Although Liu Haonian didn't fully understand, he still nodded in agreement. At this moment, Liu Haonian walked over quickly and said: "Brother, Brother Jinbao, Brother Yinbao, come here!"
When the three of them came closer, Liu Haojia took out three bags of loose silver that he had prepared and handed them to them and said: "Take these silvers, and then go to the market to buy brown sugar. Don't buy too much at one time, just buy one."
About three or four kilograms is enough. And the three of you have to buy it separately. Don’t be too troublesome after buying it. Just go home and put it down before buying a second time. Don’t carry the brown sugar you bought to the next store!”
This brown sugar was what brown sugar was called at that time. Although the Liu family was in decline, they were still from a noble family. They could afford this brown sugar, so they knew about it. But Father Liu frowned when he heard the name of brown sugar, but he still
He waved his hands and said, "You three brothers just do as you are told!"
The three brothers took the money and set off without knowing why. Liu Haojia then changed into work clothes, pushed the wheelbarrow, picked up his tools and bags, and left home without knowing what to do.
By the time it was evening, Liu Haonian and his three friends had gone out and returned home many times and had spent all their money. There were also dozens of bags of lotus leaf bags wrapped with brown sugar piled up at home, weighing almost two hundred kilograms. On the third day of Liu Haonian's life,
During his personal break, Liu Haojia also came back with a wheelbarrow. There were two big bags full of them tied to the wheelbarrow. I just don’t know what was in them?
After helping him unload the car, Liu Haonian opened his pocket and said in surprise: "Isn't this loess? What's the use of this stuff? We don't build walls at home!"
Liu Haojia waved his hand and said: "Don't worry about this, I have my own use!"
After finishing speaking, Liu Haojia directed the three Liu Haonian brothers to move around! He asked Jinbao to build a stove in the yard, and asked Yinbao to soak the loess in water to make yellow mud soup. He and Liu Haonian drank all the brown sugar.
Open the bag, add water to a large pot and stir to dissolve.
The stove was completed, and the large iron pot filled with brown sugar was placed on the stove and started to simmer over low heat. At this time, Father Liu stepped forward and said with a frown: "Xiao Er, are you planning to turn these brown sugar into white sugar?
"
Liu Haojia was stunned for a moment after hearing this, and then he was shocked! Could it be that sugar was already available at this time? His original intention was to make sugar to make huge profits, but now that Father Liu said it, he was naturally surprised!
Seeing his surprised look, Father Liu knew that he had guessed correctly. He sighed and said, "Xiaoer, you may not know about white sugar. Although it is rare, it is not unavailable on the market! It's just that they are all sold by those
Xungui and wealthy families bought it, but it rarely circulates in the market!"
Many people think that white sugar only appeared in the early Qing Dynasty. In fact, this is not the case. The first time white sugar appeared was in the late Yuan Dynasty! According to the "Quanzhou Prefecture Chronicles" written by Chen Shi, there was a Huang in Nan'an County, Quanzhou Prefecture in the Yuan Dynasty.
The sugar craftsman named by the last name suddenly collapsed when his adobe house was making sugar, causing the syrup to be mixed with loess. When he finished cleaning up the house, he found that white frosting appeared in the syrup mixed with loess. This made the craftsman
Discovered the secret to decolorizing brown sugar.
According to this situation, the sugar craftsmen invented the mud-covering method, which is to use lumps of yellow mud to cover the syrup. Later, the technology was slowly improved and became the yellow mud decolorization method, which was also recorded in "Tiangong Kaiwu".
This book! There are also illustrations!
In fact, the history of edible sugar in China is quite long, but there has never been much technological development. After people discovered the technology of brown sugar decolorization, due to confidentiality reasons, this technology was not promoted on a large scale at all.
Come on! A small number of people who have mastered the technology of decolorizing brown sugar have been passing this method down as a family secret recipe, and outsiders cannot know it.
At that time, the price of sugar was relatively expensive, and ordinary people rarely ate sugar at home. Even if they did eat sugar, it was just maltose and the like, and they rarely ate brown sugar directly. As for wealthy families, more people ate honey and bleached sugar.
White sugar, in addition to the scarcity of white sugar production, was bought by these people as soon as it came on the market. Therefore, ordinary people could not see the circulation of white sugar on the market. This made Liu Haojia feel that it was profitable to make white sugar by himself.
Liu Haojia knew that his father would not lie to him, so he asked with a glimmer of hope: "What does the sugar you are talking about look like? Have you seen it?"
Father Liu sighed again and said: "Our family is noble after all, and we have seen some good things before! There is no difference between those white sugars and these brown sugars, but they are looser than brown sugars! Those brown sugars always stick together.
It’s a lump, and the white sugar is like grains of sand, and it may not taste as sweet as brown sugar!”
When Liu Haojia heard this, he secretly exclaimed that he was lucky! Fortunately, he had made extra preparations, otherwise, his great cause of making money would really have been aborted! Of course, this was also due to his short knowledge! So he calmed down and smiled mysteriously.
Said: "Father guessed half of it right, you will know the rest if you take your time!"
When Father Liu heard what Liu Haojia said, he could only nod doubtfully and let him go. But in his heart, he had already sentenced the money spent to death! Fortunately, he felt that he could still afford the loss, so he just let him go.
Liu Haojia went to do it himself, just think of spending money to buy a lesson!
At this time, Liu Haojia saw that the syrup was almost boiled, so he put the vat in place, placed the tile slide with the funnel on it, and then filled the bottom outlet with straw. By the time he finished all this, the syrup had been completely cooked.
Yes, the sweet flavor of the thick syrup is very tempting!
The four brothers poured the syrup into several tiles, and soon the tiles were filled with thick syrup. When the syrup solidified, he pulled out the straw from under the tiles. Then Liu Haojia mixed it
Carefully pour the yellow mud into the tiles, and then observe the changes in the tiles.
Slowly, as the yellow color gradually sank, the exposed syrup crystals turned out to be white granulated sugar! Seeing that the original dark brown sugar gradually turned into snow-white white granulated sugar, Liu Guangyuan and the others were extremely excited, and even more excited
He praised Liu Haojia for his good craftsmanship! But Liu’s father shook his head and went back to his room to rest, out of sight and out of mind!
Liu Haojia and the others worked until midnight to convert all the brown sugar into white sugar. In the end, the syrup mixed with mud could not be purified because there were no subsequent raw materials, so it had to be stored separately in earthen jars. The white sugar was also separated
After storing it, Liu Haojia grabbed a handful for everyone to satisfy their cravings, which made Liu Haonian and others extremely happy!