In fact, after discovering Kudzu, Ding Qi did not plan to use Kudzu to make wine, his main idea was to use Kudzu to make pulp from stone grinding, and then through filtration, precipitation, dehydration, drying and other processes to make the final Kudzu powder. With kudzu powder, it is combined with quail eggs or pheasant eggs to spread into a kind of egg skin to eat, and to preserve its length. Just like the egg skin made by people in Enshi, Hubei Province using potato flour, sweet potato flour and eggs together, it can be stored for a long time after drying, and when you eat it, it can be eaten with some bacon and lard fried vegetables as noodles, which tastes very good.

In addition, kudzu root powder can also be brewed and eaten alone, just like lotus root powder, with some picked wild fruits and honey, which is not only nutritious, but also satisfying.

This was Tinchi's original idea, but after Tinchi got rice and saw a common grass in the countryside - willow leaf knotweed, Tinchi decided to start making wine.

To be honest, it's hard to do the job of making wine without being a professional. Just because Ding Qi watched the master brew corn wine when he was a child, which he couldn't even reach the level of half-hanging, he wanted to make wine, which can't be said to be a fool's dream, but it is also difficult to go to the sky.

But the road needs to be walked step by step to get out, and it is only possible to succeed if you try and fail.

Therefore, Tinchi decided to make sake and solve the most crucial part of winemaking, making koji.

However, for Ding Qi, the process of making koji is also a process of experimentation, and he doesn't know if he can make it, but he always has to try.

On the second day of his arrival in Tong Village, he handed over the work of digging kudzu to others, and he called the carpenters, carpenters, and potters of Tong Village to make the distillation equipment for liquor. If the conditions are simple, use the simple method to do it. Figures and dimensions, etc., Ding Qi has already drawn them on straw paper, and several of them will discuss them.

The potter went to make a large clay pot and figured out how to make a condenser tube for the pottery version; Carpenters make steamers or steaming barrels and condensation barrels, and craftsmen weave bamboo plaques, pot lids, and distillation pipes from bamboo. Speaking of the condenser pipe, the potter still has to study, but Dandingch has an alternative, which is the pipe he removed from the off-road pickup to make a steel spear.

Just for a greater cause, this pipe bids farewell to the fighting industry and is ready to contribute its own light and heat to the brewing industry. Under Ding Qi's perverted power that can easily lift five or six hundred catties of stones, this steel pipe is honestly bent around a bamboo eight or nine centimeters thick into a spring-like condenser tube, and twenty centimeters are left at the bottom as the outlet of the condenser tube.

It takes a lot of time for these tasks to be planned by Ding Qi first, anyway, it is still far from the time for the actual winemaking, so take your time. For example, the condenser tube may be able to be studied by a potter.

After these tasks were arranged, Ding Qi took two of his subordinates and studied the production of koji with him.

Willow leaf knotweed, also called spicy knotweed, water knotweed, has a long name: cotton hair sorrel leaf knotweed. An annual herb with erect, multi-branched stems and many small purplish-red spots on the surface, it is a very common aquatic plant. It is born in grasslands, flowing ditches, or shady and humid places, and is distributed in the north and south of the river.

Ding Qi first led people to collect about 50 catties of willow leaves from a ditch, and then cut down more than a dozen bamboos with the carpenter, the bamboo leaves belonged to Ding Qi, and the bamboo poles belonged to the carpenter. At the edge of the forest, I also collected some wild grasses such as dogtail grass, young stems and leaves, and cow tendon grass that I often encountered when farming. These grasses are not easy to find during this season, and they only exist in some sunny and warm places.

After the materials are collected, they are washed with clean water and then thoroughly dried. Next, Ding Qi arranged for his subordinates to use kitchen knives for all the wild grasses such as willow leaf knotweed, bamboo leaves, ox tendon grass, and dogtail grass

Finely chop the portions and continue to dry until they are all dry.

After the hay was dried, the rice he brought with him was then scooped into rice with a stone mortar, mixed with the hay, and then the mixture was ground and crushed with a stone mill that was not easy to bring. This is a job that requires patience, and Ding Qi only needs to command his subordinates to do it, but he must grasp the whole process so as not to have problems in the middle.

The powder was finally ready, and Ding Qi and his two men were swept up in fine powder. Ding Qi ignored it completely, hurriedly put the powder into a large clay pot, and took out some of the powder and set it aside for later use. Next, Ding Qi personally operated, washed his hands and began to add warm water of about 37~40 degrees to the powder, stirring while adding water, until the powder can be kneaded into a ball and does not drip water. There should not be too much water, and if there is too much, it will become a thin mud, and Ding Qi put aside the powder for backup to prevent the occurrence of too much water.

These steps are simple, but require a lot of patience, and then he kneads the powder into small balls one by one, which are the original form of the koji, which was not fermented.

Then put these koji balls into a bamboo plaque, spread a layer of hay on top, and then stack them on top of each other. In order to prevent accidents, all the koji balls were stacked in five bamboo plaques by Ding Qi, mainly because he was worried that if there was a problem with one of them, it would not cause harm to the other koji balls, so that the work he had done would be in vain. All the bamboo plaques are stacked in a cool and ventilated warehouse.

In the warehouse, the bamboo plaque is placed on the wooden table, and a layer of hay is placed under the bamboo plaque, and a layer of hay is also spread on the top of the bamboo plaque, and a piece of animal skin is covered. Because the weather is cold, the cover is also to allow the koji balls to heat up quickly and achieve the purpose of fermentation.

According to what the old master said, all materials are crushed with a pulverizer and then ground into powder with an electric mill. The koji balls can be successfully left at a heated temperature for about three days. But Dingch's existing conditions are very rudimentary or backward, and he can only use the most primitive methods to make these things. There are thousands of roads to Rome, as long as you can achieve the goal, even if it takes more time, but relatively speaking, the most important thing that Tinchi lacks now is time.

During these three days, every once in a while, Ding Qi had to check the state of the koji balls in the bamboo plaque. If you find water droplets or dampness on the hay or hides, you should lift them open to cool down and ventilate the koji so that the temperature does not get too high and the koji burns out.

When making koji, the most important thing is to control the temperature at which the koji balls ferment, and the temperature must be strictly controlled, and it is best to have a thermometer. Dantinch didn't have a thermometer, so he had to fumble around to gain experience in making koji.

Ding Qi remembers that the master said that after fermentation, the surface of the koji will have a layer of white fine fuzz, just like the white fuzz when making rice wine, tempeh or stinky tofu. If the fermentation temperature is too high and the heat is not ventilated in time, the white hairs on the koji will turn black and look like mold, and the koji will be considered a failure.

Due to the first time he made koji, Ding Qi still had some failures. There are two bamboo plaques in which the koji did not grasp the temperature properly, which led to mildew and complete damage. Luckily, the koji in the other three bamboo plaques doesn't look like there's anything wrong with it, at least on the surface.

This kind of work is not hard, but it is tedious and stressful. Everything had to be something he had to keep an eye on, and teach two of his subordinates to learn, mentally a little tired.

After the koji has cooled naturally, it can be taken out of the warehouse and dried in the sun, and after drying, it is the finished koji that was used in the rural brewing process.

There were three bamboo plaques, and there were about 300 koji balls formed in the end, which finally made Ding Qi feel some comfort. These koji were carefully chosen

Place in two large clay pots and store in a dry place.

In fact, Ding Qi is still a little distressed about making koji, mainly because he feels sorry for those rice seeds. Although the rice is not cultivated artificially from other tribes, if it is planted next year, it is only a few acres of rice, and it is unknown how much it will grow in the future.

But there will always be sacrifices in this regard, and if things can be done at the same time, and the wine can be brewed in advance, the benefit to mankind will be very great. You know, if all goes well, it remains to be seen how much sake will eventually be made from so many kudzu, but the total amount is not much. Ding Qi didn't dare to let everyone drink it vigorously, most of this wine was to be used to make medical alcohol.

Although his attention has been focused on the production of koji in the past few days, he still has to pay attention to the production of distillation equipment.

These craftsmen are all true apprentices of several great craftsmen in Ningcheng, and at the request of Ding Qi, they have obtained the true inheritance of the first generation of great craftsmen. Of course, the choice of these people is also based on talent and interest, and people who do not have this interest and talent will not choose. As a result, everything they produce is, in Tinch's opinion, impeccable.

Let's start with carpenters, making large wooden barrels or steamers with a diameter of more than one meter for the first time is quite a challenge. However, with experience in making wooden barrels, it is not particularly difficult to make large-diameter wooden barrels, but it takes more effort. In the middle, he also received the support of a carpenter, who helped him make several hoops made of bamboo bark. When the barrel was made, Ding Qi went to take a look, the quality was good, it was not loose, and he rolled it twice, and there was no abnormality.

On the potter's side, the pots were not a problem for him, and his main goal was on how to make the pottery pipes. Ding Qi only told him that the thing he made was a tube bent together, and he looked at Ding Qi's steel condenser tube, and then he went to roll the mud.

He first made a strip of clay two meters long and five or six centimeters thick, flattened it and cut it into a clay piece about 15 centimeters wide, about one centimeter thick. Then, when Ding Qi saw a scene that shocked him, he saw the craftsman take out a rope less than five centimeters thick and made of vines. Looking at the thickness of the rope and the freshness of the material, it is obvious that it has been rubbed recently, so it shows that he had already thought of using the rope as the key material for making the clay condenser tube when Ding Qi assigned him the task of condenser tube.

He first cut the edge of the long clay tablet in half to form a wedge, then placed the rope on the edge of the clay tablet, and when it was neatly arranged, he rolled the clay board forward along the rope until all the rope was wrapped. After wrapping it in, he noticed that the clay tablet was about a centimeter over, so he used a bamboo knife to remove that part, and also cut off half of that side into a wedge.

When all this was ready, he moistened the two sides with water, combined them, gently pressed them with his fingers, and then kneaded the whole clay strip on the clay board to shape the clay tube.

This step can only be regarded as one-third of the completion of the condenser tube production. Next, the potter, named Blackstone, brought a straight spear from the warrior, about the thickness of an egg, and picked up the clay pipe and began to wrap it around the spear. The action is very light and gentle during the winding process, and I am worried that the tube will crack and lead to the failure of the finished product.

Fortunately, everything went well, and the first condenser tube was successfully wound. This condenser tube is placed aside for shade drying, it has not yet been fired, and only when it is fired can it be considered a real success. As for the rope in the tube, it is no longer needed, it will be burned to ashes by high temperatures.

Next, Blackstone went on to make five other pottery condenser tubes before he began to prepare for firing. Ding Qi is also looking forward to the advent of this kind of pottery condenser tube, and whether it can make a large amount of wine in the future depends on the condenser tube.