Cuisine: Jammu and Kashmir
Category: Beverage
Prep: 30 min
Serves: 4
Difficulty: Hard
🌿 Vegetarian
Fermented barley beer — the traditional social and ceremonial drink of Ladakh shared at weddings, Losar and harvest festivals across the Indus Valley.
Ingredients
- 2 cups barley grains — washed
- 1 tsp chak (traditional Ladakhi yeast starter — substitute with 1/4 tsp active dry yeast mixed with 1 tbsp barley flour)
- 4 cups cool boiled water
Method
- Cook the barley: boil 2 cups barley in 6 cups water for 20 to 25 minutes until the grains are softened but still intact.
- Spread on a tray and cool completely to room temperature — warm grain kills the yeast.
- Activate starter: crumble chak finely and mix with 2 tbsp cooled barley.
- Or mix active dry yeast with 1 tbsp barley flour and 2 tbsp lukewarm water. Leave 15 minutes.
- In a clean clay pot or sealed glass jar combine cooled cooked barley with the activated starter.
- Add 4 cups cool boiled water. Stir gently.
- Cover with a clean cloth. Ferment at room temperature for 2 to 4 days depending on temperature — cooler conditions require longer fermentation.
- The chhang is ready when it smells pleasantly sour and yeasty and has a milky cloudy appearance.
- Strain for a clear drink. Serve at room temperature.