Autumn is the season of harvest, and the autumn harvest in Southeast Prefecture is particularly sweet!

On the Tainan Plain, it is like being in a sea of ​​sugar cane fields. The green sugar cane fields are connected one after another, and the dense sugar cane leaves dance in the wind.

During the harvest season, the sugarcane fields are busy. Sugarcane farmers are busy harvesting with sickles, and bundles of sugarcane with the heads and tails chopped off are piled up in the fields.

Yan Changwu took it upon himself to cut the first sickle. He washed the cut sugar cane and took a bite. It was so sweet!

Chen Zhongji, who was well prepared, opened a sugar factory to turn sugar cane into sugar!

At this time, on the Tainan Plain, towering chimneys began to spit out thick black smoke, the sugar presses kept turning day and night, and the air was filled with the sweet aroma of sucrose.

The process of using sugar cane as raw material to make white sugar, jaggery and other products through juice extraction, clarification, evaporation, crystallization, honey separation and drying. Southeast Prefecture makes three sugars!

Which three sugars?

Brown sugar, white sugar and rock sugar!

Chinese people have been making sugar for a long time. In 1130, Wang Zhuo of the Northern Song Dynasty wrote China's first sugar monograph - "Sugar Frost Book". The book is divided into 7 chapters with rich content, respectively describing the history of China's sugar production, sugar cane Planting methods, sugar production equipment (including pressing and refining equipment), technological processes, icing sugar properties and flavors, uses, sugar industry economy, etc.

Selection and production of local sugar

1. Material selection: Select ripe cane during the sugar cane maturity season. After selecting the material, sugarcane leaves, tail ends and impurities need to be removed.

2. Juicing: Use two large stones to make a sugarcane press. There are 18 grooves cut on the top of the big stones, and wooden wedges are inserted into them, which are equivalent to gears. There are wooden stakes fixed on them, which are equivalent to the axis and the top of the wooden stakes. It is connected across a large beam (commonly known as the "Pengma"). The "Pengma" is pulled by animal power (usually an ox), driving two large stones to roll against each other. The sugarcane is crushed into juice, and the sugarcane juice is crushed along the bottom of the large stone. Stone trough, filtered and then flowed into the juice storage tank.

3. Filtration: The sugar maker uses a wooden ladle to scoop the sugarcane juice in the juice storage tank into a wooden bucket, and then pours it into a large water tank equipped with a fine filter for filtration. Finally, the filtered sugarcane juice is filtered through a bamboo conduit. Introducing the sugar pot.

4. Boil: Heat and boil the filtered sugarcane juice to 280℃-300℃, and stir continuously to remove foam and impurities and allow the water to continuously evaporate. Wood or sugarcane bagasse is generally used as the heating material.

5. Coagulation: Mix a small amount of sugar cane juice and sea lime (for coagulation and neutralization) and stir well. After the sugar cane juice in the sugar pot boils for 2-4 hours, pour the precipitated sea lime water into the sugar pot. , and keep stirring until the syrup gradually forms.

6. Sugaring: from the initial sugar cane juice → sugar water → syrup (the whole process takes 6-10 hours). The whole process should pay attention to time, heat, color, viscosity, etc.

7. Sugaring: After the lump of sugar has melted (slightly earlier than the candy bar), put the syrup into an iron pot and stir continuously with a prepared wooden stick. The intensity must be balanced and the speed should be moderate. About 20 minutes Finally, boil until the juice turns into golden syrup. The bubbling syrup is poured onto the platform covered with bamboo mats. While the syrup is cooling, people use tools to spread the sugar juice evenly. After a while, the syrup becomes Brown sugar with yellowish-white color.

Sugar-making masters are specially invited from all over Fujian to do their hands-on work. During the production process, the heat is very important. For example, the heat when making the sugar is very light. If the sugar is made early, the heat will be light and the sugar will be difficult to solidify. If it is too late, the heat will be heavy and the sugar will Bitter taste, only the right heat can ensure the beautiful appearance and sweet taste of the sugar.

In addition to the heat, you also need to be patient. In the fire pit, the cane sugar water has to roll and boil continuously for four or five hours, allowing most of the water to evaporate, and then the cane sugar aroma will be strongest. The masters said: "In the process of boiling

During the process, impurities must be constantly cleaned and stirred, so the most important thing in making sugar is carefulness. Even sugar cane water must be filtered many times before it can be put into the pot for cooking."

The original brown sugar is freshly made, with absolutely no coloring or flavoring added at that time. It is sweet in the mouth and has an endless aftertaste.

This lump of brown sugar is the crystallization of people's hard work, and it is a good time for the fragrance of brown sugar. Brown sugar made using ancient methods retains more nutrients from sugar cane and can quickly replenish physical strength. It contains carbohydrates that can provide heat energy for the human body.

Riboflavin, carotene, niacin and trace elements manganese, zinc, chromium and other elements are indispensable for growth and development.

Rich in nutrients and fragrant in taste, Yan Changwu was delighted after tasting it!

…

Chinese people like to eat brown sugar, but if they want to sell it to Hongmao fans, they need white sugar.

White sugar is obtained by decolorizing red sugar. How to decolorize becomes the key to technology.

In the middle of the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, there was a sugar-making family named Huang in Nan'an. His house collapsed due to the continuous spring rain. Most of the houses at that time were made of rammed earth, and the collapsed yellow mud walls suppressed his red sugar.

Unexpectedly, after the long rainy season ended, the family removed the soil and found that all the brown sugar in their home had turned white!

The accident instantly turned into a comedy, and the secret of white sugar was revealed. Therefore, according to the Nan'an people's "yellow mud decolorization method", Fujian's white sugar could finally be produced quantitatively.

However, the white sugar at that time was only lighter and brighter in color at best, and it was impossible to make it pure white.

At this time, the power of the time traveler was revealed. The yellow mud decolorization method was not used. The workers took out bags of black charcoal and put it into the brown syrup. It was like magic. They stirred it and filtered it.

The colorless and clear solution is the clear juice, and crystallization is required at this time.

The clear juice is evaporated and concentrated to become coarse syrup. It must be further concentrated to precipitate crystals. The mixture of boiled crystals and molasses is called massecuite. After the massecuite is unloaded, it is then cooled down to allow the sucrose to precipitate more completely.

And the original crystallization continues to grow. This process is assisted crystallization. The massecuite after assisted crystallization is separated from the sucrose gel and molasses through a high-speed rotary centrifuge. The separated white sugar is then dried and screened to obtain

The product of a certain specification is the finished white sugar.

The sugar-making masters invited from Fujian were stunned!

Chen Zhongji smiled and said: "Do you understand why we gave you such a high price and asked you to move your family to Southeast Prefecture?"

"If our sugar-making technology is spread, find out who told it, and you will be beheaded for rebellion and your family will be enslaved!" Chen Zhongji said sternly.

All the masters were very disappointed, and it was a pity that this method could not make them rich.

The charcoal is not ordinary charcoal, it is activated carbon!

If you have a microscope and observe activated carbon, it will look like a black "honeycomb", full of holes, with a large surface area. Substances with a large surface area have a characteristic that they will absorb other things.

The surface area of ​​activated carbon is very large, and its ability to "grab" molecules is particularly strong. In brown sugar water, because those pigment substances are always large and heavy, when "passing" the surface of activated carbon, it is like an elephant getting stuck in a quagmire.

When it goes down, it is most likely to be "caught" by bone charcoal. Since the activated carbon has adsorbed the pigment, once filtered and the activated carbon is removed, the filtrate will lose color and the brown sugar will become white sugar.

Due to the larger solid particles of activated carbon, it is naturally filtered better than yellow mud, and the white sugar produced looks great!

Southeast Prefecture uses widely grown coconut shells to make activated carbon. The method comes from Yan Changwu. When he was a geography editor, he once did a program on ancient sugar production (from various places), including China, Cuba, Jamaica, and Qingming.

The whole process of sugar!

The centrifuge is driven by water power, and the activated carbon soil method is physically activated. It does not require chemical activation and can be produced under the prevailing environment.

Keep up the good work and produce rock sugar:

White sugar is a beautiful white crystal, but it still contains some water and the crystals are relatively small. Rock sugar is "a step above". If you remove the water from the white sugar, you can get large colorless crystals -

—Rock sugar. Our country has been producing rock sugar for a long time.

There are many ways to make rock sugar, such as:

Traditional cooking process:

First dissolve the sugar (the ratio of white sugar to water is 10:2.5) and boil it, purify it with egg white water (about 5kg of water for 1 egg), and then filter it;

Boil the sugar again: After the syrup is purified and filtered, return it to the pot and boil it to about 105 degrees. Drop the syrup into a bowl of cold water and knead it with your hands until it forms a soft dough, then take it out of the pot;

Then make ice: Use a metal bucket or a metal box with a large mouth and a small bottom as a container. Put 2 bamboo (wooden bars) on the top of the container, and tie four hemp ropes symmetrically on the bamboo wooden bars, vertically in the container.

, in order to make the hemp rope vertical, you can tie a pendant to the lower end of the hemp rope. After the container is ready, pour the syrup into the container. Pile the chaff shells around the container, cover it with paper or cloth, and cover it with the bran shells. It is better in winter.

More, preferably less in summer, to meet the needs of raw ice temperature;.

The last step is to make the ice: the syrup is kept in the container for 7 days (without shaking, it will crystallize into rock sugar). When making the ice, first remove the covering and chaff on the container, scoop out the bottom ice near the crystals, and turn the container upside down.

On a jar with a wooden stand, after dripping away the remaining water, tap the surrounding and bottom of the container with a wooden stick, and the rock sugar will come out.

There is also the hanging thread process, which dissolves pure sugar into a saturated and thick sugar liquid, then pours it into a barrel or barrel-shaped container, and hangs cotton thread in the barrel (different cotton threads are arranged according to the size of the bucket. After about a week, the sugar liquid is placed on the line.

A lot of rock sugar (commonly known as pillar ice) will grow (crystallize), and some crystallized rock sugar will also form on the edge of the barrel. After the sugar is washed and dried, the finished product is obtained.

Rock sugar comes from white sugar, and the white sugar produced in Southeast Prefecture is good. The quality of rock sugar has also improved, and it is quite good.

…

In the warehouse, Yan Changwu and Chen Zhongji inspected and saw barrels of white sugar piled on top of the warehouse. They walked all the way over and back to the warehouse door. Chen Zhongji asked a little worriedly: "Can those red-haired sugar bees eat so much sucrose?

"
Chapter completed!