Take, for example, 8 garnets, or 96 glasses, of wheat that has been cleanly picked over and sieved. Wash the wheat until the water is completely clear. Soak the wheat for 9 days, covering it first with warm water and then with cold water, each time using fresh water. (In cold weather, it must soak longer.) Continue soaking until the water whitens and the seeds begin to split. Pour the wheat into a sack made of new linen and tie it up, leaving a fair amount of slack. Place the sack in a trough and trample it with your feet. After some time, untie the sack, pour water on the wheat, and mix with your hands; then pour more water over the wheat, and pour off the water into a flat tray or pan. After settling, this water will yield a very nasty starch of the worst kind.

Retie the sack and trample it as before, untie the sack, pour on water, mix, add more water, and pour it off into another vessel. Each time, thoroughly rinse out the trough.

The third time the wheat will have to be trampled longer, since this third trampling will yield the very best starch. As before, pour off the water from the wheat into a separate vessel, straining it, as before, through a sieve covered with muslin. Let the water in all these vessels stand for 24 hours, then pour off the yellowish water on top as carefully as possible. Cover the starch that remains on the bottom with clean water, and knead thoroughly, washing the starch in this manner. Let it stand for 24 hours and repeat for five days, until the water remains completely clear. After pouring off the water for the last time, turn out the starch that remains on the bottom onto a sheet on a table either outdoors in the open air or in a warm, dry room. In sunny weather, the starch will dry out in five days. Eight garnets wheat will yield 4–4½ garnets starch, or about 50 glasses, which amounts to 20–25 pounds.