Chapter 19 Pottery Making
With so many dried fruits piled up at home, Jian Mo finally decided to try making wine.
Anyway, if it doesn't work, it will just waste some dried fruits, and it won't be a big loss.
There are soaked dried fruits in the river, and Jian Mo directly went to fetch a basket.
Wu Jiong helped him: "Is it the same as making noodle cake?"
Jian Mo: "No, no, no, just the crushing step is enough, the rest is different."
Jian Mo planned: "I plan not to use ash water, just crush it directly, and then steam it in a pot, and then mix it with the fruit wine residue after steaming."
Wu Jiong reminded: "Finally brewing noodle wine with fruit flavor? That may not be very delicious."
Jian Mo was more optimistic: "No, I plan to steam it this time, and the steamed taste will be ordinary white wine, and the taste of the raw materials should not be very good."
It was just a little noodle, and Wu Jiong saw that he knew what he was doing, so he didn't say anything more.
The two of them crushed the noodle and steamed it in a pot.
The steamed noodle didn't smell very good, but it was soft and fluffy, a bit like steamed beans, and it could be made into mud with a light grind.
It does seem to be saturated with starch.
Jian Mo waited for the dough to cool down a bit, then scooped it into a large clay pot that had been washed with hot water and dried, and then added the dregs left at the bottom of the fruit wine and stirred vigorously to mix well.
Yeast should have been added at this step, but he didn't have any, so he could only use the dregs of the fruit wine instead.
The fruit wine is fermented with natural yeast, and there should be yeast residues at the bottom.
However, without proper koji, the fermentation effect may not be that good, and it may take a longer time to ferment.
After stirring evenly, Jian Mo covered the mouth of the pot with the dry leaves prepared in advance, tied it up carefully with a rope, and placed the entire pot next to the fire pit.
Now that the weather has cooled down, the fire pit will provide a suitable temperature for fermentation.
Wu Jiong watched everything he did: "Is this all right?"
Jian Mo conservatively estimated: "I think it should be about right. We'll check it every two days. If it doesn't work, we'll think of a solution then."
Jian Mo was quite optimistic about this jar of noodle wine.
He opened it twice in the middle, and the noodle wine began to ferment under the action of yeast. Although most of it smelled like noodle fruit, a faint smell of wine could already be smelled.
The color of the noodle fruit was also normal, not red, blue, green, etc., indicating that there was no bacterial contamination inside.
That is, there was always water at the bottom of the wine jar.
When Jian Mo saw it for the first time, he thought that water had been accidentally spilled there while cooking, so he wiped it off with a dry leaf.
When he saw it the second time, he didn't think much about it. It was not
until the third time that he realized something was wrong. He picked up the wine jar and looked at it for a long time. There were no cracks on the jar. It looked good.
Wu Jiong saw him holding the wine jar and asked, "What's wrong?"
Jian Mo turned around and said, "Come and touch it. Is the jar leaking water? I feel something is wrong."
Wu Jiong came over and took a look: "It's okay, not much."
Jian Mo showed a puzzled look on his face.
Wu Jiong said, "It will always leak a little. This jar is not bad. Most of the jar can be left."
Jian Mo: "Isn't it good?!"
Wu Jiong touched it again and asked in confusion, "What's wrong?"
Jian Mo wondered if Wu Jiong was not interested in the kitchen and had no idea.
He also talked to Qing Kuang and the others.
Everyone behaved normally, Zhou Fu comforted Jian Mo: "Your jar is still good, but mine is terrible. It cracked while I was using it, and everything inside leaked out."
Jian Mo: "How could it crack while I was using it?"
Qing Kuo's voice was filled with laughter: "What can't break?"
Zhou Fu gave Jian Mo some advice: "If you really don't like it being wet down there, you can dig up some soil and bring it home. Put the soil under the jar, and the water won't leak out."
Jian Mo: "...The main idea is to keep it out of sight, right?"
Everyone laughed, and Zhou Fu nodded seriously: "Yes."
The fire pit is always wet, which is really annoying and unhygienic.
Jian Mo couldn't stand it anymore, and finally decided to follow the advice and go outside to dig up some soil and put it under it.
The pottery here may be leaking water because there is no glaze on the surface.
It is no problem to put ordinary things in it, but the filling will be exposed when liquid is put in it. He
really gained a new life experience.
If he were on Earth, how would he know that pottery would leak water?
There was soil behind the house, and Jian Mo directly picked up the basket to dig.
While digging, he noticed that the soil was quite fine and solid, and it was quite heavy to hold, and it looked different from ordinary soil.
He brought a basket of soil home and asked Wu Jiong: "Is this soil for making pottery?"
Wu Jiong looked carefully and nodded: "What's wrong?"
Jian Mo: "When will the tribe make pottery? I'll try to make some to see if I can make pottery that doesn't leak."
These days, it's impossible to go out and buy all kinds of daily necessities. Everyone makes their own knives, wood products, pottery, etc., all made by the tribe.
Wu Jiong: "We will make a batch during this period. Ask Qing Kuang."
If Wu Jiong is the leader of the entire tribe, then Qing Kuang is the leader of the orcs. Most of the gathering and production matters in the tribe are arranged by him.
He is fair and just, and everyone respects him.
Jian Mo asked Qing Kuang when pottery will be made.
Qing Kuang thought for a while and said, "It's getting cold, and there's nothing to collect outside. We can start making pottery in the next few days."
Jian Mo's eyes lit up: "Great, I want to do it together."
Qing Kuang: "Then I'll call you. We'll make some pottery for the tribe and some for our own home. You can make whatever you want for your own home, and we'll burn them all together when the time comes."
Jian Mo nodded repeatedly: "Then I'll try to see if I can glaze the pottery!"
Jian Mo has brought many new technologies to the tribe these days. Qing Kuang asked with great interest: "What is glazing?"
Jian Mo: "After the pottery is dry, put another layer of mud outside? And then dry it again."
He was actually not sure about the specific method of glazing. He had never made pottery on Earth, and the relevant knowledge came from various extracurricular readings and video accounts.
Qing Kuang: "Then let's try it then."
Qing Kuang said to put pottery making on the agenda, and discussed it with everyone.
They picked a day and decided to make pottery.
Jian Mo originally thought that he could just dig mud from the mountain.
When he actually did it, he found that the soil used to make pottery in the tribe was dug from the river.
The soil dug from the river is finer and lighter in color. It feels different from ordinary soil. Maybe this is the real clay.
After digging the clay back, everyone sieves it first.
There is a net woven with tree bark in the tribe, and the mesh looks about the size of a toothpick.
The clay sifted out with this net is very fine, and the texture is similar to chocolate powder.
After the clay was sifted, Qing Kuang and several other experienced beastmen instructed everyone to add water and mix the mud.
Jian Mo originally thought that pottery could be made at this step.
Unexpectedly, they still had to take the mixed clay to the big stone mortar near Hong Qiu's house, pour the mixed clay in, pound and knead it over and over again, and knead the clay into a smooth and solid big mud ball.
The whole process was very tiring. Jian Mo was just helping out, but he was already panting from exhaustion.
It was cold, and the wind made his hands cold from kneading and pounding the mud.
Because the friction of the mud was strong, his nails were worn away, and the nails and flesh were slightly separated, which hurt when touched.
The Asian beastmen were better than him, but not much better.
Jian Mo was so tired that he doubted his life and didn't want to say a word.
Seeing him like this, Qing Kuang patted him on the shoulder: "If you are tired, go and rest over there. Don't be impatient."
Jian Mo shook his head: "I can still hold on."
Qing Kuang didn't say anything else, and patted him again.
It is much faster to pound the mud with a stone pestle than to simply knead it by hand. In the afternoon, the mud balls were almost ready.
Everyone took the mud balls back to the open space of the tribe, found a sheltered place, and slowly made pottery in the sun.
The free orcs and sub-orcs came, as did the children who could transform.
Everyone puts a clay plate underneath and lets them play freely.
Jian Mo didn't know how to do this, so he followed Qing Kuo and the others, doing it slowly step by step.
Qing Kuo and others would make corrections to him from time to time to prevent the green body from being uneven and causing it to crack.
Jian Mo originally thought that making pottery would be fun, but now that he started doing it, he realized that it involved a huge amount of labor, and he had to rework it from time to time.
Even a patient person like him is annoyed to death. I don’t know how an impatient person can persevere.
Fortunately, after the shape of the device is ready, you can draw some nice patterns on it, and finally you have something to play with.
After the pottery is finished, it needs to be dried in the shade.
It's cold and dry now, and the wind is still strong, so it won't take long to dry in the shade.
Jian Mo thought about it and decided to prepare the glaze first.
He didn't know how to make this glaze. He only remembered that it was made with mineral powder.
If he had traveled back in time when he was in high school, he might have been able to bring the entire orc world into the industrial age.
But now he has graduated from college, and it's good enough if he doesn't starve to death.
There seemed to be no minerals near the Riverside Tribe. Jian Mo thought about it but couldn't think of anything that could be used to make the glaze.
In the end, he and Wu Jiong rode on a flying beast to the Mengshui Tribe and exchanged some ochre-red clay for painting the walls.
It should contain iron, which can be used to make glaze.
His almost forgotten knowledge of chemistry could only help him this much.
After getting the pigment powder back, he finely ground it several times, sifted it, and made sure there were no particles inside before mixing it into a slurry. Then he took five pottery blanks that were almost dried, applied a layer of glaze on them, and sent them to dry again.
He only used the pottery blanks he made for the experiment, and no one had any objections.
Zhou Fu and a few others found it interesting, and also sent a few pottery blanks over, saying they wanted to try it together.
Jian Mo then applied a layer of glaze to their pottery blanks as well.
When the glaze layer dried again, everyone started firing the pottery.
There was no pottery kiln in the tribe, so on the day of the official firing, everyone first dug up wet mud, made a platform on the flat ground, then piled a lot of firewood on the platform, and then placed the dried pottery blanks on the firewood.
After placing the pottery blanks, they also placed a large circle of firewood around the earthen platform to make a frame, and then carefully pasted a layer of wet mud around the frame.
In the end, a hemispherical giant was made, with a hole on the top and three holes on the bottom.
Jian Mo guessed that these holes were to facilitate the entry of air and make the firewood inside burn more fiercely.
At the same time, this hemispherical kiln body is also convenient for concentrating heat energy firmly inside to avoid waste.
I don’t know how the people in the tribe figured out this method, but this simple kiln looks unexpectedly scientific.
The beastman culture is indeed well developed.
The kiln is piled up, and the next step is to start firing.
This is also a hard job.
Jian Mo and everyone else started to burn the kiln while guarding it. If they observed from the four openings outside that the fire inside was not big enough, they had to fan the air in to make the fire burn more vigorously.
At the same time, the people guarding the kiln had to pay attention to the firewood in the kiln at all times. Once the firewood was burned out, they had to add new dry firewood in time.
There were also some rules to pay attention to when putting the firewood, so as not to hit the pottery inside, and at the same time, they had to add it as evenly as possible to avoid a big fire on one side and a small fire on the other.
In such cold weather, Jian Mo was standing by and sweating from the heat.
After guarding for a whole day until dark, the stove slowly went out, and Jian Mo went home.
Wu Jiong asked him to rest: "I'll make dinner."
Jian Mo gulped down a large can of cold boiled water and half-lying on a chair: "You do it, I really don't want to move today."
Wu Jiong started to cook: "How is it?"
Jian Mo: "Qingkuo said it was quite successful, but I don't know the details. We have to wait until the kiln is opened tomorrow to see." Jian Mo
had always remembered about the pottery. The next morning, he did not stay in bed. He jumped out of bed, told Wu Jiong that he was going to find Qingkuo, and ran away.
When Qingkuo was found by him, he yawned and said, "Pottery won't grow legs and run away. Why are you in such a hurry?"
Jian Mo pushed Qingkuo: "I want to see the results of my work!"
Qingkuo smiled and said, "Then you go find Ye Luo and the others, and let everyone gather in front of the pottery kiln, and we will open the kiln."
Jian Mo had no objection: "I'll go now!"
Jian Mo quickly found everyone.
Everyone didn't waste any time, and when they got to the kiln, they first removed the mud that had been put together yesterday, and then slowly opened the kiln.
The situation inside the kiln was completely different from what Jian Mo had imagined.
When the kiln was opened, he first saw a pile of fragments.
Most of the fired pottery was a slightly whiter earthy color, not the yellowish-brown pottery at all.
Jian Mo was extremely disappointed: "Ah, why is it
like this?" Qingkuan: "What do you mean?"
Jian Mo picked up a piece of pottery: "Why is it this color? The pottery we usually use is not this color."
Qingkuan took a look: "It was this color when it was just fired, and it turned black as it was used."
Jian Mo put the pottery in his hand aside, and went to look for the pottery he had glazed.
Among his pottery, there were five glazed pieces, and seven pieces that he had glazed for others, a total of twelve pieces.
After shoveling around for a while, Jian Mo pulled out two intact pottery pieces from the debris on the ground.
One of the two pieces had a long crack across it, and the other one had no cracks, but it was patchy and the glaze was patchy, and the glaze shell had not been completely fired out.
Jian Mo sighed, and the fatigue of the past two days came up all at once. He sat on the ground and didn't want to move: "It's completely different from what I thought, the success rate is too low."
Qing Kuan took a look and said: "Normal."
Jian Mo: "How can it be normal when so many pieces are broken?"
His heart was about to break.
Qing Kuan actually smiled: "If there weren't so many broken pieces, why would we have to fire it every quarter?"
Jian Mo looked at the remaining pottery in the kiln and didn't want to talk.
Qing Kuang ignored him and directed the others to clean out the pottery from the kiln.
The intact pottery was put away for daily use.
Those pottery that were not so badly broken were not thrown away, but collected as much as possible.
Jian Mo watched a not-so-familiar beastman slightly polish a chipped pottery jar, saying that he wanted to make a vase, and then he pulled a bunch of grass from the side and inserted it into it.
The grass trembling in the wind bloomed a green above the mouth of the vase, which was very beautiful.
In such a harsh environment, people still maintain their pursuit of beauty.
Jian Mo watched, feeling shocked.
Everyone quickly took out all the pottery.
In addition to the pottery he made for the tribe, Jian Mo only had four pieces of pottery he could use, including a teapot, a pottery jar, a plate and a bowl.
The glazed one was the pottery jar.
He was quite frustrated by the low success rate, but everyone thought it was good, which showed that the success rate of pottery firing might be lower.
Zhou Fu held the mottled pottery jar and said with a smile: "The glazed pottery jar is really beautiful, as if there are flowers floating on it. Next time I will burn more glazed pottery."
Qing Kuang also said: "Next time, you can try to draw some patterns with glaze."
Jian Mo said weakly: "The temperature of the kiln we are using now is too low, and it may be useless to apply glaze."
Qing Kuang: "This is still low? Then how can we increase the temperature?"
Jian Mo was really confused for a while: "Maybe we need to use charcoal to burn it, and add a bellows?"
This is also high school knowledge, and he has almost forgotten it.
Qing Kuang has never heard of it, but most of the techniques Jian Mo brought are good, so he nodded: "Let's try it next time."
Everyone divided the pottery and went home to cook.
They had to seize the last time to go out and collect.
According to Qingkuang and his team's experience, winter will come in a few days, no later than ten days.
Jian Mo didn't know how they judged it, but autumn has lasted for a long time.
He estimated that the seasons here last longer than those on Earth. For example, it was autumn when he came, and according to his marks, he has been here for ninety-three days and it is still autumn.
It can be seen that autumn is definitely more than one hundred and twenty days.
On this day, Jian Mo followed the main force to go out to collect as usual.
In the afternoon, they were collecting, the sky was overcast, and the wind slowly blew.
The feeling of this strong wind is different from other winds.
Jian Mo raised his head, and Qing Kuang also raised his head beside him, squinting his eyes and looking into the distance: "Winter is coming."
Jian Mo: "Now?"
Qing Kuang sniffed the air and nodded: "It should snow tonight."
Then, Qing Kuang stood up and shouted to everyone: "Everyone hurry up, we have to go back early today to clean up-"
They quickly returned to the tribe, and other gathering or hunting teams basically returned.
Everyone was cleaning up the things piled outside, preparing for the winter that was coming soon.
Jian Mo followed and got busy, padding the flying beast with thick dry grass, and also sealed most of the windows of the shed where the ox-beast was with bark to prevent the cold wind from blowing in.
The mother ox-beast's belly was extremely big and hard, and it should be giving birth soon.
In the evening, Wu Jiong brought out new animal skin mattresses and quilts for Jian Mo, and gave him some animal skin coats.
When Jian Mo finished washing and lay down in the quilt, he still felt a little cold.
The wind blew over, blowing directly through the gaps between the stones and the windows, swirling inside the house.
It was the first time he knew that the stone house was actually drafty, and his feet were in the quilt and took a long time to warm up.
Jian Mo tossed and turned in the quilt.
Wu Jiong, who was sleeping in another corner on the second floor, asked, "Can't sleep? Are you cold?"
Jian Mo was embarrassed to say it was cold: "It's okay, I'm a little uncomfortable with the change of seasons, and it may take a while before I can fall asleep."
Wu Jiong: "Do you want me to change back into beast form? You will be warmer if you sleep on me."
Jian Mo quickly refused: "No, no, no, not for the time being."
Wu Jiong: "Just tell me if you want."
Silence spread in the darkness.
Jian Mo tried to find a topic to chat: "Your beast form is so big, do you still lie on the second floor after you change back?"
Wu Jiong: "Yes, the house is very sturdy. I have slept in beast form for several winters."
Jian Mo felt a little magical: "Because the beast form is warm?"
Wu Jiong: "Almost."
The two chatted, and Jian Mo slowly fell asleep, not knowing when he fell asleep completely.
The next day, he was pushed awake by Wu Jiong in the warm quilt.
Jian Mo stared blankly at Wu Jiong who was talking above his head, and couldn't come back to his senses for a while.
Until Wu Jiong said the key words: "... the oxbeast is about to give birth."
Jian Mo was startled and sat up suddenly: "Now?"
Wu Jiong: "The water has broken for a while."
Jian Mo opened the animal skin blanket: "I'll go and take a look!"
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