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CHAPTER V.

THE PREPARATION OF KOUMISS.

IN the foregoing chapter, the points to be attended to in procuring a supply of mare's milk possessing qualities that favour, or at any rate do not retard or interfere with, the process of fermentation, have been dwelt upon at length. It is fully as important, however, but considerably more difficult, to manage and guide the details of fermentation through which the milk has to pass before it is converted into koumiss. Nothing is simpler than to set the process going, and nothing easier than to obtain koumiss of some kind or other, such, for example, as many of the nomads drink, and drink with apparent relish. But to produce koumiss of good quality, and which will agree with the delicate stomachs of most consumptive and dyspeptic patients, requires considerable observation, patience, and experience. Thus it not unfrequently happens, even at the koumiss establishments, and in

the hands of thoroughly practised brewers, that a whole batch of fermented mare's milk gets spoilt, and has to be thrown away as unfit for food. The causes of such accidents, which are exceptional, remain unexplained as a rule, owing to our imperfect acquaintance with the laws, or rather, many of the details, of fermentation. In most cases, however, provided certain points in regard to the quality of the milk, the ferment, the surrounding temperature, the vessel used, and the stirring, be carefully attended to, a palatable drink is produced.

Before proceeding to consider the preparation of koumiss, it will be necessary to give a description of, firstly, the vessels in which the milk is beaten up; and, secondly, a few of the substances employed for fermenting the milk.

The vessel used by the nomads in the preparation of koumiss is made of smoked horse-hide, the hair being turned outwards. It is a bag about three and a half feet long, somewhat conical in shape, with a broad base and narrow outlet, and is sewn together with thick threads, also prepared from horse-skin.

The disadvantages inseparable from a vessel constructed of horse-hide and used for the purpose of holding an acid and fermenting fluid, are obvious enough. It is impossible to keep it thoroughly

clean, as certain portions of the finely divided casein of mare's milk find a hiding-place in the seams of the vessel or saba, as the natives call it. The lactic and succinic acids, with which the sides of the vessels get impregnated, coupled with the casein undergoing decomposition in the seams, are apt, when a new batch of koumiss is prepared, to favour butyrous fermentation. To prevent this, the skin bags are turned inside out every fortnight, well washed with warm water, dried in the sun, and occasionally re-smoked. Koumiss prepared in the newly smoked vessels has a somewhat acrid taste, however.

To obviate these disadvantages, wooden tubs or cylinders were introduced some twenty years ago, and proved so superior in practice to the skin bags previously in use, as entirely to supersede the latter at all the koumiss establishments in the vicinity of Samara.1 The wooden vessel now employed instead of the saba, is slightly conical in shape, being narrow above and broad below, and is made of a solid piece of oak (deprived of its tannic acid), fir, or limewood,

1 Colonel Yule, the learned editor of Marco Polo, seems to doubt the possibility of the fermentation of milk being properly carried out in wooden vessels. So far from this being the case, I firmly believe that the koumiss churns of the future will be made of glass, which can with ease be kept clean, and which is also a bad conductor of heat.

the trunk of which is hollowed out till the walls are about half an inch in thickness. The height of the vessel is nearly two and a half feet, the diameter of its base eleven inches, and of its outlet seven inches. The wooden churn, after having been in use for about a fortnight, needs to be well washed with hot water, then steamed and thoroughly dried. Some even insist upon its being occasionally smoked, which is unnecessary, however, if strict attention be paid to cleanliness. One decided merit the skin bag certainly possesses,-a quality of great moment to the nomads who have few artificial appliances for regulating the surrounding temperature during the preparation of koumiss; the vessel of hide being somewhat porous, the watery portions of the milk, on soaking through to its outer surface, help, by evaporation, to keep the fluid cool inside.1

The milk, whatever vessel it is placed in, is beaten up with a wooden stick, two inches in thickness, from four and a half to five feet in length, and made at its lower end either in the manner of a churn-staff, or of a circular plate with holes bored through it. The wooden cylinder is also provided with a tightly

1 The Bashkirs, however, by smearing the interior of the saba with oil, prevent the absorption of milk by the walls of the vessel, but they thereby also arrest evaporation.

The simplest of any is that recommended by Bogoyavlensky and adopted and modified by Tchembulatof. It is prepared thus:1 Take a quarter of a pound of millet-flour, add water to it, and boil it down to the consistence of thick oatmeal-porridge. Then heat separately, in another vessel, eleven pints of milk to boiling-point, and then allow it to cool down. When its temperature has fallen to 95° Fahr., pour it into a wooden bowl or tub, and add the boiled flour to it. The upper and open part of the vessel is then covered with a piece of coarse linen, and left at rest at a temperature of about 99° Fahr.-from twenty-four to forty-eight hours. The appearance of small bubbles, which keep bursting on the surface of this liquid, combined with a vinous or acid odour,

1 I have brought forward Tchembulatof's receipt, which differs from Bogoyavlensky's in the use of a larger quantity of milletflour, and in the boiling of the latter apart from the milk. Dr Postnikof's plan is the following: Half a pound of millet-flour and a quarter of a pound of malt are mixed with a sufficient quantity of honey to form a paste, which is put into a clean jar, covered with a linen cloth, and placed on a warm stove. The mass soon begins to rise, and is then taken out, wrapped in a piece of muslin, and dropped into a clean earthenware vessel, containing about a quart of new mare's milk, which is placed in the same temperature that the paste was kept in. As soon as signs of fermentation begin to show themselves in the fluid, the paste must be removed, while the milk, after being stirred, should be left in the same temperature till bubbles appear (only in very small quantities) on its surface. The ferment is then ready.