??Chapter 469: 469. Soybean straw and winemaking_1
Chapter 469: 469. Soybean straw and winemaking_1
As for the dried soybean stalks…
Song Sancheng raised his voice, “Tantan, there are quite a lot of these bean stalks. Why don’t you ask Old Li, does his cow eat them?”
If the cow eats them, he would haul a couple of baskets over in a few days, but the stalks are hard and need to be crushed before being fed to the cow.
Nowadays, there’s only one cow in the entire village, and it’s quite old. Song Tan agreed imdiately:
“No need to ask, when the soybeans are harvested, I’ll haul all the leftovers to him.”
These stalks are high in nutritional content, and are more than adequate for the cow to get through winter. Besides, how much fertilizer can such a small amount make? There’s plenty of other stuff that can be used as fertilizer.
Better to give it all to the old cow.
After all, the temperature drops here in November and doesn’t start to rise slowly until March of the next year. In the dead of winter, there’s hardly any grass or leaves to eat.
…
When the soybeans were almost done being processed, Seventh Uncle judged the ti and called Qiaoqiao over again:
“We’re going to start brewing again soon, are you going to livestream it?”
Qiaoqiao looked at him warily, “Can it all be finished today?”
“Yes.”
That much Seventh Uncle could guarantee.
Finally reassured, Qiaoqiao, without another word, started the livestream again—
[What did I see? The host has been on a roll these last few days!]
[Honestly, too diligent, making
feel a bit uncomfortable.]
[Can the brewing finish today? I can’t take it if it gets split up again.]
[Here we go, such frequent live broadcasts!]
…
anwhile, Qiaoqiao was already standing in front of the large vat from yesterday, looking serious:
“Alright, our sorghum has been soaking—”
He glanced at the ti, “for 20 hours now. Seventh Uncle said it’s hot weather, so it doesn’t need to soak that long. Now let’s open the lid—”
It took so effort to fully open the sealed lid, and a wave of damp steam rushed out. Seventh Uncle then reached in to scoop up a handful of sorghum, checked the state of the cooked and ‘blood’ grains, and had Qiaoqiao pinch it with his fingers:
“Feel that? It turns to mush as soon as you pinch it. That ans it’s soaked enough. If it weren’t, we’d have to continue soaking.”
“In winter, when the temperature is low, and it cools quickly, it all needs to soak for 24 hours—co, heat the water!”
Qiaoqiao quickly positioned his phone to one side and once again entered his focused state. At this mont, he placed the large steaming pot on the stove and scooped out the soaked sorghum to put inside.
“When the water starts boiling vigorously…”
Seventh Uncle suddenly hesitated.
After a while, he spoke up again, “It used to be quite difficult for us to buy a tir, we had to guess. The water temperature before, I guessed the temperature with a thermoter before I told you… but this ti, when I say it’s good, you just look at the ti and write it down.”
Qiaoqiao nodded, while the chat in the livestream started buzzing again:
[Got it. Experience from the master craftsman.]
[I knew it. The master craftsman was so precise last ti, even using a thermoter to check now and then…]
[Technology affects the exertion of experience, huh!]
[Brewing really is a matter of precision; a tiny mistake can lead to a huge error.]
[Ancient tis had no such things, yet people were still able to brew very good wine.]
[I can’t deny the wine was good, but the alcohol content definitely wasn’t high, after all, distillation was a big problem…]
The live chat was bustling with activity.
anwhile, Qiaoqiao had been staring at the clock for a while, until Seventh Uncle estimated, “That’s enough.”
Only then did he check the ti and then announced with a serious face, “Kids, are you watching the ti? After steaming over high heat, it needs to steam for 30 minutes.”
“Right,” Seventh Uncle added, “We’re steaming a lot at once and the pot is big, so it takes half an hour. If you’re just playing around at ho, making a little bit, probably 15 minutes is enough—co, take the sorghum off, let the water in the steaming pot cool with a fan, and when I say it’s about right, you go asure…”
This process was particularly cumberso, but Qiaoqiao learned it very ticulously, without showing any impatience.
When Seventh Uncle said it was good, he checked the thermoter, “Kids, rember, 85 degrees water temperature!”
Then he poured the water back into the sorghum to stir it evenly, covered it again, and sealed it for 15 minutes.
Next ca the re-steaming, cooling down…
In the anti, Seventh Uncle called out, “Qiaoqiao, bring over a bucket of rice husks, wash them clean—370 jin of sorghum, you take 37 jin of rice husks.”
Next, they mixed in the yeast, mixed in the yeast again, collected the heap for saccharification, and covered it with rice husks…
When the two of them, drenched in sweat, had finished the work, Seventh Uncle finally let out a long sigh,
“Alright, after waiting for a good half a day to a day, when you sll the sweetness and see white fuzzy molds, then you can take it out to put into the ferntation pit.”
By this ti, the barrage in the live stream had visibly diminished a lot.
Zhang Yanping took the opportunity to glance at it and was startled, thinking Qiaoqiao hadn’t managed to keep the viewers?
But at a closer look at the viewer count—no, how co it didn’t decrease but actually increased?
After a while, finally, a lazy barrage scrolled by:
[Is the host done with everything? (⊙o⊙) Wow, I actually fell asleep!]
[Ah, I had such a good sleep!]
[What, it’s over when I wake up?]
[If it hadn’t been for the loud friction of the final stirring, I wouldn’t have woken up…]
[This is too sleep-inducing, I’m going to save this and replay it when I have insomnia.]
Zhang Yanping: ….
Well… how to put it, the process might have been different from what was expected, but the outco, it seems, didn’t vary much.
After closing the live stream, he curiously asked,
“Seventh Uncle, can we drink this tomorrow?”
“Dream on,” Seventh Uncle laughed, “Tomorrow it starts to sll good, then you mix the lees evenly again. Later on, it’s up to you whether you put it in a barrel or just dig a ferntation pit, and let it fernt for twenty or thirty days before it’s good to go.”
Song Tan walked over, curiously looking at the pile of rice husks and sorghum, then unhesitatingly said,
“Since we’re brewing in the traditional way, naturally we should dig a pit—didn’t we buy the pottery jars? Clean them up tomorrow, and bury them in the backyard ditch as the ferntation pit.”
“Okay,” Seventh Uncle glanced at the pile of lees, “Let’s see how it goes tomorrow. If it slls sweet, it ans the wine is brewed correctly. If it slls like alcohol, then it’s overdone, and it probably won’t taste good, so no need to bother cleaning up the ferntation pit.”
Song Tan looked at him and thought, if only you didn’t look so confident when saying those words, and didn’t so nonchalantly process all that sorghum… your words might be more credible.
If he really wasn’t sure, with all this year’s sorghum here, and only a few of them at ho who drink, would Seventh Uncle really dare to process it all at once?
At that mont, Seventh Uncle, with his hands behind his back, couldn’t contain the anticipation and joy in his heart as he strolled around the yard under the blazing sun, only to eagerly ask again, “Qiaoqiao, want to eat tender corn? If so, let’s go pick a basket to bring back.”
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