Flowers in full bloom

Chapter 376 Soy Sauce

Fry over medium-low heat until slightly yellow. When there is a slight crackling sound from the wheat and you can smell the wheat aroma, it is almost done. Take out and let cool, then pour into a stone mill and grind into flour.

Hualei has also prepared the koji for soy sauce in advance, add an appropriate amount of koji to the flour and mix well. Pour it into the soybeans, so that each soybean is evenly coated with flour.

Then spread it flat on a clean bamboo plate, leaving the bottom of the plate empty. Then cover the plate with a layer of wet cloth. Of course, the wet cloth cannot drip water.

Then place it in a dark place to ferment and make koji. If the wet towel dries up, you need to wet it again and cover it.

When the soybeans are fermented until they turn white and the temperature rises, they need to be turned over to cool down. It is best to keep the temperature at an appropriate level, feeling slightly warm to the touch.

When the soybeans are covered with yellow-green mycelium, the koji making is completed. At this time, the soybeans are still a little damp and need to be exposed to the sun for a day. Pay attention to insect and dust prevention, and it is best to cover them with a layer of gauze when drying.

After the moldy soybeans have been dried for a day, they are placed in a ceramic jar. A certain proportion of salt is added to the clean water, stirred, and after the salt is fully dissolved, the salt water is poured into the ceramic jar and mixed evenly with the moldy soybeans.

Then put it in the sun to dry. In order to prevent insects from getting in, it is best to cover it with a layer of gauze, and remember to waterproof it when it rains.

The next step is to expose them to the sun and dew. Use a clean wooden stick to stir the moldy soybeans every morning and evening. This will take at least three months.

It should be noted that the sauce needs to be stirred every day. There are also requirements for the timing and frequency of making the sauce, and the more times the better is not necessarily true. On the day of making the sauce, it should be stirred thoroughly to make the salt fully melt and soak all the moldy soybeans.

In the first three days of making the sauce, you need to stir the sauce once every morning and evening. In the next few days, you only need to stir the fermented bean sauce once every morning.

After the seventh day, beat the sauce once every two days; the total number of times of beating the sauce should be controlled at about fifteen to sixteen times, which is enough.

Because the temperature is low in the morning and evening, it is suitable for stirring and making soy sauce. The temperature will rise during the fermentation of soy sauce. If the temperature is too high, the soy sauce will easily become sour.

Therefore, be careful to avoid stirring the sauce when the temperature is high at noon. If you forget to stir it once, it is better to stir it less than to stir it in the middle of the day.

The purpose of beating the soy sauce is to make the enzymes in the soy sauce evenly distributed, increase the contact area between the enzymes and the raw materials, make the fermentation of the soy sauce more even, facilitate the hydrolysis reaction of the enzymes, make the temperature of the upper and lower layers of the soy sauce even, facilitate fermentation, and improve the quality of the soy sauce.

It can also eliminate the odor accumulated in the finished sauce and the odor during fermentation, and promote the formation of flavor substances in the sauce.

If you find "white spots" on the surface of the soy sauce when stirring it, you should pay attention to it. It can make the soy sauce smell bad, damage the flavor of the soy sauce, and waste the raw materials.

Therefore, in order to improve the flavor of soy sauce, you must control the appearance of white flowers and sprinkle salt on the white flowers. Sprinkle more salt in places where there are many white flowers, so that the white flowers will disappear automatically.

It is the basic requirement to make good soy sauce to beat and stir the sauce every time. During this period, pay attention to the weather conditions. When there is wind and rain, take measures to prevent rain and wind in advance to prevent unclean things from entering the sauce jar.

Every night, it is best to cover it with gauze, a single layer of gauze will do, and then cover it with a hollow bamboo plaque. Do not cover it with airtight materials to prevent the water vapor produced by the fermentation of soy sauce from condensing and dripping into the soy sauce, which will easily deteriorate.

During this period, Hualei asked his subordinates to keep an eye on the soy sauce at all times. When the sun was particularly good, they would open the jars completely to allow the soy sauce to get as much sun as possible.

If someone needs to leave for a while, just cover them with gauze and bamboo plaque to avoid accidents.

It doesn't matter if it can't be exposed to the sun for a while, it's better than having a bug get in at any time and ruining the whole jar of moldy bean paste. After a few months of exposure to the sun, the taste of this paste will be better.

When the oil finally comes out, boil the water, add a certain proportion of salt, and after it dissolves, let it cool to a slightly warm temperature, pour it into the ceramic jar of the moldy bean paste, and stir evenly.

After storing it for a day or two, filter out the residue in the soy sauce with clean gauze. Then boil the soy sauce to sterilize it, let it cool naturally, and then put it into a small ceramic jar.

After the soy sauce was made, Hua Lei kept a batch for her own farm and sent another batch to Mobei. The rest were not sold in Shangjing City, but were all taken by ships to places outside Shangjing City and sold in a low-key manner.

Because in the process of making soy sauce, she also quietly learned about some of the larger soy sauce workshops in Shangjing City, and unexpectedly discovered that Zhao Yifei's family was the owner of one of the larger workshops.

Although she helped Zhao Yifei with the irrigation of the corn field, and Zhao Yifei also gave her a gift, because of the corn planting incident, Hualei felt that the Zhao family's character and family style should not be very good, so she should still be careful.

Therefore, in order to avoid unnecessary trouble, Hua Lei made some concessions and transported the soy sauce to the provincial capital outside Shangjing City for sale.

Although he had the support of the Marquis' Mansion, he still preferred to avoid such avoidable incidents. He did not want the Marquis' Mansion to clean up his mess all the time.

Although it costs a lot of travel expenses to transport it out of Shangjing City, we can still control our own ships, and most of the time it is convenient.

Plus, if they raise the selling price a little, the balance will be restored. So Hualei keeps a low profile in the soy sauce business.

Things on the farm were proceeding quietly, and the barren hills were also busy. Now the reclamation and planting on the East Hill and the South Hill were basically done. Hualei also hired a special person to take charge of the subsequent management.

Because there are grape vines and kudzu roots on the North Mountain, as well as various Chinese tallow trees, pomegranate trees, chestnut trees, etc., Hualei thinks that the North Mountain only needs to be expanded by planting some trees similar to the original trees on the mountain, and the land reclamation is almost complete. At that time, it will only need to be watered and fertilized according to the actual situation.

During this period, Hualei dispatched a group of pioneers to continue the follow-up weeding and fertilizing of the planted medicinal herbs and crops, while others went to the West Mountain to cut weeds and dig ponds on the mountainside and in the basin.

The planting of Xishan was put on hold for the time being. On the one hand, there was a lack of manpower. On the other hand, Hualei had not yet decided what to plant on Xishan.