Qin Official

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 fiddle 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 at the county engineer's home. It was 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.

As sung in "Songs of Chu": "Er turtles, cannons, lambs, and some pulp." Sugarcane pulp is mainly used for seasoning when making soft-shell turtles and lamb meat. It is limited to wealthy families and the quantity is not large. It is really unprecedented for someone like Heifu, who only has more than ten or twenty acres, harvested several hundred kilograms of sugar cane and hid it in the cellar with the intention of squeezing it all.

But the family had no objections. In the past two years, Heifu had tinkered with a lot of things mysteriously, and he always brought surprises to them. Besides, the family is no longer what it used to be. The money in Heihu's hands alone exceeds one hundred thousand. It's not a big deal to tinker with some food when he has 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 feed the peeled sugar cane into the rotating stone reel. The sugar cane was crushed and flattened, making a crisp sound. The sugarcane juice is squeezed out and flows downward into the clay pot that has been placed long ago, thus squeezing out the original sugarcane pulp...

Heifu himself also spooned a bowl of sugarcane juice and tasted it. There was only a faint sweetness. Sure enough, it would be impossible to complete the selective breeding and improvement in two years. This sweetness may not even reach one-third of that of future generations.

But something 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 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 their aunt's son, one year younger than Hei Fu. Their family is a merchant, and he works as a hawker in the rural market on weekdays, playing the flute and selling malt cakes for food. These vendors do not have shelter from the cold and heat when doing business, and they have to make the items they sell themselves. This is why Heifu came to him.

Yan was a little nervous. After all, Hei Fu's identity was different from before. He was now a government official. He first tried to evade it, 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 it doesn't work, it'll be fine."

Heifu was certain. Although he had never seen the production process of sucrose, he could 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 make caramel. He will not go into the complicated process in the early stages, but only talked 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. , ceased fire, and after it cooled down, it was the hard candy that his nieces and nephews liked to eat. There is also soft glutinous rice cake, which tastes a bit like the sorghum glutinous rice cake of later generations.

Under Heifu's urging, Yan had no choice but to bite the bullet and take action. On the two stoves in the kitchen, there is a large open iron cauldron and a small copper cauldron. In the first stove, dried sugarcane leaves are burning, the fire is raging, and the sugarcane juice is boiled in the iron cauldron. The juice is very thin at the beginning, and it tends to become thicker when only a quarter of it is left after boiling and evaporation. …

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 caramel. The first time, Yan failed to control the heat and it was burnt...

"Official official...I..."

Yan was in a panic, thinking 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 up the good work. The second time, Yan was even more focused. He turned down the heat to a lower level, scooped up the thick syrup with a dagger spoon, looked at the sun, and squinted his eyes to observe the natural flow of the syrup.

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 turned into syrup 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 cautiously tasted a piece and couldn't help but be overjoyed. To be honest, apart from over-cooking it due to lack of experience the first time, this sugar cane juice decoction is much easier than making sugar from wheat, beam and other grains!

"But why is the candy red?" On weekdays, the candies he makes are 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 boiling 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. How did they make rock sugar and white sugar that are as white as ice and snow?

Heifu rolled his eyes, how could he know?

The reason why brown sugar is red in color is because there are 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'm afraid I need to find someone to slowly explore those processes, and the Yan in front of me is a very good candidate.

First of all, he is the son of his aunt and is related to the black husband, so he can be trusted. Moreover, he is still a businessman, so even if he sells brown sugar in the market, it is not illegal.

According to Yan, if we 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 dumplings made by "making crops on the wall".

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 sugar cane. 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 on 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 it and make 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: "My mother is here."

Sure enough, Zhong Ye outside smiled and said, "Auntie came just in time. Yan has made some good candies. Auntie, please give it a try."

"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, not wanting to leave the chef. Yan was born to be afraid of his mother, and Hei Fu couldn't bear the aunt's urging for marriage. He had only been back for three days, and his aunt had already recommended five girls from his hometown to him...

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 good figure. She will be a good match for a black husband!"