With a million jin of fruit to be turned into wine, even if people were hired to wash and crush them, Mo Yan wouldn’t be able to complete the task alone in just a few days. As fruit production was bound to increase, it would beco even more impossible for her to manage on her own, making it necessary to share the sugar-adding ratios with Zhao Mu and others.
As long as the sugar-adding ratio was well managed, making fruit wine wasn’t difficult at all. However, Mo Yan wasn’t worried about Zhao Mu and the rest leaking the secret. Before she decided to reveal to them the thods of brewing each kind of fruit wine, Xue tuanzi had already applied a different Dream Entering Technique on them.
Usually, Zhao Mu and the others could clearly rember every step of the winemaking process, but once they entertained the thought of revealing the thods, they would intermittently lose that mory, no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t recall how to do it.
This Dream Entering Technique was much more convenient than directly erasing mories, it had no adverse effects on the subjects’ bodies, and it was very effective, but it was also much more difficult to apply. Xue tuanzi had exhausted all its Spiritual Power, leaving the Artifact Spirit utterly weakened.
Mo Yan didn’t distrust these steadfast soldiers, who looked after her family’s orchard as if it were their own child, she was simply taking precautions to prevent potential leaks at their root.
In doing so, she could confidently rely on these people and give them the utmost trust. They, in turn, didn’t have to worry about inadvertently letting the secret slip, which would be good for everyone involved.
This ti, just with grapes alone, there were two hundred thousand jin. Besides eating and sleeping, Mo Yan, Zhao Mu, and the others worked non-stop for two full days to crush all the grapes into vats.
For every ten jin of grapes added to the vat, three jin or two jin of white sugar would be put on top. When the vat was filled to two-thirds, it would be covered with a lid, then wrapped tightly with imperable oil paper, and finally sealed with a smooth layer of yellow clay, waiting for the grapes to fernt.
The reason for filling the vat only two-thirds full was that the remaining third was needed to accommodate the gases produced during ferntation. Otherwise, as the gases accumulated without "space to reside," the internal pressure in the vat would increase. Once reaching a critical point, the vat would either burst open or the tightly sealed lid would be blown off. In either case, it signified a failed winemaking attempt, and that batch of grapes would be wasted.
The weather was neither cold nor hot at the mont, and ferntation would normally be complete in about forty days. During this period, the lid had to be lifted regularly to stir the mixture, ensuring full ferntation. When everything was completely unsealed at the end, impurities within the vat such as grape skins and by-products from the ferntation process needed to be strained out. Then, the wine could be sealed and stored for a period before it was ready to drink.
If one wanted the grape wine taste to be richer and fuller, the storage ti could be extended. So grape wines, if well preserved, could last for several decades without any problems. Just like in modern tis, many people enjoy collecting wines. The older the vintage, the more fragrant and valuable the wine becos.
"Whew—All done! Boss, how many thousands of jin of white sugar did we go through this ti?"
After sealing the last vat of grapes, Zhao Mu and the others let out a deep sigh of relief. But when they saw what was once a small mountain of white sugar reduced to a small bucket, their faces showed extre pain. Thinking of how almost all the white sugar had passed through their hands, their hands also began to ache.
Mo Yan waved her hand dismissively and said, "Not too much, just about fifty thousand jin." That was only for the grapes; once all the remaining fruit was put into vats, the consud white sugar might be hundreds of thousands of jin. Compared to that, fifty thousand jin wasn’t much at all.
Hiss—
A chorus of sharp intakes of breath arose as Zhao Mu and the others stared at the densely arrayed row upon row of large vats, as if trying to visually extract the white sugar that had already integrated with the grape juice.
In Great Chu, white sugar was even more precious than salt. While ordinary peasant households all had salt, white sugar only appeared during festivals and celebrations. Within Jing City, the price of salt was one jin forty wen, while white sugar was three tis more expensive, costing a hundred twenty wen. The Court imposed strict controls on white sugar, and a significant portion of tax revenue ca from it.
Mo Yan managed to secure hundreds of thousands of jin of white sugar, thanks largely to Yan Junyu’s involvent. If not for his connections and having inford the Governnt beforehand, acquiring such a vast amount of white sugar would have been impossible.
By then, so were already quietly calculating in their heads how much to sell the finished grape wine for per jin to avoid a loss: Grapes, priceless in the market, could sell for six hundred wen per jin, and one jin of white sugar cost a hundred twenty wen. The cost for a vat of grapes was a hundred twenty-seven taels and two wen of silver, and the wine produced would be around one hundred sixty jin. So, one jin of grape wine had to sell for at least eight hundred wen not to incur a loss... Hiss—With such expensive wine, would there really be people willing to buy?
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