Chapter 248 Oil Bed
"Not too much, not too little, enough for you to drink several times. I picked some, but I was in a hurry to come back and didn't finish picking them. Tomorrow I will pick all the half-opened ones. The half-opened ones are most suitable for drying and making tea."
It has been three years since she came back, but she still hasn't found any tea leaves, so she can only use this flower tea to satisfy her craving every time.
When Mu Xi returned to Meishan this time, she specially brought all her leftover coffee with her.
But now she doesn't have to stay up late or get up early, and she doesn't have any pressure, so she doesn't need this thing anymore. She plans to use this coffee to make cakes when her health gets better.
Mu Xi had harvested all the rapeseed today, and before it got dark, he was threshing the seeds out in the yard with a flail.
The small, round black rapeseed seeds fell onto the plastic sheet underneath.
After all the rapeseed was weighed, the harvest from half an acre of land was less than 80 kilograms.
The ratio of 80 kilograms of rapeseed to rapeseed oil is 1 to 0.4, which means that one kilogram of rapeseed can produce four ounces of oil.
They don't have modern oil pressing equipment now, so they can only make their own oil pressing tools. The oil yield is even lower, and it is estimated that the final output will be only more than 20 kilograms.
There are still a lot of animal fats at home, including a lot of butter, mutton fat and oil, and more than 20 kilograms of vegetable oil, which is enough for two people to eat for a long time.
Even if we occasionally fry something to eat, it would be enough to last for more than a year.
Zhao Yeqing cannot do heavy physical work now, and tries to avoid large movements. After Mu Xi drew the design drawings of the oil pressing tools and went to cut the wood for making the tools, Zhao Yeqing sat aside and helped to carve some wooden parts with a knife.
Before starting carpentry work, you must draw a blueprint, and the dimensions of every corner must be accurate. It is nonsense to think that you can make large tools or even build a house right away.
Without sufficient experience, even if you have the drawings, you often have to make revisions before they match.
Zhao Yeqing just lacked experience in carpentry, and this time he experienced the difficulty very well, and half of the parts he made had to be reworked.
The tool for pressing oil is very large, they call it an oil bed.
In her memory, it was a large wooden lump at least three or four meters long, with a gap in the middle. Several long wooden pillars were inserted vertically across the gap, and some of the pillars had grown so long that they had protruded.
Oil pressing is the process of squeezing the rapeseed by hitting a wooden pole with hanging stones or wood to squeeze the oil out.
You can also see the round rapeseed cakes or tea seed cakes inside through the gaps.
If you want to squeeze oil from rapeseed, you have to crush it, steam it in a pot, make it into cakes and put it in the pot to squeeze it.
Zhao Yeqing had finished making the small wooden parts and was thinking of frying the dried rapeseed to dry out the moisture.
Mu Xi refused, fearing that she would twist her chest again by swinging the spatula.
In the end, Mu Xi had to fry the rapeseed, and Zhao Yeqing led the cow out to grind the rapeseed.
In the past, oil mills used an extra-large circular millstone, which did not require manpower or oxen to push the millstone. Only a waterwheel was needed to push it.
There was no such thing at home, and the conditions did not allow for the use of such a large one, so Mu Xi moved two large stones back and made a grooved stone mill.
Pour the rapeseed directly into the groove, and then use a cow to turn it back and forth to grind the rapeseed into powder.
If she hadn't been injured, the two of them could have finished this small amount of rapeseed in a short time using a stone mill. But now they have to use such a large stone mill and use an ox to pull it, which is really a waste of resources.
Mu Xi said: "This time it's because of the reduced production due to the rainy season and high temperatures. Under normal circumstances, the harvest would definitely be more than this. We have to do it anyway, so we might as well do it now while we have electricity."
This time he went back to get an electric saw so that he could cut down the trees to make oil pressing tools. In addition, there was a cutting machine in the tourist area. When it was started, a circular blade would rotate, which could cut both wood and stone.
He made a wooden oil bed, and thought of making a millstone as well, taking advantage of the strong sunshine in this season so that he could replenish the electricity.
If you wait until it's no longer hot, it will be troublesome to use these power tools.
Zhao Yeqing was persuaded and took the grass to guide the ox to pull the mill.
She can also do the work after grinding the rapeseed powder, which is to steam the powder.
High-temperature steaming can further release the oil in the rapeseed powder, and the subsequent oil yield can be higher.
The steamed rapeseed flour has to be made into rapeseed cake.
Mu Xi made a bamboo hoop and wrapped it with iron wire to reinforce it. It was three centimeters thick and hollow in the middle. He placed it on the table, spread straw inside and then poured rapeseed powder into it.
He asked Zhao Yeqing to change into a pair of cleaner shoes, and then put a layer of plastic bags on the outside of the shoes. Then he spread straw on the rapeseed powder. She stood on the rapeseed powder and stepped on it until the powder was firmly pressed into the shape of a hoop.
The rapeseed cake is ready.
One cake is about the size of a basketball. The ones I saw when I was a child were even bigger. However, the oil bed made by Mu Xi was relatively small, so the size of the rapeseed cake naturally had to be reduced proportionally.
The oil pressing process is complicated. It took ten days to make the initial tools, and another two or three days to prepare the rapeseed.
The two of them worked for nearly half a month and were finally able to start pressing oil.
In just half a month, Mu Xi became twice darker.
The recent temperature has reached 47 degrees at noon. Even doing carpentry work under the eaves makes you dizzy from the heat. Mu Xi even hid from the sun but still got tanned like this.
Seeing this, Zhao Yeqing decided not to go out unless possible. He would wear a hat to block the sun when going to the toilet, and would wear sun-protective clothing no matter how hot it was.
After going to the toilet, I returned to the room and took off my clothes immediately to turn on the fan. After a few minutes of walking back and forth, my sun protection clothes were soaked with sweat.
The freezer in my home refrigerator is almost entirely used to freeze ice cubes, and even then it's still not enough.
In addition to putting ice cubes in drinking water, you should also put ice cubes in air-conditioning fans, cattle pens, sheep pens, chicken coops, and mushroom houses.
The temperature on the meadow is three or four degrees lower than that in Meishan, and the temperature in Meishan is about ten degrees lower than the town at the foot of the mountain.
The two men were preparing for the final step of oil extraction, putting the rapeseed cake into the oil bed.
Zhao Yeqing asked, "Isn't it 55 degrees in the city now?"
Mu Xi knew that she was worried about her family, so he consoled her: "The temperature will be much lower if you hide underground in air-raid shelters and subway tunnels. There are government officials outside who are restoring order. There will definitely be electricity available, and maybe even air conditioning."
However, if you live underground, it would be difficult to use air conditioning, and electricity would have to be reserved for reconstruction and restoration.
Even after it was rebuilt, the signal wasn't spreading that quickly, and the radio never worked in such hot weather.
It is understandable that reconstruction and resource preparation take time. The first thing to be affected is probably the food problem. The temperature has little impact on people, but it is a bit difficult for food crops.
The second crop of rice at home is almost ready for harvest. The high temperature is so severe that it is difficult for the rice to grow fully. Many rice ears are empty shells. The estimated yield per mu is only half of that of the first crop of rice.
They are all like this, and it’s probably even worse down the mountain.
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