Experienced moonshiners know that wheat is an excellent raw material for mash. When properly prepared, you get an easy-to-drink moonshine that contains a minimum of harmful substances. I present to your attention a proven recipe for wheat mash that our ancestors used. Its distinctive feature is the absence of dry or pressed yeast.
We will replace artificial yeast with wild yeast, which gives almost no unpleasant odor. Malt enzymes break down starch into sugar, which turns into alcohol during fermentation. Wheat mash requires high-quality raw materials. I advise you to take only clean, dried grain, stored for no more than one year; it should not be rotten or damaged.
Ingredients:
- wheat – 4 kg;
- sugar – 4 kg;
- water – 30 liters.
Sugar increases the yield of the finished product, while the characteristic grain aroma remains.
Wheat mash recipe without yeast
1. Pour 1 kg of grain into a plastic or metal container and spread it into an even layer at the bottom. Add water; it should cover the layer of wheat by 1-2 cm. Cover with a lid and place in a cool, dark place. After 1-2 days the grains will germinate.
2. After the sprouts appear, add 500 grams of sugar to the container and mix with your hands. If the mass is too thick, you can add a little water. Tie the neck of the container with gauze and place in a warm place for 10 days. This time is enough to create a starter that replaces yeast.
3. Pour the starter into a glass bottle, add 3.5 kg of sugar and 3 kg of wheat. Pour the resulting mixture with warm water (up to 30°C).
4. Place a rubber glove with a hole in the finger (pictured) or a water seal on the neck of the container. Place the bottle in a room with a temperature of 18-24°C. Depending on the activity of the yeast, fermentation will last 7-20 days. 
5. The spent mash tastes bitter; you need to check this when the glove is deflated (the water seal stops blowing bubbles).
6. Drain the finished mash from the sediment, filter through cheesecloth and distill in a moonshine still of any design. To improve the quality, I advise you to do a second distillation, separating the “heads” and “tails”, after diluting the moonshine with water to 20 degrees.
From the wheat remaining at the bottom, you can make two or three more servings of mash, each time pouring 4 kg of sugar into the container and filling everything with water. The second and third mash turn out to be the best, then the quality deteriorates noticeably.
Vodka is considered a traditional alcoholic drink in Rus'. But long before its appearance, the Russian people drank polugar. In the tsarist empire, this popular drink made it difficult to make excess profits in the vodka business, so in 1895 its production was banned by order of S. Yu. Witte. The lost symbol of the Russian feast returned to us after a century, but most people still do not know what polugar is.
What is polugar
Polugar bread wine is a malt distillate (see), obtained by double and sometimes triple distillation of grain mash. Its traditional strength is 38.5%. This intoxicating drink can be rye, wheat, buckwheat, or barley. The recipe for polugar for drinks made from different types of malt is the same. Wheat or rye are most suitable for producing malt. These crops have thin skins, so they germinate quickly and are easily crushed. Therefore, wheat polugar and rye polugar are more popular. But no less tasty wine is made from buckwheat or barley malt. You can use a mixture of malts.
The malt polugar was distilled and purified three times for purification. This is how high-quality bread wine was produced, the recipe for which was found and restored by vodka historian Boris Rodionov.
Polugar recipe
How to make bread wine at home? For preparation you will need:
- Malt (any type) – 2.5 kg
- Clean water – 10 l
- Dry yeast - 25 grams (or 150 grams of pressed yeast), if you use special yeast, for example for malt, see the dosage on the packaging; for example, it can be 4 grams per 10 liters of wort
Spring or well water is ideal for preparing polugara. You can also use raw bottled water or carefully filtered tap water.
Malt preparation
To obtain malt, the grain is washed, soaked and then germinated, as is done.
You can buy malt in a store - this is the best option with a minimum of cost and hassle, the price at the moment is not so high and everyone can afford to buy malt. Be sure to check the shelf life so as not to spoil the polugar.
Grind the malt until it is coarsely ground. To do this, it is better to use a roller mill or use a meat grinder or food processor.
Mashing
During the mashing process, the starch contained in the malt is broken down into simple sugars by enzymes.
Mashing process:
- Pour water into a pan of suitable volume and bring to 65 degrees
- Pour all the malt into the water, mix well until you get a homogeneous mass, the mash temperature should be 62 degrees, if not, then bring it to this temperature
- Cover the pan with a lid and insulate it, for example with a blanket
- Maintain this temperature for 1 hour, after 30 minutes open, stir and check the temperature, if it drops, raise it. If you do not adhere to the required regime, the starch will not completely turn into sugar and the wort will not ferment or the yield will be small
- Cool the wort to 25 - 30 degrees
Fermentation
- Pour the cooled wort into a fermentation container and add yeast
- Mix everything thoroughly, close it tightly with a lid and install a water seal
A water seal is a device in the form of a valve that removes carbon dioxide from a container with mash and prevents air from entering; without a water seal, the mash can turn sour.
- Leave the mash in a dark place at a temperature of 18-25 degrees
- Fermentation lasts from 4 to 16 days
- It is necessary to stir the mash once a day for the first 3 days, because a cap of spent grain will rise, which can sour, and then close it tightly again
- The mash, ready for distillation, does not gurgle, as the release of carbon dioxide ends. It becomes lighter, tastes bitter, without sweetness
First distillation
- Pour the mash into the distillation cube; before doing this, filter it from the spent grain through several layers of gauze, otherwise it will burn. If you have a PVK (steam-water boiler), filtration is not required; you can distill with spent grain
- The first distillation is done in the litter mode without division into fractions
- Select almost to the water until the strength in the stream is 5-10% alcohol content or until the temperature in the cube reaches 99 degrees, the output will be cloudy raw alcohol with a pungent odor
Second distillation
- Dilute the raw material selected during the first distillation with water to 20-30%
- Pour it back into the moonshine still
- Calculate absolute alcohol
- Select the “heads” - these are the first 10% of absolute alcohol. This is a technical liquid that contains dangerous components.
- Next, collect the drinking fraction “body” of 70% of absolute alcohol or until the temperature in the cube reaches 92-93 degrees.
- Select the “tails” into a separate container for further processing
Cleaning
If desired, you can additionally perform cleaning: , or . A combination of methods is allowed.
Before cleaning, dilute the distillate with water to 38.5% alcohol content. We believe that the simplest and most effective method is cleaning with activated carbon.
Dilution and storage
This is the last stage, dilute the drink with good water to a strength of 38.5%, this is the standard of traditional bread wine.
Pour the finished drink into glass bottles and keep in a cool, dark place for at least 7 days.
Types of popular modern polugars
You can often hear “Polugar is the vodka that we lost. But this drink has its own characteristics; it is obtained by distillation, and vodka by rectification (). Any bread wine has a much softer and more pleasant taste.
Wheat polugar is produced by double or triple distillation; it has a mild aroma, with a strong taste of rustic white bread.
Aged rye polugar undergoes additional cleaning with birch charcoal. This drink is aged in oak barrels for three to four years. Rye polugar has an intense taste of freshly baked rye bread with butter.
Buckwheat polugar is made from buckwheat. This drink is transparent in color and has a spicy aroma with notes of buckwheat honey. This unusual drink is appreciated by distillate gourmets.
Polugar is usually drunk in small sips. It is served chilled to 10 degrees. Pour the drink into small glasses or faceted shot glasses. Bread wine perfectly reveals its taste characteristics in combination with meat or fish dishes.
Bread wine is one of the types of distillate, considered a fortified drink of Russians. That is, it is a high-proof alcohol made from fermented alcohol. This drink is made almost the same way - using malt and bread flour, adding grains of wheat, oats, barley or rye.
What is polugar
Many people are interested in polugar – what it is. This is the name of a homemade product made using traditional technologies using wheat or rye grains. This drink has been produced since the 16th century and has a strength of 38.5% vol. and the aroma of rye bread. Traditional Russian vodka gets its name from “half-burnt wine” and “half-burnt wine.”
The production technology of polugar is similar to the manufacturing process, or. The only difference is the cleaning method. Modern connoisseurs of traditional drinks are reviving polugar recipes, producing it at home. Natural filtration methods are used for purification - charcoal, milk, bread.
For the last 120 years, polugar has not been produced or sold. Among alcoholic products, the ancient polugar occupied not the last place, because it had a low cost. But it prevented the vodka monopoly in Tsarist Russia from making big profits, as a result of which in 1895 the drink was banned and replaced with vodka. 
Types of bread wines
Among the variety of bread wine, the following types can be distinguished:
Choice of wheat or rye distillate
If you choose which is better - wheat polugar or malt polugar, you should keep in mind that the second type of drink will be more modern and the ingredients for it will be slightly different.
To produce a wheat drink, you only need wheat grains, while for a malt half-gar, you also need to add rye. In the modern version of the alcoholic drink, additional ingredients are added to improve the taste. There are no spices in wheat.
Polugar Recipes
If we consider the classic polugar, the recipe will consist of a minimum of ingredients. Among them:
- Barley, rye or wheat malt – 5-6 kg.
- Drinking water – 20-25 l.
- Yeast – 60 g dry or 300 g fresh.
Which malt to choose depends on taste preferences, but according to the classic old Russian recipe, rye was used to produce a traditional Russian drink called rye polugar.
The equipment you will need is a container and a thermometer, since during the production process it is necessary to measure the temperature of the wort.
The manufacturing process will be as follows:
How to drink and what to eat
The resulting rye polugar is drunk from glasses with a capacity of 50-150 ml. First, the dishes are cooled or rinsed with cold water. According to the old Russian tradition, a glass is not drunk to the bottom in one gulp. Bread wine, polugar is savored, because only in measured consumption its taste qualities are revealed.
To emphasize the taste of the drink, use a good meat snack or pickles. Since the drink is traditionally Russian, Russian snacks will also be good - jellied meat, lard, pickled cucumbers.
To most of our contemporaries, the word “polugar” does not mean anything, although 150 years ago all residents of the Russian Empire understood its meaning. This drink prevented the Tsarist and then the Soviet vodka monopoly from receiving excess profits. Undesirable alcohol was artificially removed from the market by banning production. In the last few years, interest in bread wine (the second name for polugar) has been revived. Not all ancient recipes were lost; modern production technology was developed on their basis.
Polugar (bread wine) is a double distillate from barley, rye or wheat malt with a strength of 38.5%. Unlike cognac or whiskey, which are aged for several years in oak barrels, the quality of polugar is improved using natural purification methods: charcoal, bread, milk, etc. The drink is ready for consumption 3-5 days after preparation.
From the 15th to the 19th centuries, bread wine was the national Russian alcoholic drink. The first written mention dates back to 1517. Basically, polugar was produced by rich landowners for their own needs according to recipes that were passed down from generation to generation. In 1895, by order of the Minister of Finance of the Russian Empire S. Yu. Witte, bread wine was banned, replacing it with a mixture of rectified ethyl alcohol and water - ordinary vodka, the production of which was established by a tsarist monopoly.
The word “polugar” appeared thanks to the original quality control method, which was officially introduced by Nicholas I in 1842. Bread wine was poured into a special ladle (pictured) and set on fire. After burnout, the volume of the remaining liquid was measured; if it was half less than the original (half burned out), then the drink passed the test successfully.
Ladle for checking the quality of polugar It is incorrect to call polugar vodka, since the preparation technology is closer to moonshine, whiskey and cognac. The difference is shown in the table.
| Distinctive feature | Half-garden | Vodka |
|---|---|---|
| Raw materials | Cereals: barley, wheat, rye (most often) | Any food starch-containing raw material: grain, potatoes, sugar beets, peas, etc. |
| Technology | Distillation - distillation in stills | Rectification is an industrial method for producing alcohol. |
| Organoleptic properties | The taste and aroma are influenced by the raw materials | Mild alcohol taste or no taste at all |
| Impurities | Standard set of fusel oils for cognac and whiskey | Contains almost no foreign impurities |
Polugar was drunk from special faceted glasses (lafitniks) with a volume of 50-150 ml. The optimal serving (serving) temperature is 8-10°C. It was not necessary to drink the glass in one gulp; often the taste of bread wine was simply enjoyed, sipped in small sips to catch a pleasant aftertaste. The drink goes well with traditional Russian meat, salty, sour, garlic and pepper dishes.
Traditional stack Bread wine recipe (polugara)
The proposed cooking method is created on the basis of ancient recipes described in pre-revolutionary books, and adapted to the equipment of a standard kitchen, so that anyone can reproduce all the steps at home.
Ingredients:
- malt (barley, rye or wheat) – 5 kg;
- water – 20 liters;
- dry yeast - 50 grams (or 300 grams pressed).
The choice of malt is not fundamental. But most old Russian recipes use rye; it is this grain that can be considered a classic raw material for bread wine. Spring or well water is ideal. It is better to first let ordinary tap water sit for a day, then pass it through a purification filter without reverse osmosis. You will also definitely need a thermometer to measure the temperature of the wort!
Cooking technology:
1. Preparation of malt. Polugar is made from well-dried store-bought or homemade malt.
First, the grains need to be ground into coarse grains, but it should not be flour, otherwise problems will arise at the next stage. Many stores sell ready-made ground malt; this is the best option for beginners just learning the basics of distilling.
Correctly ground malt 2. Mashing. Mashing is the process of breaking down the starch in malt into sugar under the influence of water and high temperature.
Pour water into a saucepan, place on the stove, and bring to a boil. Then cool to 55°C, add malt and stir until the mass becomes homogeneous. The main thing is to prevent lumps from forming at the bottom of the container. Heat the wort to 61-64°C, mix well again.
3. Fermentation. Yeast converts sugar into alcohol.
Cool the wort to 28°C, then pour into a fermentation vessel. Add yeast diluted according to the instructions on the bag, stir, install a water seal and transfer the container to a dark place with a temperature of 18-27°C.
The simplest water seal 
Factory water seal Depending on the sugar content of the malt, the quality of the yeast and the room temperature, fermentation lasts from 4 to 16 days. Once a day, you need to remove the water seal, stir the wort with a clean hand or a wooden stick, then install the seal back.
The bread mash ready for distillation has a bitter taste without sweetness, becomes lighter and the water seal does not gurgle for 1-2 days. When these signs appear, you can move on to the next stage.
4. First distillation. It is made with the aim of obtaining maximum raw alcohol from the mash.
Pour the mash into the distillation cube of the moonshine still through a colander with a fine strainer to remove all undissolved particles of malt (spray grains) that may burn during the distillation process. Filtered grains can be fed to livestock.
Distill the mash over low heat without dividing into fractions. The distillate selection should be completed when the strength of the output in the stream drops below 25 degrees. The result will be a cloudy liquid with a pungent odor, this is normal. We will do the refining at the next stage. Measure the strength of the moonshine and determine the amount of pure alcohol. For example, 2 liters of 55% contains 1.1 liters of pure alcohol.
Cloudy distillate 5. Second distillation. Cleans the product from harmful impurities.
Dilute the resulting distillate with water to 20% and re-distill it, dividing the yield into fractions: “heads”, “body”, “tails”. Collect the first 12-15% of the yield from the amount of pure alcohol (“heads” or “pervach”) into a separate container. This is a harmful fraction containing acetone and other dangerous substances; drinking it is dangerous, but can be used for technical needs.
Then select the main product (“body”) until the strength in the stream drops below 40 degrees. This distillate is the ultimate goal. The weaker output (“tails”) can be collected separately, using new portions of mash, but it is not suitable for preparing polugara.
6. Cleaning. Eliminates remnants of harmful impurities, while leaving a characteristic aroma and mild taste.
Four purification methods are considered traditional for bread wine: charcoal, bread, milk and egg white. Methods can be combined or use only one. A description of each of these techniques can be found by searching the site. Before cleaning, the polugar must be diluted with water to 45-50 degrees so that the absorbent substances better absorb harmful impurities.
7. Finishing. Bring the strength of purified bread wine to the standard - 38.5%. Then pour the drink into bottles for storage, cap tightly and leave for 2-3 days in a cool, dark place before drinking to stabilize the taste.
Ready bread wine Depending on the starch content in the malt, the success of the mash and the distillation technology, the proportions in the recipe yield 3.5 liters of homemade half-gar with a slight smell of raw materials and a pleasant mild taste.
For many modern Russians, and even more so for foreigners, the word “polugar” means nothing. That is why some people take the name of this revived drink as a marketing ploy, because every six months some new strong alcoholic drinks appear on the shelves. In fact, polugar is the forgotten ancestor of Russian alcohol; it is nothing more than bread wine, which began to be produced in Russia much earlier than the familiar vodka.
A little history
Vodka is a mixture of alcohol and purified water. In Russia it appeared only at the end of the nineteenth century. What did they use before in Rus'? Bread wine was the main thing. It was obtained from ordinary distillation cubes, as, however, the whole world still does. The only difference was the raw materials.
Everyone distills the drink from what they are rich in. In France, Italy, Spain, these are grapes; in Germany, wheat is more often used; in England, barley is used. Russia has always been rich in rye, so they made bread wine from it. The manufacturing process was not much different from ordinary moonshine or the production of “oak strength” whiskey in Scotland. If you believe the first mentions, then Scotch whiskey was already in 1494. A certain abbot sent King James a request to allocate barley for the production of a strong drink, then it was called “water of life” - “aqua vita”.
In Russia, the first strong alcoholic drinks were mentioned in the book of the Pole Matvey Mikhovsky in 1517. He describes that in Muscovy, residents, distilling honey and cereals, make a “scorching liquid” that warms them in severe frosts. The Russians themselves called this liquid bread wine (due to the method of preparation).
What was called vodka?
Vodka was the name given to grain wine purified in several stages, to which various spices and herbs were added. From a modern point of view, this is a tincture. And there were several varieties of it.
Sometimes there was vodka without additives; the wine was simply distilled and further purified in a vodka cube. This drink was very expensive, only wealthy people, who knew grain wine, drank it. Vodka accounted for only 5% of all alcoholic drinks in the country. The processes of distilling and making vodka from wine at that time were subject to different taxes; these were two completely different processes.
Only in 1936 did vodka in Russia begin to have a different composition. It became a simple mixture of rectified alcohol and purified water. All bottles with a strength of 40% began to be stamped with the “Vodka” label.
Bread wine - polugar
For a long time, polugar was the highest quality and most popular alcoholic drink in Russia. The wine is quite strong - 38.5%, and has a unique rye taste. Until 1895, polugar was considered a symbol of the quality of alcoholic products, because its strength was strictly controlled.
Nicholas I even issued a Decree in 1842, according to which the half-gar was checked in a special way, that is, by annealing. How did this happen? Ordinary bread wine could have any strength from 38 to 50 degrees, but polugar strictly kept 38.5%. There were no alcohol meters at that time.
The regulated procedure was as follows: wine was poured into a copper annealer and set on fire using a special technology. The polugar should have burned exactly halfway. This is where its name came from - half-burnt wine. The two “glasses” poured burned out and merged into one “glass”. This was the norm. Later, when alcohol meters appeared, it was possible to find out how many degrees there were in the semi-garden; it turned out to be 38-39, but not 40.
Where did 40 degrees come from?
Many are convinced that Mendeleev began to dilute alcohol to a point of forty degrees. In fact, this innovation was introduced by the Minister of Finance of the time, Reitern. This was done to facilitate the work of officials. After the introduction of excise taxes in 1863, they painfully calculated tax amounts, multiplying by 38. The minister ordered that the strength of bread wine be considered 40 degrees. At that time, alcohol meters were already in full use and the “burnout” technology became irrelevant.
In 1895 in Russia, after the introduction of a state monopoly on the production of polugar, it was banned. Vodka began to be produced. Gradually, the recipe for bread wine was forgotten and only recently the Russian market began to offer this ancient unique drink.
Types of polugara
Initially, only three types of polugar entered the modern Russian market: malt, wheat and rye. Now new varieties have been launched into production: “garlic-pepper”, “rye-wheat”, “honey-pepper”. These new drinks are a little cheaper because they are not filtered with egg whites. They are quite accessible to the general public. The classic polugar is much more expensive and new options are quite suitable for the first acquaintance.
What is the difference between polugar and vodka?
For vodka, pure alcohol is taken, which is made in a chemical plant. Chemically, it is absolutely pure and has no unnecessary odors or tastes. To make polugar, use bread wine. Traditional distillation does not remove the taste of raw materials. Polugar has a rich, bright aroma of bread. The taste of the drink is incomparable. To some extent, it can only be compared with Scotch whiskey. Polugar is drunk differently than vodka. If it is better to drink vodka in one gulp, then you should try polugar in small sips, this way you can better feel the bright, unique taste and aroma of the drink.
Bread wine, recipe. Main stages
To prepare polugar, you need rye distillate. For mash, they take selected rye, grind it coarsely and fill it with clean spring water. Water does not require additional filtration.
After the mash has matured and is ready for distillation, you should set up special copper distillation cubes. Following the technology, the brewed drink is distilled, if required, in several stages. After this, the polugar is cleaned using either egg whites. The result should be transparent
The resulting polugar has nothing in common with modern vodka. There is no need to cool it too much; at room temperature the bread flavor is better felt.
Polugar made from flour
The recipe for bread wine (polugara) includes the following components:
- 2 kg flour;
- 8 liters of water;
- 100 g yeast;
- 100 g sugar.
Bread wine without yeast (moonshine)
In Rus', a strong drink made from rye, wheat, oats, barley with the addition of wild yeast has been popular since ancient times. Nowadays, homemade alcoholic drinks are no longer so widely popular, but for lovers of their own natural product, this recipe will come in handy.
Bread moonshine has a special taste that is not inherent in other similar drinks. It has a slightly noticeable taste of grain, it should be drunk chilled, the minimum strength is 32 degrees. If rye was taken as a raw material, the taste of moonshine turns out to be rich, tart; from wheat sourdough, the drink turns out to be softer. The classic drink does not require the addition of extra spices (cinnamon, anise and others).
Cooking steps
We grow wild yeast. Rinse 4 kg of wheat in running water, pour into an even layer into a 25 liter container. Pour clean water 2 cm higher. Add 800 g of sugar and stir thoroughly. Leave in a dark place for 5 days. When you smell a sour smell, you will know the yeast is ready.
Preparation of syrup. Stir 3 kg of sugar in warm water (15 liters). Pour the syrup into the container with the wheat. Cover tightly with a lid. Leave to ferment for 6 days. The temperature should be kept from 22 to 28 degrees.
Distillation. Carefully drain the mash without sediment. Distill in a moonshine still. You should get 3 liters of bread moonshine. Its strength reaches 79 degrees. It is better to dilute the drink with clean water to 45-50 degrees.
Cleaning. Manganese is used to purify the drink. Add a few crystals to the bottle. After a few days, black flakes will fall out at the bottom. After this, you need to filter the moonshine. Place several layers of gauze in a watering can, lining it with either cotton wool or crushed coal. On the topmost layer you need to pour 1 teaspoon of soda and sugar. Pass the drink in a small stream through a watering can. Change the filter after every three liters. To improve the taste, filtered moonshine must steep for 3-5 days.
