Super Chief

Chapter 123: Music making

The production process of    Sake Koji is far more complicated than making wine.

  Ishikuma intends to make whole-wheat Daqu, because the amount of wheat in the tribe is not bad, and after Daqu is made, it can be made into ordinary low-alcohol liquor or high-quality liquor through distillation.

   When Shixiong made koji with his elders in his previous life at home, he made all-wheat Daqu at home. The koji made is like large bricks, so this kind of Daqu is also called "kuaiqu".

  When making wine, you only need to break a piece of koji, then crush it into a powder, and then sprinkle it into the brewing ingredients at a ratio of 1:0.007 and stir evenly. The remaining work is to let the brewing ingredients ferment by themselves.

   Although there is still a lot of wheat left in the tribe, Shi Xiong is not willing to use all of it to make koji.

   He just chose twelve bags of wheat which weighs about 300 jin and is of relatively good quality.

  Before making koji, Shixiong and Kuaoma thoroughly cleaned the stone house used to make refractory bricks, and then prepared several charcoal basins in it, and then hung the thermometer on the wall. This temporarily useless stone house became a room for mixing, stepping and compiling.

   Then Shi Xiong started to make koji.

The selected three hundred kilograms of wheat were put into a large wooden bucket, first added thirty kilograms of water and mixed well, and then placed three of them in a stone house where the temperature was raised to about 20 degrees by igniting a charcoal basin. hour. This process is called moistening.

  The water-soaked wheat starts to be ground, and the soaked wheat is ground into couscous flour with a stone mill, and then sent to the stone house and stirred with water in a certain proportion again.

   This time adding water and stirring is a very critical step. The amount of water must be appropriate, too much or too little will not work.

   If the amount of water is too much, it is not easy to form the slab when stepping on the skewer, and it will be easily deformed when it enters the skewed room to cultivate the skewer. Moreover, the curved billet is easily pressed too tightly, which is not conducive to the growth of beneficial microorganisms inside the curved billet, and it will cause harmful bacteria such as Mucor and Aspergillus niger to grow on the surface of the curved billet.

In addition, if you add more water, the koji will heat up too quickly and it will be difficult to cool down. The time for the koji in the high temperature stage will be prolonged, which will easily cause the proliferation of rancid bacteria, resulting in increased loss of raw materials, and ultimately the quality of the finished koji. reduce.

   Similarly, if the amount of water added is too small, the curd is not easy to adhere, resulting in excessive scattering, thereby increasing the number of broken curds. At the same time, when the koji is cultivated, it will cause the koji to lose water too quickly, which will result in the insufficient reproduction of beneficial microorganisms, which will also affect the quality of the finished koji.

   In short, the water content of the koji blank will directly affect the quality of the finished koji, so this time adding water and stirring is very critical.

When    Shixiong's family made wine koji, they had already figured out a ratio for adding water. When making this kind of whole-wheat Daqu, the ratio of adding water and stirring is generally about 38% of the weight of the semolina, and the maximum should not exceed 40%.

   And because it’s winter koji making, the water that was stirred with water this time was heated in advance. The water temperature during stirring is around 33 degrees.

   With a simple thermometer, the water temperature can be well controlled.

   It is said that about 6% of qu mother should be added when stirring, but Shixiong does not have a year-old white qu mother, so it cannot be added.

   But it doesn’t matter. When the koji is fermented, one day or so more can also achieve the goal.

   This time the mixing is different from the moistening material. In addition to the ratio of adding water, it is necessary to mix well.

   Because if the mixing is not uniform, it will directly affect the uniformity of moisture and nutrients and air permeability, resulting in insufficient fermentation of the dough.

   Ishikuma is very experienced. When he was making koji with the elders in the family, he did the hard work of mixing ingredients. Who made him a young man?

   Ishikuma vigorously stirred these koji materials in the koji room with the charcoal pot lit. In the end, the koji materials were stirred into no lumps, and they were kneaded into **** without sticking to the hands.

   After the mixing is complete, these ingredients are quickly poured into wooden boxes one by one. These wooden boxes are the molds specially made by Shixiong let Old Wood create.

The size of the    curve mold is roughly 27 cm * 17 cm * 5 cm, and the weight of the piece that is stepped on with such a curve mold is about five kilograms.

After pouring the    song material into the wooden box, the fast horse, hard bones and Momograss, who had washed their feet a long time ago, began to play.

   They need to step on the music in the mold with their bare feet. First step on the center of the mold with your feet, and then step on both sides along the four sides. The curved material must be stepped tightly and smoothly. The requirement is that the middle is slightly loose and the four sides are tight.

   After stepping on one side, turn it over and step on the other side.

  This process is to step on the song!

   The requirements for stepping on the song are also very high. The person who steps on the song should not be too heavy, otherwise the song will be stepped too tightly. Similarly, the weight should not be too light, otherwise the curve will not be strong enough.

   No matter it is too tight or too loose, the koji will be fermented directly, which will affect the quality of the final koji.

   The stone bear in the previous life was also the main force of stepping songs. His weight at that time was exactly about one hundred and two. It was not heavy or light, and it was best for stepping songs.

   Now he can't step on the song, he's just stupid with the physique of his head. If he goes up to step on it, I am afraid that he will have to step on the song to fall apart...

Fast horses and hard bones are good, and the tall and sturdy woman Momocao weighs about the same, so after the three of them have stepped on the stone bear's inspection, they are immediately piled aside ~lightnovelpub.net~ The process to be carried out after the completion is the composing.

  Piling song is to put the stepped song blanks into the song room and pile them up in an orderly manner. However, Shixiong and the others both stir the koji material and step on the koji in this stone house, which serves as the koji room, so they only need to put the stepped koji in the stone house.

   It is not just a house that can be used as a music room. The koji room must first have good heat preservation and strong moisturizing ability, so that the temperature and humidity in the room can always be kept in a balanced state when the koji is fermented. Secondly, the koji room also needs to be able to drain gout and moisture, so as to better control the temperature and humidity in the koji room during the fermentation process.

   At this time, a layer of dry thatch nearly twenty centimeters thick has been thrown on the ground where the music room is preparing to pile the music, which is used for heat preservation and ventilation. The stepped curved billets were placed on the thatch under the command of the stone bear, and the distance between each other was only about **** wide, and the middle distance was also separated by thatch.

   This is to promote the growth of mildew.

   When one layer is filled, a layer of about seven or eight centimeters of dry thatch is laid on the curved blocks. The second layer of curved billets are also staggered in the same manner as the first layer of curved billets. Arrange up to the fourth floor, and then change rows to continue the arrangement.

   This is pile music.

   Three hundred catties of wheat can’t produce many slabs. Shixiong took the rabbit mouth and Ferguson in the slab for a short time, and more than sixty slabs were piled up.

   Finally, a thick layer of dry thatch is covered on and around it, which has the effect of keeping warm and moisturizing. At the same time, it also prevents the condensed water droplets produced during the fermentation process from falling on the koji and causing rancidity.

   So far, the preparatory work of the entire music production is completely completed. Next, wait for the koji to ferment, and then turn the koji twice in the middle while controlling the temperature and humidity.