Mapuche Wheat Muday — Muday de Trigo Recipe

Mapuche wheat muday, a cloudy traditional fermented drink — Mapuche wheat muday

Mapuche wheat muday, or muday de trigo, is a traditional drink of wheat cooked for an hour, ground, mixed back with its cooking water, extra water, and honey, and rested for at least 12 hours; it is drunk fresh as a non alcoholic refresher or left 3 to 5 days at room temperature to ferment lightly. It takes 12 hours of preparation and 70 minutes of cooking, and serves 20.

A cloudy, pale yellow drink with bits of grain, central to Mapuche rituals such as the nguillatún.

How to Make Wheat Muday?

Traditional wheat muday is a lightly fermented drink that still contains the remains of the grain. Kept in the fridge it stays a sweet juice; left at room temperature, natural yeasts turn it into a drink with a low alcohol content.

Nutritional Information

Each serving of wheat muday contains approximately 250 kcal, 45 g of carbohydrates, 1 g of fat, 5 g of protein, 5 g of fiber, 15 g of sugars, 0 mg of cholesterol, and 5 mg of sodium. These values are estimates and may vary depending on ingredients and portion sizes.

Homemade Mapuche Wheat Muday Recipe

Preparation: 12 hours (resting)
Cooking: 70 minutes
Servings: 20

Ingredients

3 kg of wheat berries
10 liters of water
500 g of honey

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Instructions

Wash the wheat well in cold water, place it in a large pot, cover with water, and cook over medium high heat for about 60 minutes. Strain, keeping the cooking water separately, and grind the cooked wheat.

Wheat berries for Mapuche wheat muday — Wheat Berries

Return the wheat to a very large pot with the cooking water and about 10 liters of additional water. Heat over medium heat and stir in the honey slowly until fully dissolved. Rest for at least 12 hours, and refrigerate if you want to drink it unfermented.

Natural honey to sweeten wheat muday — Honey

Serve the muday well chilled. At this point it is a natural, nutritious, non alcoholic drink, but left for several days at room temperature it starts to ferment and reaches a mild alcohol content.

Additional Tips

Check the fermentation

It is fermenting when steady bubbles appear and it smells slightly sour and alcoholic. At 20 to 25°C (68 to 77°F) it has some alcohol by day 3.

Stop it in the fridge

Once it reaches the flavor you like, refrigerate it. Cold stops the fermentation and it keeps 4 to 5 more days.

Do not strain it

Traditionally it is drunk with the grain, which gives it its cloudy look, but you can strain out the largest bits.

Original ingredient	Substitute	Ratio	Flavor note
Day 1	Fresh	No bubbles, cloudy	Sweet refresher
Days 2 to 3	Starting to ferment	First bubbles, slightly sour	Balanced flavor
Days 4 to 5	Fermented	Active bubbles, fuller aroma	Low alcohol
After day 5	Over fermented	Very sour, foamy	Cooking or discard

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. What temperature is best for fermentation?

Room temperature, ideally 18 to 25°C (64 to 77°F), for 2 to 5 days. Do not refrigerate it if you want alcohol.

2. Can I use sugar instead of honey?

Yes. Honey is traditional and more complex, but the same amount of white sugar works and feeds the natural yeasts.

3. How much alcohol does it produce?

Very little, usually around 1 to 3%, similar to a very light beer. You will notice bubbles and a slightly sour taste.

4. Should muday be strained?

Traditionally no, it is drunk with the grain. Some people strain it lightly to remove the largest bits.

An Ancestral Native Beer

Wheat muday and its corn and pine nut versions can be considered native South American beers. Originally the grains were chewed so the enzymes in saliva turned their starch into sugars, which yeasts then fermented.