Kumis

Ingredients

• 3 litresfresh raw mare’s milk (saumal), from mares milked 4–6 times a day
• 300 mlkor, the mature starter kept back from the last batch, or 300 ml live kumis

Equipment

• 1saba, the smoked horsehide vessel, or a scalded wooden churn or glass crock of 5 litres
• 1bishkek, the long wooden plunger
• cloth cover and cord
• kese, small wide bowls, for serving

Directions

1. Milk the mares through the day. Mares hold their milk unless the foal starts the letdown, so each milking is short and small, which is why kumis is made in a running vessel rather than a single batch.
2. Prepare the vessel: a traditional saba is smoked inside with juniper or pine, which sterilises it and gives kumis its faint smoky note. A wooden churn or a glass crock should be scalded and cooled.
3. Pour in the starter first, then the fresh warm milk on top, and cover with a cloth.
4. Churn with the bishkek: hundreds of strokes at a time, several times a day, for at least an hour in total each day. Aeration is not optional. It keeps the fat dispersed and feeds the yeasts that make the fizz.
5. Keep the vessel at 18–25°C (65–75°F). Lactic acid bacteria sour the milk while yeasts turn some of its heavy load of lactose into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
6. Add fresh milk each day and keep churning. After 2–3 days the liquid is thin, greyish-white, tart, faintly yeasty and lightly fizzy, with about 2 percent lactic acid and 1–2.5 percent alcohol.
7. Taste as it goes: one day of fermentation gives a mild, sweet-sour drink, three days gives a sharp, strongly alcoholic one. Kazakhs grade it as saumal, then kumis of one, two or three days.
8. Never let it curdle into lumps. Mare’s milk has little casein and a great deal of lactose, which is why it stays smooth and drinkable instead of setting like yogurt.
9. Serve cool in wide bowls, poured with the right hand, passed to the eldest guest first, and always keep back 300 ml as kor for the next batch.

Technique

• Kumis is a steppe institution, drunk by the litre in summer at the jailoo pastures, credited with treating tuberculosis in 19th century Russian sanatoria, and central to Kazakh and Kyrgyz hospitality.
• It is made from raw milk and is a live culture. Use only milk from healthy animals from a source you trust; pasteurising kills the wild flora that make real kumis, and pregnant women and the immunocompromised should avoid raw-milk ferments.
• The alcohol is real but low. Three-day kumis can reach 2.5 percent, and there is a distilled version.
• The vessel matters. A smoked leather saba gives a flavour a glass jar simply will not, and a used saba carries its own resident culture.

Substitutions

• No mare’s milk, which is the honest answer for almost everyone: shubat, made the same way from camel milk, is the nearest thing, and Kazakhs drink both.
• A cow-milk approximation can be made by adding 5 percent lactose and a kefir culture, but it curdles more and tastes flatter. It is not kumis.

Variations

• Kyrgyz kymyz, made at the summer jailoo above Song-Kol and Suusamyr, generally drunk younger and milder.
• Shubat or chal, fermented camel milk, thicker and fattier.
• Kymyran, kumis let down with water and drunk through the working day.

History

Borrows its name from the Central Asian mare’s-milk drink but is a cow’s-milk cultured product of Colombian dairies.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kumis?

Kumis is a fermented & pickled from Colombia: cultured cow’s milk, thick and tangy, drunk from a cup or carton. Borrows its name from the Central Asian mare’s-milk drink but is a cow’s-milk cultured product of Colombian dairies.

How long does Kumis take to make?

Kumis takes 30 min a day of churning of preparation and 2 to 3 days fermentation of cooking. The recipe makes 3 litres. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Kumis?

Yes, within limits. No mare’s milk, which is the honest answer for almost everyone: shubat, made the same way from camel milk, is the nearest thing, and Kazakhs drink both. A cow-milk approximation can be made by adding 5 percent lactose and a kefir culture, but it curdles more and tastes flatter. It is not kumis.

What is the most important thing to get right in Kumis?

Milk the mares through the day. Mares hold their milk unless the foal starts the letdown, so each milking is short and small, which is why kumis is made in a running vessel rather than a single batch.