See you in the world

Chapter 19 Is there someone at home?

The family's wheat is stored in the granary, which is called a granary, but in fact it is just a big frame made of bamboo by Yunlin. The bamboo basket is tightly packed, so the wheat inside will not leak out.

Looking at the big bamboo basket containing wheat, Yun Jing was in trouble.

The thing is two feet high from the ground, and it is placed on a base made of several slippery bamboos. The reason for this is to prevent the grain from getting wet, and the slippery bamboos can also prevent mice from climbing up to cause harm. Disaster food.

The bamboo basket containing the wheat is nearly 1.5 meters high, and with the two-foot-high base underneath, Yunjing, who is in his early [-]s, is only a chubby pier less than one meter old, which he cannot reach...

How can this be done?

Yunjing couldn't help scratching his head.

After walking half a circle around the bamboo basket, his eyes lit up, and he found that there was a small gate at the bottom of the bamboo basket. He only needed to open a wooden board, and the wheat inside could flow out along the bamboo tube.

The small gate was only a little more than one meter above the ground, and he only needed to move a chair and stand on it.

So he dragged a chair with great difficulty, found a small sieve with a diameter of one and a half feet at home, and then stood on the stool and opened the valve to pick up the wheat.

After taking about half a catty, he closed the valve. There is no need for more, after all, the first time making maltose is more experimental.

"The key to maltose is malt. Germinating wheat is a delicate task. The container containing wheat must be permeable, otherwise the wheat will easily soak in water, but wheat needs water to germinate, so the container must have a certain degree of water retention. , this bamboo sieve only satisfies the water permeability. If you want to lock the water, you have to put a piece of cloth inside, preferably gauze, but the cloth at home is so poor that palm-sized cloth is extremely precious. Where can I get gauze? Forget it, it’s great, I water it a few times a day, anyway, I’m still young and don’t have to work, I have plenty of time…”

Recalling the production process of maltose, because the conditions are really limited, Yunjing can only keep it simple.

Getting good wheat to germinate, this kind of thing should not be known by the family, otherwise the buttocks will definitely be opened, so Yunjing took the sieve with wheat out of the house, came to the shed where the firewood was piled up, and decided to cultivate it here. malt.

Family members usually fetch firewood at the front door, and this place is less likely to be discovered.

However, just to be on the safe side, he decided to use a branch to cover it, which also allows the wheat to be in a cool and shaded place, which meets the growth conditions and kills two birds with one stone.

Put two wooden sticks under the sieve to prevent the sieve from directly touching the ground and affect the growth of malt. Then Yunjing spread out the wheat in it, went to the water tank to get water to pour the wheat thoroughly, and then covered the sieve with branches, and that was all. The work is done, and the follow-up only needs to be watered every day to ensure the moisture of the wheat germination, and wait for the malt to grow.

The process is not complicated, but the cloudscape is too small, and it takes a lot of effort to do it. For example, to scoop water from the water tank, he has to put a stool under his feet.

Once again, Yunjing desperately hopes that he will grow up quickly, even though he knows that when he grows up, he will not be as carefree as he is now...

That day, Yunjing's family came back from work, and at night, Grandpa Yunlin asked him if anyone had been to the house, and said that a sieve he had made was missing.

Of course Yunjing would not say that the sieve was taken away by him, but he just shook his head and said he didn't know, then Yunlin frowned and muttered, did he remember it wrong?Hey, getting old has a bad memory...

For his grandfather's reaction, Yun Jing was filled with admiration. At home, he had weaved so many bamboo products, and there were a lot of sieves in his back basket, dustpan pocket, etc., but he could tell at a glance when he lost an inconspicuous sieve.

Regarding this, he can only say that his family is poor, and everything seems to be very precious, even though it is just a small sieve, it can be sold for a few copper coins in the town.

Days passed, and the family was busy farming and did not notice Yunjing's little tricks. Because of the season, under Yunjing's careful care, it took half a month for the wheat to germinate and grow to his satisfaction.

The next step is the key step of making maltose, which can be regarded as a major challenge for the little Yunjing.

There is glutinous rice at home, so it’s not difficult to steal some. The hard part is lighting a fire to cook glutinous rice. He’s not as tall as the stove. It's possible...

"So I can't do it at home. Fire prevention is urgent. I can only go outside the house. The problem is that if I go outside the house, there will be no pot..."

The tangled Yunjing finally set his sights on the pickle jar at home. Without a pot, he replaced it with a pickle jar. This thing is fired at high temperature and is more than enough to cook glutinous rice. It can even be used in the subsequent fermentation process. Carry out in a pickle jar.

After making up his mind, at noon one day, Yunjing took advantage of his family members to go to work in the field and began to operate formally.

In the yard, a simple hearth was built with stones, an empty pickle jar was cleaned, and about two catties of glutinous rice were brought in, and the rice was washed and watered and placed on the hearth.

With this simple process, he was almost exhausted. The jar of pickled vegetables weighed a few catties, and with glutinous rice and water, it weighed about ten catties. Such a weight was too difficult for his small body. The pickle jar is broken.

However, it was hard to complete these steps, and the greater difficulty almost didn't make him give up making maltose.

The so-called difficulty is actually not difficult for ordinary people at all, but it is extremely difficult for Yunjing.

make a fire.

It was such a simple thing that Yunjing almost gave up.

There is no lighter, and there is no fire at home, only the fire scythe, which is a primitive tool for making fire. Yun Jing beat it for a long time with the scythe, and almost broke his arm but failed to raise the fire. At most, there were only sporadic sparks...

"It's too difficult, isn't it?"

In the yard, Yun Jing, who was already ready for everything, looked at the pickle jar on the simple stove and choked speechlessly.

However, at this time, it is impossible to give up. The fire sickle can't make a fire, but it doesn't mean that Yunjing can't help it.

He found a small piece of bamboo, and went to the corner of the wall to scrape a white powder. It was Glauber's salt. The common sense he had learned in elementary school in his previous life was that there were many such things at the bottom of walls in rural areas, especially where livestock were kept.

After a while, Yunjing scraped off half a bowl of Glauber's salt.

Put the scraped Glauber's salt in a simple stove, and then go to the house to find charcoal and make it into powder and mix it with Glauber's salt.

"Tsk, this thing can be called the most primitive gunpowder, the best combustion accelerant. It's not easy to use it to start a fire, and it's too difficult for me. In order to make maltose, I have to climb the technology tree..."

Shaking his head, Yunjing, who was pressed for time, added twigs to the mixture of Glauber's salt and charcoal, and then began to strike the fire scythe. As sparks fell, the mixture burned, and the flames burst into flames, igniting the twigs.

The fire finally started, and then firewood was added to increase the firepower to cook glutinous rice.

Half an hour later, the glutinous rice is cooked, Yunjing puts out the fire, stirs the glutinous rice with a spatula, and stops when it is almost mushy. At this time, the glutinous rice has cooled to about [-] to [-] degrees, and then add the chopped malt and stir again. Let it mix together well.

Looking at the mixture of most of the jars of glutinous rice and malt, this is the hope of maltose. After it is fermented and degraded into sugar juice, the sugar juice is filtered and boiled to obtain maltose.

The fermentation process requires a certain temperature to help the microorganisms to grow. The conditions are limited, and Yunjing can’t move it to the bed, so it can only be replaced by a grass nest. Fortunately, there is straw in the house. In the past, after the rice harvest, the family would bring some back to make a fire. At this moment, Yunjing just needed it.

It was still behind the firewood shed, Yunjing built a nest with straw, moved the jar containing the mixture of glutinous rice and malt laboriously, and found a wooden board from home to seal the mouth of the jar, and then just waited .

"The sealing performance is not good, the fermentation process is bound to be affected, and it is likely to affect the taste of the final maltose, but the conditions are limited, and this is the only way to go."

No way, the existing conditions are too restrictive for Yunjing.

After hiding the jar, Yunjing began to destroy the corpses and wipe out the traces. The stove in the yard where the fire was made was demolished, and the traces could not be completely erased. He simply went to the vegetable garden to get soil to cover it. If you don’t observe carefully, you won’t notice what happened here. what.

That night, Jiang Susu repeatedly asked Yunjing if someone had come to his house, because a vegetable jar was lost at home, and there was less rice in the rice jar!

Facing his mother's questioning, Yunjing felt a headache...

(End of this chapter)