Chapter 123

The production process of distiller's yeast is much more complicated than wine making.

Shi Xiong plans to make Daqu of whole wheat, because the amount of wheat in the tribe is OK, and after Daqu is made, it can be made into ordinary low alcohol liquor or high alcohol liquor by distillation.

When Shi Xiong made Daqu at home with his elders, he made Daqu of whole wheat. The Daqu is like large bricks, so this kind of Daqu is also called "kuaqu".

When making wine, you only need to break pieces of koji, then grind them into powder, and then sprinkle them into the raw materials according to the ratio of 1:0.007, and stir them evenly. The rest of the work is to let the raw materials ferment by themselves.

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

He just chose twelve bags of wheat with a weight of about 300 Jin and good quality.

Before making koji, stone bear and Kuaima thoroughly cleaned the stone house used to make refractory bricks, then prepared several charcoal pots inside, and hung the thermometer on the wall. This temporarily useless stone house has become a mixing, stepping and stacking room.

Then stone bear began to make koji.

The selected 300 Jin wheat was put into a large wooden barrel. First, 30 jin water was added to mix it well. Then, the charcoal basin was ignited and the temperature was raised to about 20 ℃ in the stone house, and it was allowed to stand for three hours. This process is called moistening.

The wheat soaked with water begins to be ground. The soaked wheat is ground into coarse wheat flour with a stone mill. Then it is sent to the stone house and mixed with water according to a certain proportion.

The water mixing is a very critical step, the amount of water must be appropriate, too much or too little is not enough.

If the amount of water is too much, it is not easy to form the blank when stepping on the koji, and it is easy to deform when entering the koji room to cultivate the koji. Moreover, the billet is easy to be pressed too tightly, which is not conducive to the growth of beneficial microorganisms to the interior of the billet, resulting in the growth of Mucor, Aspergillus niger and other harmful bacteria on the surface of the billet.

In addition, if more water is added, the temperature of the starter will rise too fast and it is difficult to lower the temperature. The time of the starter in the high temperature stage will be prolonged, which is easy to cause a large number of rancid bacteria to propagate, increase the loss of raw materials, and eventually reduce the quality of the finished product.

Similarly, if the amount of water is too small, it will not be easy to bond, resulting in too much scattered, thus increasing the number of broken pieces. At the same time, the water loss of koji blank is too fast during koji cultivation, which leads to the insufficient reproduction of beneficial microorganisms, and also affects the quality of finished koji.

In a word, the moisture content of the starter will directly affect the quality of the finished product, so the water mixing is very critical.

When Shi Xiong's family made koji, they had already figured out a proportion of water. For example, when making this kind of whole wheat Daqu, the proportion of adding water to stir is generally about 38% of the weight of coarse wheat flour, and the maximum is not more than 40%.

And because it is winter koji making, so this time the water is heated in advance. When mixing, the water temperature is about 33 ℃.

With a simple thermometer, you can control the water temperature very well.

It is said that about 6% koji should be added when mixing, but there is no white koji for one year, so it cannot be added.

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

The mixing and moistening materials are different, in addition to the proportion of water, but also fully stir evenly.

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

Stone bear is very experienced in this. When he was making wine koji with his family's elders, he was the one who did the hard work of mixing materials. Who made him a big guy.

The stone bear stirs these starter materials in the chamber where the charcoal basin is lit. Finally, the starter materials are stirred into lumps, and are kneaded into a ball by hand without sticking.

After mixing, the koji is quickly poured into wooden boxes. These wooden boxes are specially made by stone bear.

The size of the bending die is about 27cm * 17cm * 5cm, and the weight of the block with such a bending die is about five Jin.

After the starter is poured into the wooden box, the fast horse, hard bone and Momo grass who have washed their feet are on the stage.

They need to step on the material in the mold barefoot. First step on the center of the mold with your feet, and then step on both sides along the four sides. You must step on the material tightly and smoothly. The requirement is a little loose in the middle and tight on the four sides.

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

This process is stepping on music!

The requirements of stepping on the music are also very high. The weight of the people who step on the music should not be too large, otherwise the music will be stepped too tightly. Similarly, the weight should not be too light, otherwise the curved block will not be firm.

Whether it is too tight or too loose, it will directly affect the quality of the final product.

Stone bear is also the main force of stepping on music in the past. At that time, his weight was about 120, which was not heavy or light. It was the best way to step on music.

Now he can't step on the music. He's just a fool. If he steps on it, I'm afraid he'll have to step on the music

Fast horses and hard bones are good, and momocao, a tall and strong woman, weighs about the same. So after the stone bear's test, the three of them immediately piled up on one side.

The process to be carried out after treading is stacking.

Stacking is to put the preform into the room and pile it up orderly. But the stone bear, they mix and tread the music in this stone house, so they just need to put the stepped music in the stone house.

It's not any house that can make a music room. First of all, the starter room should have good heat preservation and strong moisture retention ability, so as to keep the temperature and humidity in the room in a balanced state when the starter is fermented. Secondly, the koji room also needs to be able to gout, discharge moisture, so as to better control the temperature and humidity in the fermentation process.

At this time, a layer of dry thatch nearly 20 cm thick has been put on the ground where the music room is going to pile up, which is used for heat preservation and ventilation. Under the command of the stone bear, the stepped curved blanks are placed on the grass. The space between them is only two fingers wide, and the middle space is also separated by the grass.

This is to promote the growth of moldy clothes.

When a layer is full, a layer of about 78 cm dry thatch is laid on the curved block, and the second layer of curved block is staggered in the same way as the first layer. Go up to the fourth level, then wrap.

That's the pile.

Three hundred jin of wheat doesn't produce much starter. Stone bear, with rabbit's beak and Ferguson, was busy in the starter room. After a short time, more than 60 starter pieces were all piled up.

Finally, a thick layer of dry thatch is covered on the top and around, which can keep warm and moisture, and prevent the condensation water produced in the fermentation process from dropping on the starter and causing rancidity.

At this point, the whole preparatory work of music making is completely completed. Next, wait for the starter to ferment, then turn the starter twice in the middle, and control the temperature and humidity at the same time.