Li Mengxi hired craftsmen to prepare wine today.

Now that food and grass are scarce in the army, why does Li Mengxi still waste food and make wine?

This is because Li Mengxi is well aware that the time for technology research and development is often measured in years and months. The research and development cycle is extremely long. According to the current situation of the Zhuozhou Army, it is estimated that it will have to wait a year before the food is barely sufficient, but it will have to wait until a year later before making wine.

, which delayed one year of research and development time.

Let me ask, how many years can there be in life? It would be a pity to waste one year.

Therefore, Li Mengxi believes that production and technological advancement are two technological lines that do not interfere with each other. Production can wait until everything is ready before starting production, but technological research and development can be carried out at any time.

Li Mengxi found more than thirty people from the entire army who were said to be good at brewing wine, and then asked each of them privately about brewing technology.

After asking again, most of the craftsmen were hesitant and didn't want to talk about their brewing techniques.

Li Mengxi could understand this. In ancient times, technology was the cost of food after all. The craftsmen hid the wine-making technology, making it easy to understand.

Only three or five people talked a little bit about brewing.

One person said, "You can't make wine in the winter. After summer, you can look for radish in the fields. The radish will work well with rice and wheat. Put it in a jar and seal it. Leave it for half a year and you can make wine."

Li Mengxi didn't know what the grass was. He speculated that the grass might contain some enzyme that could ferment grain and make wine.

Someone else said, "It's not cold anymore. Let's make some white flour and put it in a cool place until it becomes sour and smelly. Then we take the noodles and mix them with sorghum, then add water to seal the jar."

When Li Mengxi heard about this brewing method, he immediately thought of how the method of placing living noodles in a cool place was the same as making yeast?

The so-called yeast refers to the yeast used in rural areas to leave dough for steaming steamed buns. Li Mengxi thought of how when he was a child, his grandma would add some corn dough to the dough, then put it on the lid of the vat, and then put the dough in a cool place.

Then, after a while, the noodles were covered with worms...

But, it's amazing. When steamed with these small white noodle bugs, the steamed buns will become white and soft.

Li Mengxi finally remembered, yeast, yeast! The core technology of brewing is to use yeast to ferment and convert starch in grain into alcohol.

Moreover, yeast can not only make wine, but can also steam steamed buns and make steamed buns!

When he thought of steamed buns, Li Mengxi became determined to reform his diet. Steamed buns are absolutely delicious, much more delicious than flatbread!

The cooking technology in the late Han Dynasty was still very underdeveloped. They ate everything every day, either stewing, stewing, stewing, boiling, and rarely steaming.

After coming to the late Han Dynasty for so long, Li Mengxi had never eaten anything delicious.

Thinking of yeast by chance, Li Mengxi decided to see how to make yeast when he had time.

Come to think of it, leaven or yeast does not need to be invented. Yeast itself is ubiquitous in nature. You only need to activate some dough, put it in a warm place, and then wait for the yeast bacteria to fall on the dough and multiply.

Fortunately, Li Mengxi was from a rural area, and fortunately he knew some methods of making yeast. Otherwise, he would not be able to make even a single yeast if he came here in the late Han Dynasty.

The brewing method described by the craftsmen also uses dough to make ferment first and then the wine. Li Mengxi understood that the ferment is equal to distiller's yeast in the brewing process.

Li Mengxi felt that this method of making wine was much more reliable than the previous method of using radish to make wine.

Another person also talked about the brewing method.

The man carefully took out a small bottle from his arms. The contents in the bottle were said to be inherited from his ancestors. He wanted to make wine and cook a pot of thin rice soup, then pour some of the contents in the bottle into it, and then wait for a few days for the rice soup to boil.

Once the bubbles are gone, prepare another half a jar of rice and wheat, pour the rice soup in, seal the jar and set it aside.

Li Mengxi was very curious about what the ancestral gadget the brewer was talking about, and he politely asked if he could take a look.

Just because he was polite, people refused and didn't want to see him.

If Li Mengxi forced it, I don't think a small craftsman would dare to refuse.

Although the craftsman refused to let him see it, Li Mengxi had a rough guess.

It is said that many old restaurants have old noodles that have been passed down from ancestors for hundreds of years. There may be gimmicks and exaggerations in this, but some of them are true. There are real noodles that have been passed down for hundreds of years.

How precious is it that it deserves to be carefully passed down for hundreds of years? It's a strain of yeast, a strain of yeast.

In nature, yeast is an extremely large group of bacteria, with more than one million species of yeast.

Among so many fungi, some produce toxins, some are afraid of cold, some are afraid of heat, some have poor survival ability and are easily killed by miscellaneous bacteria, some are afraid of acid, and some are afraid of alkali.

Not all yeasts are suitable for fermenting food, and even among the yeasts that can be used to make food, some fermentation is too slow, and some produce a lot of sour substances after fermentation, making the noodles very sour.

However, among the many strains of bacteria, sometimes you are lucky enough to encounter a good strain with strong fermentation ability, fast fermentation, and the dough is not sour after fermentation, but sweet. Such yeast strains ferment the noodles to make steamed buns.

, simply delicious.

Therefore, a good piece of dough can really make very delicious steamed buns, and the yeast can keep multiplying. As long as the strains are passed on, a restaurant can make a fortune from a piece of dough for several generations.

Li Mengxi suspected that the small bottle in the hands of the craftsman was something similar to Lao Mian Tou, and was a piece of fine yeast.

If you have good yeast strains, you can naturally make good wine.

After checking the brewing craftsmen, there were thirty-three in total.

After asking around, the craftsmen all said that they need food and a jar that can be sealed. It seems that the general process of brewing wine among these craftsmen is similar.

Because there was not much military rations and he could not waste too much food, Li Mengxi could only give five kilograms of grain to each person, and could only allocate a hundred or ten kilograms of grain to make wine.

Ask a group of winemakers which grain is best for making wine. The craftsmen have different opinions. Some say sorghum is good, some say millet is good, some say wheat is good, and still others say rice is good. Some even say barley is good.

This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! Li Mengxi thought of later generations, where sorghum and rice were mostly used to make wine. Why? Is it because sorghum is better for making wine, or is it purely because sorghum is cheap? It is unknown.

Li Mengxi, who didn't know much about winemaking, also didn't know the skill of the craftsmen in winemaking. After thinking for a moment, Li Mengxi simply divided the craftsmen into groups.

The first group of several people used all rice to make wine, the second group used all sorghum, the third group used all millet, and so on.

In this way, since the amount of grain used is the same, five kilograms of grain, with a control group, after the wine is brewed a few months later, we can first compare and figure out which grain is used with the highest wine yield.

, the wine tastes the best. The second is that among a group of people who use the same kind of grain, who has better wine-making technology can also be compared.

Then, after the first round of wine is brewed, you can directly determine the grain that is most suitable for brewing, and you can also choose the craftsman with the most scientific and reasonable brewing technology.

Then, you can start further improvements based on the brewing method of the craftsman with the best brewing technology.

This was Li Mengxi's plan to improve wine-making technology. There was no need to design it from scratch, but based on the original wine-making technology of the Han Dynasty, standing on the shoulders of the ancient people, and then climbing up.

Li Mengxi distributed the grain and pottery pots to the winemakers, and then sent people to monitor the craftsmen's work.

Li Mengxi was not afraid that some craftsmen would be greedy for a few handfuls of grain. A few handfuls of grain were nothing, but if there were errors in the grains and there were deviations in the future verification of the wine yield, the entire experimental data would be ruined.

Making wine is very troublesome. The craftsmen took the clay pots and washed them carefully. They also washed millet, sorghum and other grains.

Not even after washing, some people asked me to find some hot water to boil the jars.

Immediately, Li Mengxi felt that the level of craftsmen who could think of high-temperature boiling and sterilization must be higher than others.

After the clay pot was boiled, someone said that the food was also cooked well.

Li Mengxi then learned again that when making wine, does the grain have to be cooked? Why is this? Could it be that when the grain is cooked, the starch in the grain is more easily digested by yeast?

When I think about it, it should probably be like this. Yeast is a living thing, and humans are also living things. The same goes for humans. Cooked food is easier to digest.

Li Mengxi, who did not understand the art of winemaking, had already learned from the winemakers that to make wine, the jars had to be cleaned, water had to be boiled, and the grains had to be cooked.

From this, Li Mengxi concluded that disinfection is extremely important when making wine. He also added a little more based on his knowledge. It is best to use clean water for making wine, and it is best to boil the water, otherwise it will easily cause pollution.

The winemakers packed the jars with grain and sealed them according to their own methods. Of course, some people even chose not to seal the jars, but only used linen cloth to seal the mouth of the jars, and then poured out the yellow mud.

After that, Li Mengxi found a cool, dry and light-proof room according to what the craftsmen said, and put all the wine jars in the room.

In the last step, Li Mengxi wrote the names of all the craftsmen on the wooden board, and hung the corresponding names of the craftsmen on the corresponding wine jars. Li Mengxi said to all the craftsmen that when the wine is ready, the person who is the best at making wine will be selected and promoted.

Centurion, take ten more of the best, why are they so long? If the wine is good, each one will be rewarded.

Li Mengxi always kept his word, and the winemakers were all happy to hear that he was rewarded.

On the same day, Li Mengxi ordered all the winemakers to organize a battalion, which was called the "wine" camp, and they would specialize in winemaking in the future.

At the same time, Li Mengxi had a green flag with the word "wine" made and erected outside the wine store. The wine flag fluttered in the wind and snow, signaling that another battalion had been added to the rebel army's logistics.

Guan Yu, who was training troops outside the city, came back and heard that Li Mengxi was making wine, so he came over to have a look.

Guan Yu was also very good at wine. Before the wine was brewed, Guan Yu was worried about it.

In the entire wine-making plan, Li Mengxi only used less than 200 kilograms of grain, and only used such a small amount of grain to make wine. Such a small amount of grain is enough for research technology, but it is definitely not enough for mass production. In other words, there will be no waste of grain.
Chapter completed!