, pour in the yeast dissolved in water and leave for 1-2 days to ferment.
Then pour the honey into bottles, cork tightly and put in a cool place for 2-3 weeks.

*House honey

Ingredients:

1.5 kg of honey,
4 liters of water
2 tbsp. spoons of yeast.

Cooking

Bring water to a boil, cool to 55 ° C and combine with honey.
Add yeast and put in a warm place to ferment for 2-3 days.
At the end of fermentation, put in a cold place for 2 weeks, then strain, bottle, cork tightly and leave for 6 months.

* Suzdal mead

Ingredients:

500 g honey
500 g sugar
4 liters of water
100 g yeast.

Cooking

Dilute sugar and half of honey with water and boil, removing foam, for 10-15 minutes.
Then cool to 25-30°C, add pre-diluted yeast, stir and put in a warm place for fermentation.
After 2-3 days, strain, transfer to a cold place and stand for 3-4 weeks.
After that, strain again, add the remaining honey, completely dissolving it.

*Novgorod mead

Ingredients:

150 g honey
1 liter of water
30 g yeast
1 g citric acid or juice of 1/2 lemon.

Cooking

Dissolve honey in boiling water, cool to 40-50 ° C, put yeast and leave for 1 day for fermentation.
Then strain, add citric acid or lemon juice, cool and serve.

*Aromatic honey

Ingredients:

1 kg of molasses,
3 liters of water
1 st. a spoonful of yeast
1 nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon.

Cooking

Dissolve the molasses in water, pour into an enamel bowl and boil over low heat, removing the foam, until 1/4 of the liquid has evaporated.
Then strain, cool, add yeast and leave to ferment in a cold place.
After fermentation, put crushed nutmeg and cinnamon in a canvas bag and let it brew for 6 weeks.
Pour the finished meduha into bottles.

*Meduha village

Ingredients:

2 kg honey
5 liters of water
1 cup of sugar,
4 lemons
2 tbsp. spoons of yeast
10 g gelatin.

Cooking

Add sugar, honey to the water and boil, removing the foam.
Pour into a wooden barrel, pour in lemon juice, yeast and leave to ferment for 1 week.
Then strain, add dissolved gelatin, put in a cold place for 2 weeks, then bottle.

*Cherry honey

Ingredients:

1 kg of honey
2 liters of water
1 liter cherry juice
5-10 g spices (cloves, cinnamon),
2 tbsp. raisin spoons,
50 g yeast.

Cooking

Dissolve honey in hot water and boil for 5 minutes, removing the foam. Cool, add cherry juice, spices, raisins and diluted yeast.
Stir and leave for 2-3 days in a warm place for fermentation.
Then pour into bottles, cork and put in a cool place for 10-20 days.

*Monastic honey

Ingredients:

1 kg of honey
3 liters of water
2 teaspoons of hops
1/2 cup of strong tea (1 teaspoon of tea per 1 cup of boiling water).

Cooking

Stir honey with water and boil over low heat for 3 hours.
Put hops, a small pebble in gauze, tie it in a knot and lower it into a saucepan with honey.
Boil honey with hops for 1 hour, periodically, as it boils away, adding hot water. Remove the honey from the heat and strain it while still warm through cheesecloth into a glass dish (it should be filled no more than 4/5 of the volume).
Put the dishes in a warm place for fermentation (it usually starts in 1-2 days).
When the honey has fermented, pour in the brewed tea.
Then honey, without interfering, strain several times through the flannel.
Strained honey is ready to eat, but it becomes more delicious when bottled and kept in a cool place for several days.

*Nectar

Ingredients:

6 liters of water
250 g honey
5 g hops
3 g cardamom,
1 teaspoon of burnt sugar,
10 g yeast.

Cooking

Boil honey in 2 liters of water, remove the foam.
Boil hops separately in 1/2 liter of water. Connect together, pour 4 liters of boiling water.
Cool to a warm state, add yeast, burnt sugar, cardamom and leave to ferment, covered with gauze, at a temperature not higher than 8-10 ° C until foam appears on the surface.
After removing the foam, strain the honey and can be consumed (or left to store in bottles for 1-2 weeks).

* Lemon honey

Ingredients:

2 kg honey
4 liters of water
25 g hops
15 g ginger
2 lemons
2 tbsp. spoons of yeast
7 g gelatin.

Cooking

Stir honey in warm water, add hops, ginger, lemon juice, chopped zest and boil for 45 minutes.
Strain the mixture, pour it into a wooden barrel or enamel bowl, add yeast and leave to ferment for 5 weeks.
At the end of fermentation, add gelatin diluted in water.
Close tightly and infuse for 6 months.
Then strain and bottle.

*Russian honey

Ingredients:

750 g honey
4 liters of water
1 st. a spoonful of hops, cardamom.

Cooking

Put honey in an enamel pan, pour boiling water over it and leave for a day.
Then boil the drink for 1 hour, add hops and boil 5 more times with short breaks.
Cool, add cardamom, pour into a barrel or jar (2/3 volume), close and leave to ferment for 2-3 weeks.
Then strain, bottle and put in a cold place.

*Russian berry honey

Ingredients:

1 kg pitted cherries
1 kg of strawberries or wild strawberries,
2 kg honey
1 liter of water
100 g rye bread,
50 g of brewer's yeast.

Cooking

Grind cherries, strawberries (wild strawberries) and honey, add boiled water and bread soaked with yeast.
Then drain the liquid into another bowl and put in a warm place to end fermentation.
Honey is ready in 1-2 weeks.

Home Cooking Tips

Honey is an intoxicating drink obtained by fermenting some food products, the main of which is honey. If you know the technology of making kvass or wine, you can easily master the process of making honey.

The strength of honey as a product of free fermentation does not exceed 10-11 degrees, but usually it is no more than 5, since during the manufacture the process is stopped before all the sugar has fermented: honey is a sweet drink.

Honey is a traditional Russian drink, sometimes called mead. Its recipes have been known in Rus' since time immemorial. No holiday is complete without honey.
Remember the end of any Russian fairy tale: "And I was there, drinking honey-beer ..."

With prolonged storage, the color of honey becomes darker.

If you notice that the honey is frothy, then this indicates its fermentation.

It happens that during storage, honey forms a crystallized layer from below, and a syrupy layer from above. This indicates that the honey is immature and contains an increased amount of water.

Light varieties are considered the best. However, this is not always fair.
For example, dark-colored honey, say, buckwheat, may contain more iron, copper, manganese and other important substances and be more valuable to the body than light honey.

The aroma of honey is an important sign of its quality. Valuable varieties of honey are usually distinguished by a delicate, pleasant aroma (linden, acacia, etc.).
There are varieties of honey with an unpleasant odor (tobacco, etc.).

To improve the organoleptic properties of honey, it can be blended (mix several varieties of honey). This improves the color, taste and moisture of its low-value varieties (for example, honey containing little water is mixed with honey that has an excess of it (for example, watery-transparent fireweed honey is mixed with honey of a denser yellow or dark consistency).

When blending, one must be careful not to spoil high-grade honey by adding even a small amount of bad honey to it.
It is also impossible to interfere with high-quality honey that is too liquid, because it can turn sour during storage.