Half an hour later, Yang and Yue each held a pottery bowl, which contained green-yellow sugarcane juice. Although there were still some impurities that had not been filtered out, the two little guys didn't care. They drank in small sips while looking at the adults.
They played with the objects in front of them.
After the people outside helped move the stone reel to the backyard, they said goodbye and returned. Hei Fu, his uncle Zhong, and their aunt's son Yan, plus the newly bought black donkey, began to tinker with the stone.
Come on.
"My sister-in-law made this thing based on the wooden pulley used for pressing pulp in the county engineer's home. It has been enlarged two or three times. It is more durable and can be squeezed more each time."
Yunmeng Zepan is one of the origins of sugar cane. Nanjun officials also inherited the custom of the Chu nobles and squeezed out some sugarcane pulp every autumn and winter.
Just as it is sung in "Chu Ci": "The turtles and lambs are cooked with some pulp." Sugarcane pulp is mainly used to make soft-shelled turtles and seasoning lamb meat. It is limited to wealthy people, and the quantity is not large. Like black
I have never seen a man like this who harvested several hundred kilograms of sugar cane from more than ten or twenty acres and hid it in the cellar with the intention of crushing it all.
But the family has no objections. In the past two years, Hei Fu has tinkered with a lot of things mysteriously, and he always brings surprises to them. Besides, the family is not what it used to be. Hei Fu alone has more than
If you have a hundred thousand dollars, it’s not a big deal to tinker with some food when you have time and money.
The operating principle of the stone reel is as simple as its appearance. The black donkey turns counterclockwise and pulls the wooden pole. Driven by the wooden pole, the stone reel on the left will rotate. Through the cleverly placed gears, the stone reel on the right will also be driven to rotate.
There was a suitable gap between the two stone reels. Heifu asked several farmhands and servants from his family to help feed the peeled sugar cane into the rotating stone reel. The sugar cane was crushed and flattened, making a crisp sound. The squeezed out
The sugarcane juice flows downward into the clay pot that has been placed long ago, and the original sugarcane pulp is squeezed out...
Heifu himself also spooned a bowl of sugarcane juice to taste, and found that there was only a faint sweetness. Sure enough, it would be impossible to complete the breeding and improvement in two years. This sweetness may not even reach one-third of that of future generations.
But anything is better than nothing. They could chew so much sugar cane all winter that they could not finish it. After leaving dozens of kilograms as sprouts for next year, they simply squeezed all the rest. Heifu also wanted to try to see if he could make it.
Bring out the sucrose.
An hour later, the containers at home were full, and the main battleground moved to the kitchen. The fiber impurities in the cane juice were precipitated and poured into the newly built iron cauldron.
"Yan, you sell malt sugar in the countryside, so follow the method of malt sugar and try to boil the sugarcane juice in this big cauldron."
Yan is the son of their aunt, one year younger than Heifu. Their family is a merchant. He works as a hawker in the countryside and markets on weekdays. He plays the flute and sells malt cakes for food. These hawkers do not protect themselves from the cold and heat when doing business.
You have to make the items yourself, which is why Heifu came to him.
Yan was a little nervous. After all, Hei Fu's status was different from before. He was now a government official. He first excused himself, saying that the candy was made from grain, but he had never seen anyone making it with syrup, so he might not be able to make it.
"Everything makes sense. Just give it a try. Even if you don't succeed, it'll be fine."
Heifu is certain. Although he has never seen the production process of sucrose, he can roughly guess the principle. Isn't it just to remove the water and analyze the sugar in the sucrose?
Yesterday afternoon, he personally went to Yunmengxiang to watch Yan making caramel. He will not go into the complicated process in the early stage. He will only talk about the last step, which is to precipitate the sugar liquid from the grain, simmer it in an iron cauldron over a warm fire, and stir continuously until it becomes thick.
, after the fire ceased and cooled down, there were hard candy candies that his nieces and nephews liked to eat. In addition, there were soft candy candies, which tasted a bit like sorghum candy in later generations.
Under Heifu's urging, Yan had no choice but to take action. On the two stoves in the kitchen, there was a large open iron cauldron and a small copper cauldron. In the first stove, dried sugar cane leaves were burning.
The fire is raging, and the sugarcane juice is boiled in the iron cauldron. At the beginning, the juice is very thin. When only a quarter of it is left after boiling and evaporation, it has a tendency to become thicker...
Yan then spooned the sugar cane pulp from the big cauldron into the small cauldron, and then simmered it carefully over a slow fire. The sugar cane juice became thicker and thicker, gradually taking on a beautiful amber color...
"The most important thing about frying sugar is the heat."
Yan was no longer so nervous at this time. He said this to Heifu and Zhong. At the same time, he skillfully scooped up the syrup with a spoon and poured it into the pot. He judged the ripeness of the syrup from the stringiness.
Having said that, frying sugar with sugar cane juice is not the same as using caramel. The first time, Yan failed to control the heat and it was burnt...
"Official official...I..."
Yan was very panicked, thinking that he had messed up, but Heifu picked up a dark thing stuck to the bottom of the pot and put it into his mouth, and his eyes suddenly lit up.
“It’s a bit burnt and bitter, but also sweet!”
The direction was right, so Heifu asked Yan to keep trying. The second time, Yan was more focused. He turned down the heat even lower, scooped up the thick syrup with a dagger spoon, looked at the sun, and squinted his eyes to observe the syrup.
Drawn condition that flows down naturally.
Finally, when he was sure it could be done, the fire stopped, and the cauldron was filled with extremely thick golden-red syrup, hot and steamy, sweet and tangy. They were scooped into pottery bowls, and gradually became thicker in the cold weather.
Into a red lump...
At this time, Yang and Yue, who were outside smelling the scent of syrup and couldn't hold themselves back for a long time, squeezed in. Heifu cut two pieces of candy and stuffed them into their mouths. A sweet smell entered their throats, mixed with a unique burnt aroma...
…
"Uncle Zhong didn't lie, it's really candy!"
"You can really make sugar out of frying!"
Yan Ye carefully tasted a piece and couldn't help but feel overjoyed. To be honest, apart from over-cooking it due to lack of experience the first time, this sugar cane juice decoction is much simpler than making sugar from wheat, beam and other grains!
"But why is the candy red?" Usually, the candy he makes is mostly white or light yellow.
"Because it's called brown sugar!"
Heifu gave this kind of candy a name and licked a piece. The familiar taste seemed to bring him back to the days when he cared about his girlfriend's period and bought brown sugar to soak in water in his previous life...
The past is like smoke, not as if a lifetime has passed, but as if two lifetimes are truly separated.
But the problem came again. They only made large pieces of brown sugar and rock sugar as white as ice and snow. How did they make the white sugar?
Heifu rolled his eyes, how could he know?
The reason why brown sugar is red in color is because there are still many impurities in the sugar cane itself. On this basis, how to remove the impurities and how to separate out the granular sugar and white sugar? I am afraid that someone will have to find someone to slowly explore those processes. What is in front of us
Yan is a very good candidate.
First of all, he is the son of his aunt, and is related to Hei Fu, so he is trustworthy. Moreover, he is a businessman, so even if he sells brown sugar in the market, it is not illegal.
According to Yan, if you can make more brown sugar, it will still be profitable. This product is cheaper in raw materials and simpler in process than the glutinous rice cake made by "graining the wall to make sweet".
However, after they squeezed all the 400 kilograms of sugar cane in the cellar into fried sugar, Yan was not so optimistic, because everyone worked for a long time before frying about ten kilograms of lumpy brown sugar...
"We still need to improve sugarcane. The sweetness is too low. We need to increase it at least two or three times."
Heifu was very troubled. They fumbled for a day and found that the process of frying sugar was relatively mature, but the raw materials could not pass the test. What was terrible was that this was not something that could be solved in a year and a half, and had to be worked on slowly.
Heifu decided to plant hundreds of acres of sugar cane in his own land next year!
As for the ten kilograms of brown sugar that I made today, let’s keep it at home for our own consumption. Maybe we can ask my uncle and sister-in-law to try making some sweet and sour fish?
Vinegar has been around since the Zhou Dynasty, and is called "醯" (xi). It is a must-have item in every household. There is a story about a neighbor borrowing vinegar from the Analects...
Heifu moved his index finger, but a high-pitched female voice came from outside.
"What smells so good?"
Yan stuck out his tongue: "It's my mother who's here."
Sure enough, Zhong Ye outside smiled and said: "My aunt came just in time, Yan has made some good candies, please try it."
"It's so sweet...Did Yan make it? Please pack a few kilograms for me and take it home to try."
Heifu and Yan looked at each other, and they both didn't want to leave the kitchen. Yan was born to be afraid of his mother, and Heifu couldn't bear the aunt's urging for marriage. He had only been back for three days, and his aunt had already recommended five marriage plans to him.
A local girl...
Sure enough, the aunt's shrill voice had already moved to Heifu's mother who was doing battle in the hospital, and reported to her: "Sister-in-law, what you asked me to do is done! I asked Heifu again today.
Marriage! The granddaughter of three elders in this town is sixteen years old. She has a handsome appearance and a figure that is good for fertility. She will be a good match for a black husband!"