Half an hour later, Yang and Yue each held a clay bowl containing green and yellow sugarcane juice, although there were still some impurities that had not been filtered clean, but the two little ones didn't care, and drank it in small sips while watching the adults fiddle with the objects in front of them.

After the people outside helped to carry the stone wheel to the backyard, they took their leave, and Heifu and his uncle, and their aunt's son Hiko, and the three of them, plus the newly purchased black donkey, began to tinker with the stone wheel.

"This thing is made by my sister-in-law according to the wooden reel used to squeeze the pulp in the county engineer's house, which is magnified by two or three times, which is more durable, and you can also squeeze more at a time."

Yunmengze is one of the origins of sugarcane, and the officials of Nanjun also inherited the customs of the nobles of the Chu State, and every autumn and winter, they have to squeeze some cane pulp.

As sung in "Chu Ci": "胹 (ér) turtle cannon lamb, there is some syrup", cane syrup is mainly used for seasoning when making soft-shelled turtle and lamb, which is limited to rich and noble families, and the quantity is not much. Like Heifu, who is more than ten or twenty acres, harvested hundreds of catties of sugarcane and hid it in the cellar, and intends to squeeze it all, it is really unprecedented.

But the family did not have any objections, and in the past two years, Heifu has made a lot of mysterious things, and every time he can surprise them. Besides, the family is no better than back then, and the money in Heifu's hands alone exceeds 100,000, and it is not a big deal to make some food when he is free and rich.

The principle of operation of the stone roller is as simple as its appearance, the black donkey turns in a counterclockwise circle to pull the wooden pole, and under the drive of the wooden pole, the stone roller on the left will rotate, and through the cleverly placed gears, it also drives the stone roller on the right to rotate.

There was a suitable gap between the two stone wheels, and the black man asked a few hired farmers and servants who helped the family to feed the peeled sugar cane into the rotating stone wheel, and the sugar cane was crushed and flattened with a crisp sound. The sugar cane juice is pressed down into the clay pot that has been placed long ago, and the original cane pulp is squeezed out in this way......

Heifu himself scooped a bowl of sugarcane juice to taste, only a faint sweetness, sure enough, it is impossible to complete the selection and improvement in two years, this sweetness, I am afraid that even one-third of the future generations will not reach.

But there is better than nothing, so much sugarcane they can't eat in a winter, after leaving dozens of catties as next year's seed buds, the rest is simply squeezed, Heifu also wants to try, can make cane sugar.

An hour later, the containers at home were full, and the main battlefield was transferred to the kitchen, where the fibrous impurities from the cane juice were removed and poured into the newly built iron kettle.

"Yan, you sell caramel in the township, so according to the method of caramel sugar, try to boil the cane juice in this large cauldron."

Yan is the son of their aunt, a year younger than Heifu, and their family is a merchant, and they work as a hawker in the township market on weekdays, playing pipes and flutes along the street to sell malt and glutton. These vendors do not avoid the cold and heat in their business, and they have to make their own goods, which is why Heifu came to him.

Yan was a little nervous, after all, Heifu's identity was different from the past, he was already an official doctor, he first shirked, saying that the caramel was made of grain, but he had never seen anyone make it with syrup, and he was afraid that he would not be able to do it.

"The truth is all right, you try, even if it doesn't work out, it's fine."

Heifu is sure, although he has never seen the production process of sucrose, but the principle can be roughly guessed, isn't it just to remove the water and let the sugar in the cane syrup be analyzed?

Yesterday afternoon, he personally went to Yunmengxiang to see Yan make caramel candy, not to mention the complicated process in the early stage, only to say that the last step is to precipitate the sugar liquid from the grain, and boil it in an iron kettle with a warm fire, stirring constantly until it is boiled thick, stop the fire, and after it cools down, it is the hard caramel that his nephews and nieces like to eat. In addition, there is soft syrup, which tastes a bit like sorghum syrup in later generations.

At the urging of Heifu, Hiko could only bite the bullet. On the two stoves in the kitchen, there is a large open iron kettle, and a small copper kettle. The first stove was filled with sun-dried sugarcane leaves, and the juice was boiled in an iron kettle, which was very thin at first, and when only a quarter of it boiled and evaporated, it tended to thicken......

Hiko scooped the sugarcane pulp from the large kettle into a small kettle and boiled it carefully over a slow fire, until the cane juice became thicker and thicker, gradually taking on a beautiful amber color......

"The most important thing in frying sugar is the heat."

Hiko was not so nervous at this time, and he said this to Kuroo kindly, and at the same time skillfully scooped up the syrup with a spoon and poured it into the pot, judging the tenderness of the sugar water from the shredded situation.

Having said that, frying sugar in sugarcane juice is not the same as caramel after all, and the first time, Hikoko failed to master the heat and was scorched......

"Doctor Guan...... I ......"

Hiko was flustered, thinking that he had messed up, but Kuroo picked up a piece of something that stuck to the bottom of the pot and put it in his mouth, and his eyes suddenly lit up.

"It's a little burnt and bitter, but it's also sweet!"

The direction was right, so Heifu asked Hiko to keep up the good work. The second time, Hikoko was more focused, turning the heat smaller, scooping up the thick syrup with a dagger, facing the sunlight, squinting his eyes to observe the natural drawing of the syrup.

Finally, when he was sure that he could, the fire stopped, and in the kettle was a golden-red syrup that had become so thick that it was hot and sweet, and it was scooped into a clay bowl and, in the cold, turned red......

At this time, smelling the syrup outside, Yang Heyue, who had long been unable to hold back, squeezed in, and Heifu cut two pieces of sugar and stuffed them into their mouths, and a stream of sweetness entered their throats, mixed with a unique burnt fragrance......

"Uncle Zhong didn't lie, it's really sugar!"

"You can really fry sugar!"

Yan also tasted a piece cautiously, and couldn't help but be overjoyed, to be honest, except for the first time when he was inexperienced and overfried, this sugarcane juice fried sugar is much simpler than making sugar from wheat, beams and other grains!

"But why is this sugar red?" On weekdays, the candies he makes are mostly white and light yellow.

"Because it's called brown sugar!"

Heifu gave this candy a name, and also licked a piece, this familiar taste, as if returning to the days of caring about his girlfriend in his previous life to menstruate and buy brown sugar to soak in boiling water......

The past is like smoke, not like a lifetime, but really separated by two lives.

But the question arises again, they only made large pieces of brown sugar, how did they make rock sugar and white sugar, which were as white as ice and snow?

Heifu rolled his eyes, how did he know?

The reason why brown sugar is red in color is because there are still a lot of impurities in the sugarcane itself, on this basis, how to remove impurities, how to precipitate granular granulated sugar and white sugar? Those processes, I'm afraid you have to find someone to explore slowly, and the Yan in front of you is a good candidate.

First of all, he is the son of his aunt, and he is related to Heifu and can be trusted. Moreover, it is also a business registration, even if it sells brown sugar in the market, it is not illegal.

According to Hiko, if you can make more brown sugar, it will still be profitable. This material is cheaper in terms of raw materials than the "sweet on the wall", and the process is also simpler.

However, after they squeezed all the 400 catties of sugarcane in the cellar to fry the sugar, Yan was not so optimistic, because everyone was busy for most of the day before they fried about ten catties of lumpy brown sugar......

"I still have to improve the sugar cane, the sweetness is too low, at least two or three times higher."

Heifu was very distressed, they groped for a day, the process of frying sugar has been relatively mature, but the raw materials can not pass, the worst thing is that this is not a year and a half to solve, and it has to be tossed slowly.

Heifu decided to plant hundreds of acres of sugarcane in his own field next year!

As for the dozen catties of brown sugar tossed out today, let's put it at home and eat it yourself, maybe I can ask my sister-in-law to try it and make a sweet and sour fish to taste?

Vinegar existed as early as the Zhou Dynasty, called "醯" (xī), which is a household necessity, and there is a story in the Analects about a neighbor borrowing vinegar......

Heifu moved his index finger at the beginning, but a high-pitched female voice came from outside.

"What smells so good?"

Hiko stuck out his tongue: "It's my mother who came." ”

Sure enough, the outside also smiled and said: "Aunt came just in time, Yan made good candy, aunt taste it." ”

"It's so sweet...... Did Hiko do it? And give me a few pounds to take back to taste. ”

Heifu and Hiko glanced at each other, and they both didn't want to leave the kitchen. Yan was born afraid of his mother, and Heifu couldn't bear this aunt's urging to marry as a matchmaker, and he only came back for three days, and his aunt recommended five girls from Hongxiang to him......

Sure enough, my aunt's sharp voice had moved to the black husband's mother, who was doing a front in the courtyard, and reported to her: "Sister-in-law, what you asked me to do is done!" I asked Heifu again today about a good marriage! The daughter and grandson of the three elders of Hongo, sixteen years old, looks Zhou Jun, and has a good figure, which can be a good match for Heifu! ”