Ma Cheng had just finished eating, and he was full of strength, so he stepped forward and picked up the seven or eight thin iron cylinders and looked at them.

The production process of the Ming Dynasty was limited, and it was not possible to manufacture very thin iron sheets, and such small batches could be used manually, but large-scale production was not possible.

The iron sheet in Ma Cheng's hand is thin and uniform, and the places where the reels are connected are made by hand.

Ma Cheng nodded with satisfaction: "Does this iron cylinder leak?" ”

"Second master, these villains have tried, it's okay to use it for a short time, but I'm afraid of rust for a long time!"

This is also a helpless thing, before the invention of tinplated steel plate, that is, tinplate, the rust of iron was inevitable.

Ma Cheng looked at the tools and asked Gu Changwei to assemble all the tools. The first step is to assemble the iron cylinder, the iron cylinder is a zigzag, to avoid the carbon ash with the hot air to pollute the saturated solution, and at the same time, Ma Cheng also added several layers of white cotton cloth in the middle of the iron cylinder to minimize the possibility of pollution.

The second step is to heat the water, there is a well in the small courtyard where Ma Cheng lives, Ma Cheng checked it yesterday, the water quality is not bad, and there are no pollutants. Now fill both vats with water and heat them by lighting a fire around them.

While Gu Changwei was heating the water, Ma Cheng opened a cloth bag containing sugar, and put the brown sugar and brown sugar inside into the water in the vat one go. Ma Cheng's movements frightened Gu Xiying, who was looking at the excitement, and exclaimed: "Second master, this is brown sugar, why is it mixed with bitter brown sugar?" ”

Ma Cheng said with a smile: "What is brown sugar, the master let you see a diorama today, how to make white sugar!" ”

As the water temperature in the vat increased, the sugar bricks inside slowly melted, and Ma Cheng added sugar bricks to it while watching the melting progress. Soon, the dissolution speed of the sugar brick slowed down, and Ma Cheng knew that it was already a saturated solution of sugar water!

Because brown sugar is made from sugarcane juice, there is a lot of sugarcane residue in it, and it has a bitter taste when eaten. But now the bitter taste dissolved into the water is gone, and a sweet smell fills the courtyard.

Ma Cheng saw that it was almost over, waited for a while to precipitate the sugarcane residue in the vat, and then instructed Gu Changwei to filter the sugar water on the surface and pour it into a new vat. This is hard work, Ma Cheng is master naturally can't do it, but it can exhaust the temporary migrant worker Gu Changwei. Gu Xiying felt sorry for her brother, and also came over to help her brother, and soon nearly a hundred catties of saturated solution in the two large tanks were concentrated into one large tank.

The next step is the most critical, Ma Cheng commanded Gu Changwei to pour five catties of lime into the vat, Gu Xiying saw Ma Cheng wasting the sugar water so badly and hurriedly asked: "Master, isn't the vat of sugar water poured into the lime waste?" ”

Ma Cheng scolded: "What do you know about a woman? Master, this is a chemical reaction, you know? After Ma Cheng finished speaking, Gu Xiying motioned for Gu Changwei to pour lime.

The lime was poured into the water and the chemical reaction began, the heat in the water increased, and it boiled, and for a time the whole yard was a mixture of lime water and sugar water.

After the lime water has cooled, the most critical step is to introduce carbon dioxide. This is simple, the carbon stove has already been built, and the charcoal fire is booming. The ones Gu Changwei bought were all high-quality gold silk carbon, and there was no trace of smoke after lighting it.

Ma Cheng looked at the horn on one side of the iron cylinder and moved it above the carbon stove, and then extended the other iron cylinder into the lime water. This step is the key to whether it can react, Ma Cheng is afraid that the iron cylinder will leak, and the solubility of carbon dioxide will be enough.

But fortunately, the blacksmith skills in the army are very good, and after waiting for a while, I saw that the lime water began to gurgle and began to bubble.

Ma Cheng knew that carbon dioxide was beginning to react with lime, so Ma Cheng instructed Gu Changwei to slowly stir the sugar water to speed up the reaction between lime and carbon dioxide.

After two quarters of an hour, the bubbles in the water began to decrease, and Ma Cheng knew that the reduction reaction in the water was almost over, and with the addition of carbon dioxide, it would become carbonic acid. Ma Cheng hurriedly instructed Gu Changwei to remove the iron cylinder, and then waited for the lime water to settle.

Half an hour later, Ma Cheng looked at the lime water in the tank that had been settled, with clear sugar water on top and calcium carbonate on the bottom.

The next step is filtration, Ma Cheng carefully separated the sugar water from the deposited calcium carbonate, added the bamboo charcoal he bought to the sugar water, and used the bamboo charcoal to absorb the remaining impurities in the sugar water. After absorbing it with bamboo charcoal for the third time, the sugar water basically becomes clear, and it is almost the same as clean water.

The last step is simple, just put the sugar water in an iron pot and slowly boil it over low heat. Soon the sugar water, which reaches a saturated concentration, begins to precipitate white granulated sugar. Half an hour later, the sugar water in the iron pot had almost evaporated, Ma Cheng asked Gu Changwei to stop the fire, and used the residual heat to evaporate the remaining water, and at this time, what was left at the bottom of the pot was white sugar.

The sugar water in an iron pot can produce a large bowl of white sugar, Gu Changwei carefully put the white sugar in the pot into the bowl, and then handed it to Ma Cheng.

After Ma Cheng took it, he looked at the quality of the white sugar, although it did not reach the level of white sugar in later generations, but it was much stronger than the kind of white sugar that Gu Changwei bought. Ma Cheng stretched out his fingers and twisted a little into his mouth, the taste was very sweet, and the sweetness was almost the same as the white sugar of later generations.

This carbon dioxide saturation method was invented by the Germans in later generations, the advantage is that the quality of the white sugar produced is very good, the disadvantage is that the yield is not high, the production cost is too high, and the world will no longer use this inefficient method after the invention of the extraction method in later generations. However, this method was extremely advanced in the Ming Dynasty, and Ma Cheng needed a luxury product to obtain a large amount of money in a short period of time, rather than reducing the price of sugar in order to improve the quality of life of the Ming people, so the carbon dioxide saturation method is very suitable for the current situation.

Gu Xiying didn't expect that those choking lime water could make such white sugar, Gu Xiying stepped forward and twisted a little with her fingers and put it in her mouth, and then exclaimed in surprise: "It's so sweet, it's sweeter than the white sugar that the eldest brother bought, master, what kind of sugar is this?" ”

What kind of sugar can it be, it is nothing more than white sugar with relatively high purity, but Ma Cheng knows the brand effect, if he doesn't want a good name, he can't buy it at all. Ma Cheng thought for a while and said: "This kind of sugar is as white as frost and snow, so it's called frost sugar!" ”

Gu Changwei was dizzy by Ma Cheng's envoy just now, and now he came over to watch the fruits of his labor.

Just now, only one-fifth of the sugar water in the two large tanks was used, and a large bowl of frosting sugar was boiled out, Gu Changwei said with a smile: "Second master, look at these two jars of sugar water can boil more than a dozen bowls, it is estimated that it will cost more than ten catties!" ”

Ma Cheng looked at the remaining brown sugar, about half of it was used just now, according to the sugar factories in later generations, the sugar production rate was too low, and it was estimated that no sugar factory would use this method. However, the price of white sugar is very high now, although it is a lot of waste, but it is still profitable!

Ma Cheng nodded with satisfaction: "Gu San, how much brown sugar did you buy in total?" ”

"Second master, I bought a total of 200 catties of brown sugar, 20 catties of brown sugar, and 6 taels of white sugar, and I spent less than one tael of silver in total. Brown sugar is the cheapest, only three cents of silver for one hundred catties, brown sugar is more expensive, twenty catties are five cents of silver, it is these white sugar that are the most expensive! ”

Gu Changwei looked at the remaining brown sugar and said, "Second master, half of the brown sugar will produce ten catties of white sugar!" "Counting this, Gu Changwei was frightened by the windfall of sugar, even if the white sugar produced by Ma Cheng is eight catties of silver, then the brown sugar bought with one penny of silver can produce twenty catties of white sugar, which is sixteen taels of silver. It's a 160-fold increase, which is a real profiteering.

Gu Changwei didn't expect that he would boil out sixteen taels of silver in one hour, and he stood there speechless in fright.

Ma Cheng looked at Gu Changwei's idiocy and smiled silently, this is still a serious waste of the handicraft workshop, and the sugar yield of brown sugar can reach one-tenth, and if it is improved, the sugar yield can probably be maintained at one-fifth. At the same time, bagasse in brown sugar is also useful and can be used to make wine, which is also an income.

This sugar production is a practice of Ma Cheng's high school chemistry knowledge, Ma Cheng can't help but be a little smug, it seems that he can also start steelmaking, isn't it just to add appropriate carbon to the molten iron, Lao Tzu white sugar can be made, and it is not simple to add carbon to molten iron?

At this moment, someone outside the small courtyard said, "Second Young Master, is the Second Young Master here?" ”

When Ma Cheng heard the voice of the old housekeeper Ma Gui, the only one in the entire Ma family who called Ma Cheng the second young master was this Ma Gui, and everyone else called Ma Cheng the second master.

Ma Cheng hurriedly said: "Uncle Gui, I'm at home, please come in!" ”

Ma Gui is Ma Shiying's scholar, and although his identity is a servant, no one dares to underestimate him in the Ma family.

Ma Gui pushed open the door for a moment, and then said with a smile: "Sure enough, this second young master came out here!" ”

Ma Gui walked into the courtyard and bowed down and said, "Second young master, this sweet fragrance has spread to the backyard, the old lady asked the old slave to come to the front yard to see what the situation is!" It turned out to be emanating from the second young master! Ma Gui looked at the iron pots and cloth bags all over the yard, and then asked, "Second Young Master, what are you doing with a tank and a brazier?" ”

Ma Cheng smiled and didn't speak, just took the bowl of frosting candy from Gu Changwei's hand, and then said to Ma Gui: "Uncle Gui, I'm doing some experiments!" I still lack some manpower here, so I ask Uncle Gui to transfer two family members to help Gu San finish the work. I'll go to the backyard and talk to my mother! ”

After Ma Cheng finished speaking, he carried the sea bowl out of the yard and went to the backyard. Ma Cheng's idea is very simple, that is, he wants to use the power of the Ma family to develop his own sugar industry.

Ma Cheng was at the bottom of the society in later generations, and knew that in a society, the middle and high levels had a lot of resources, if you wanted to do something inventive and create something, if you didn't depend on the country, you would have to rely on which big family. If you don't believe in evil and want to do it alone, there is only one end, being eaten alive by those big families and big chaebols, and there will be no bones left.

Ma Cheng had good luck traveling to this era and became Ma Shiying's sister-in-law. However, Ma Shiying is not the first scholar of Nanming yet, and now Ma Shiying is just a senior bureaucrat at best, and Ma Cheng, as a sister-in-law, wants to make some small moves independently, but as soon as a high value-added thing like white sugar comes out, it will definitely be targeted by those real magnates, and when the time comes, Ma Cheng is likely to make a wedding dress for others.

Of course, Ma Cheng can also wait for Ma Shiying to get it back when he is in power, but it will be too late at that time, and Ma Cheng also needs sugar to make money quickly for himself to train a new army, so he naturally can't afford to wait.

So after Ma Cheng's careful consideration, he decided to hand over the purification process of white sugar to the old lady, and now the power of the old lady's family is stronger than that of the old father, and he can develop with peace of mind with the power of the Zhenyuan Marquis' Mansion.