Chapter 433

As for the dried soybean stalks...

Song Sancheng raised his voice: "Tan Tan, there are quite a lot of these bean stalks. Why don't you ask Old Man Li if his cow will eat them?"

If it will, we can haul two baskets over to him in a couple of days, but this stuff is hard to eat, so he'll have to figure out how to crush it at home before feeding the cow.

Nowadays, there is only this one cow in the entire village, and it is quite old. Song Tan agreed directly:

"No need to ask. When the time comes to harvest the beans, just haul all the leftovers to him."

This stuff has a high nutritional content, so it won't be a problem at all for the cow to get through the winter. Besides, with such a small amount, how much fertilizer could it really make? There are plenty of other things that can be used as fertilizer.

It's better to just give it all to the old yellow ox.

After all, the temperature drops here in November and doesn't start to rise again until March of the following year. In the dead of winter, there aren't any grass leaves to eat.

When the soybeans were processed, Old Master Qi estimated the time and called Qiao Qiao over again:

"We're going to start brewing wine in a while. Are you still going to livestream?"

Qiao Qiao looked at him vigilantly: "Then can we finish brewing today?"

"Yes."

Old Master Qi could still guarantee this much.

Qiao Qiao finally felt relieved, and then, without another word, he opened the livestream again—

【What am I seeing? The streamer has been full of energy these past two days!】

【Exactly, he's been too diligent; it's making me a bit unaccustomed to it.】

【Can the wine brewing finish today? I can't stand it if it's split into segments again.】

【Here we go, here we go, such a high livestream frequency!】

At this moment, Qiao Qiao was already standing in front of yesterday's large vat, his expression serious:

"Alright, our sorghum has been soaking—"

He checked the time: "It's been soaking for 20 hours. Old Master Qi said the weather is hot, so it doesn't need to soak that long. Now let's open the lid—"

It took some effort to fully open the sealed lid, and a wave of damp, humid air rushed toward them. Old Master Qi reached in and scooped up a handful of sorghum to check its cooked and flowered state, then let Qiao Qiao pinch it with his fingers:

"Can you feel it? It's mushy as soon as you pinch it. This means it's soaked enough. If it weren't, we'd have to keep soaking it."

"In winter, the temperature is low and it cools down quickly, so it has to soak for 24 hours—come on, boil the water!"

Qiao Qiao hurriedly set his phone aside and entered his focused state once again. He placed the huge steamer onto the stove, scooped out the soaked sorghum, and put it all inside.

"Wait until the water boils and the steam rises..."

Old Master Qi suddenly got stuck.

After a while, he said again: "It used to be quite difficult for us to buy watches, so we relied on estimation. I told you the water temperature earlier based on my estimation after measuring with a thermometer... This time, whenever I say it's ready, you just look at the time and write it down."

Qiao Qiao nodded, and the livestream room became lively again:

【Understood. Experience from an old master.】

【I was just wondering why this old master was so rigorous last time, checking with a thermometer from time to time...】

【Technology has affected the application of experience!】

【The matter of brewing wine really is a case of a miss being as good as a mile.】

【In ancient times, they didn't have these things, but people could still brew very good wine.】

【I wouldn't deny it's good wine, but the alcohol content definitely wouldn't be high; after all, distillation is still a big problem...】

The comments were chatting away heatedly.

At this time, Qiao Qiao had been staring at the watch for a while, until Old Master Qi estimated: "Alright."

Only then did he check the time and report with a serious face: "Little friends, have you all noted the time? After the steam rises, it needs to be steamed for 30 minutes."

"By the way," Old Master Qi added, "We're steaming a lot at once this time, and the pot is big, so it takes half an hour. If you're just playing around at home and making a little bit, 15 minutes should be about right—come on, take this sorghum down, blow the water in the steamer with a fan to cool it down, and don't measure it until I say it's about right..."

This process was exceptionally tedious, but Qiao Qiao learned it with great care and didn't feel impatient at all.

When Old Master Qi said it was ready, he checked the thermometer: "Little friends, remember, 85-degree water temperature!"

Immediately after, he poured the water back into the sorghum, stirred it evenly, and covered it again to seal for 15 minutes.

Next was the re-steaming, cooling down...

In the middle of it, Old Master Qi called out: "Qiao Qiao, bring a basin of those rice husks over and wash them clean—for 370 jin of sorghum, you should use 37 jin of rice husks."

Immediately after, mixing the distiller's yeast, mixing it again, piling it up for saccharification, covering it with rice husks...

When the two of them finished the work, drenched in sweat, Old Master Qi sighed deeply:

"Alright, wait for half a day to a day. Once you smell the sweetness and see bacteria growing like white fuzz, you can take it out and put it into the cellar."

At this moment, the comments in the livestream room had visibly decreased by a lot.

Zhang Yanping took the opportunity to glance at it and was startled, thinking that Qiao Qiao hadn't managed to keep the fans this time.

But when he looked at the number of viewers—that's not right, why did it increase instead of decrease?

After a long while, a comment finally drifted by:

【Has the streamer finished working? (⊙o⊙) Wow, I actually fell asleep!】

【Ah, I slept so well!】

【Eh, it's over when I wake up?】

【If it weren't for the loud friction sound of the final stirring, I wouldn't have woken up...】

【This is too good for sleeping; I'm going to save this and replay it when I have insomnia.】

Zhang Yanping:...

Well... how should I put it? The process might be different from what was imagined, but the result seems to be about the same.

After closing the livestream, he leaned over curiously:

"Old Master Qi, can this be drunk tomorrow?"

"What kind of beautiful dream are you having?" Old Master Qi laughed: "Tomorrow it will become fragrant, then mix the distiller's grains evenly. Later, you can see whether to put it in a vat or dig a cellar; it will take twenty or thirty days of fermentation to be ready."

Song Tan also walked over, looking curiously at the pile of rice husks and sorghum in front of her, and then didn't hesitate:

"Since we're already using traditional methods to brew wine, naturally we should dig a cellar—didn't we buy ceramic vats? Tomorrow, wash and clean them up, and bury them directly in the ditch in the backyard as a cellar."

"Alright." Old Master Qi glanced at the pile of distiller's grains: "Wait until tomorrow to see the situation. If it's sweet and fragrant, it proves the wine is brewed well. If it smells like alcohol, then it's overdone; it probably won't taste very good, so there's no need to bother cleaning the cellar."

Song Tan glanced at him, thinking that if you didn't have such a confident look on your face while saying this, and didn't calmly process over 300 jin of sorghum in one go... the credibility of these words would be higher.

If you really weren't sure, all the sorghum for this year is here, and there are only a few of them at home who drink; could Old Master Qi bear to do it all at once?

At this moment, Old Master Qi walked around the courtyard with his hands behind his back, ignoring the scorching sun. Still unable to suppress the expectation and joy in his heart, he hurriedly asked again: "Qiao Qiao, do you want to eat tender corn? If you do, let's go pick a basket."

Exhausted by the cat. Only slept for two hours last night.

Changed to a different hospital today for a re-examination, and the items checked were also changed... still nothing was found.

But it hasn't eaten or drunk for two days, and has vomited several times.