Chapter 522 How to Reply to Them (Please vote and subscribe)
"Chief, this is the white millet we use to make wine. Every year during the hottest time of summer, we pick out some of the worst millets, cook them in bamboo tubes, and mix in some of the remaining white millets from last year. Leave them in the mud house for a few days, and the millets inside will all turn white, and then they can be used to make wine."
Jiu Feng said as he took out another bamboo tube filled with 'white millet' to show Luo Chong. The bamboo tube was sealed with lotus leaves and mud. When the mud seal was removed, a sour smell immediately came out. What came into view were all millets with a layer of white mycelium. Judging from the size, they should be made of rice.
"That's right, this is it."
As soon as Luo Chong saw these 'white millets', he knew that this was the wine yeast that had been passed down for many generations in the wine tribe.
What is koji? Actually, it is moldy millet, but this "white millet" is different. According to Jiufeng, they make new koji every year, and when selecting new materials, they will also go through high-temperature steaming, so it is obviously impossible for bacteria to exist at this time.
According to the conventional method, the cooked materials are generally fished out and then piled in an airtight room to let it grow bacteria naturally and gradually mold. However, the disadvantage of this is that it is impossible to guarantee that the colonies naturally inoculated each time are the same, which will also lead to the final quality of winemaking being uncontrollable.
However, artificial inoculation can avoid this phenomenon. The most suitable bacterial strains are selected and then inoculated on the cooked culture medium. In this way, the strains that grow are what you want. The advantage of this is that the best bacteria can be artificially selected.
According to Jiufeng, mixing the remaining koji from last year into this year's new materials is actually inoculating the bacteria preserved last year into this year's new materials. They have already been artificially inoculated, and the bacterial colonies handed down now have also been passed down from generation to generation.
Maybe they don't know what the benefits of doing this are, but they have their own opinions on this.
"This is the technique passed down by our ancestors. We cannot change it at will, otherwise we will never be able to make good wine again."
Although Luo Chong did not completely agree with this statement, it was of course okay to say so under the poor production conditions of the Jiu Tribe. However, in the future, when making wine for the Han Tribe, he must open his mind and study more tricks.
"I plan to build a winemaking workshop in this newly built Weishan County, and let your Jiu clan be responsible for production. How about it?" Luo Chong nodded and asked Jiu Feng.
"As long as the leader likes it, let us continue to make wine, of course there is no problem." Jiu Feng immediately expressed his opinion after listening to Yun Zhi's translation.
"Hey, don't be anxious. Although the wine you brewed before was good, the variety was too single. Of course, this is also related to the conditions of your tribe. However, the Han tribe has a lot of resources. There are many kinds of grains that you don't have. I need you to try them all.
Let's put it this way. You don't have to worry about the workshop. Let Yunzhi build it. I will also provide you with all kinds of tools. You also have to hurry up to learn Chinese and Chinese characters, including arithmetic and scales.
Especially the scale, which is a tool used by the Han tribe to measure weight. With this, you can mix the ingredients more strictly according to the proportion. This is very important and will have an impact on the future large-scale winemaking. Now the main focus is on experiments, so I ask you to measure the weight. All the data will be recorded, including the proportion and weight of the ingredients, as well as the fermentation conditions and the time taken.
There is no rush to make wine now. The first task I give you is to try to make a variety of different kinds of distiller's yeasts, including wheat, barley, flour, sorghum, polished round-grained rice and glutinous rice, and corn. Use these seven materials, grind them, steam them, and tread them into molds, that is, put them in molds and tread them firmly, and then inoculate them with the white millet colony that you have passed down, to see how many kinds of distiller's yeasts you can get in the end.
After the first batch is made, you can also try natural fermentation, or you can mix several materials in different proportions and then ferment them. In short, I want you to make at least 20 to 30 different kinds of distiller's yeasts, and then study the winemaking. "
"Ah?! Chief, why do we need so many kinds of distiller's yeasts?"
Jiufeng hadn't spoken yet. After listening for a long time, Yunzhi, who knew a little about winemaking, asked first.
"Using grains to make wine is ultimately for people to drink, and wine is a food product. One kilogram of wine requires several kilograms of grain, which is a waste of grain. The Han tribe cannot make too much wine at present, so we have to experiment with the most cost-effective and material-saving methods and formulas.
And I also need a high-proof wine that can be used as medical alcohol, and the cost must be low. So my ultimate goal is to let them make a kind of Daqu, using useless corn cobs, rice bran, and bran as raw materials to brew a very high-proof wine. This is not for people to drink, but a medicine for healing injuries. Do you understand what I mean?"
"Isn't it only grain that can be used to make wine? Then can corn cobs that cannot be eaten be used to make wine?!"
Yun Zhi was confused. It must be said that the leader's imagination is really big. He can always come up with some wonderful ideas. No wonder he can make so many good things. But is it really reliable to make wine with corn cobs? Yun Zhi expressed great doubts about this.
"How do you know if it works if you don't try? To be honest, I don't know, but I think it should work. Let's give it a try. Anyway, that thing has no other use except for burning firewood. If it can really be used, it would be great." Luo Chong said, spreading his hands.
This was not a sudden idea of his own, but in modern society, corn cobs are indeed used to brew alcohol. There are so many modern hospitals and the consumption of alcohol is so high. How can it be brewed entirely with grain? That is simply unrealistic. That is why Luo Chong wanted to try it. If it is really possible to make low-cost alcohol without wasting grain, it would be great.
Jiu Feng did not understand very well, mainly because Yun Zhi did not know how to translate some things. He only knew that the leader asked him to brew many different kinds of wine and try to use other things instead of grain to brew wine. Jiu Feng also thought this was a fantasy, but the things were given by the leader, so he did not care.
Moreover, if more kinds of wine could be brewed, Jiu Feng would be very willing. No member of the wine tribe would not be interested in this beverage invented by their ancestors. Now that there is an opportunity to promote and expand it, they will naturally try their best to do it.
After finishing this matter, Yun Zhi took the newly joined Jiu clan to settle down. It was at this time that the flying eagle letter from Liuyang County also arrived. After receiving the letter, Yun Zhi appeared in front of Luo Chong again. To be honest, this was the first time he saw the Han tribe's magical way of transmitting information. It was really fast.
"Chief, what is written on it?"
Yun Zhi can write Chinese characters. The Ling tribe and the Han tribe have been trading for more than a year. As the leader, Yun Zhi had the intention of joining the Han tribe. Naturally, he had learned Chinese characters in advance. However, the Han tribe did not have a suitable learning material at present, and he did not know many characters. Basically, he learned the Chinese characters printed on various commodities.
Moreover, this was a letter sent to the leader, and he was not qualified to read it first.
Luo Chong frowned slightly, quickly scanned the letter from the tree, and then said to Yun Zhi.
"A cavalry team from the Xin tribe came, led by a great elder. They said they wanted to trade with our Han tribe. The transaction amount is huge, and Dashu couldn't make up his mind, so they sent a letter to ask me."
"Xin tribe? Cavalry team? Is it a tribe on the grassland? Are they friends with us?" Yun Zhi asked curiously.
After all, he had just joined the Han tribe and had not heard of the previous conflicts between the Han and Xin tribes, so it was normal for him to have doubts.
"They are not friends, but they are not mortal enemies either
. They are not a tribe on the grassland, but their caravans often operate on the grassland. The population of this tribe is not smaller than that of the Han tribe. They also know how to make salt, metallurgy, farm, raise livestock, and even have cavalry. Moreover, the price of their salt on the grassland is cheaper than ours, so Youfu and them had a conflict last time.
Last summer, our cavalry killed more than a hundred men in their caravan, and the new seeds such as corn and soybeans were all snatched from them." Luo Chong briefly introduced the relationship between the two tribes and the situation of the Xin tribe to Yun Zhi.
Yun Zhi secretly grinned when he heard this. Killing more than a hundred men was not considered a mortal enemy. If it was the Ling tribe in the past, the total population was just over a thousand. If more than a hundred adult men died at a time, it would take seven or eight years to recover.
Even so, the Xin tribe still took the initiative to come to the door to trade. No wonder the leader said that the population of the Xin tribe was not less than that of the Han tribe. It was really not small. They didn't care about the death of more than a hundred people.
However, the Xin tribe seemed to be very powerful. They actually had corn that the Han tribe did not have. They also knew how to raise livestock and metallurgy, and even had their own cavalry. Although they might not be able to beat the Han tribe, this strength was really too powerful compared to other tribes.
"Chief, since they know everything, why do they want to trade with us?" Yun Zhi continued to ask in confusion.
"No, although this tribe has many people, their technology level is completely incomparable to ours. They can't smelt iron, let alone steel. Without the right metal tools, what can they do? They can't even build a car, let alone a boat.
So they wanted to buy cars from us last year, but Youfu didn't agree at that time, and they fought with them, killed people, and robbed their goods." After Luo Chong's explanation, Yun Zhi really realized the true level of the Xin tribe.
Without steel, there are no right metal tools, and they can't process wood, so they won't have anything made of wood. This is really a technology that changes an era.
"So, how does the leader plan to respond to them this time?"
(End of this chapter)
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