Flowers in full bloom

Chapter 391: Continue to earn money in a low profile

Depending on the actual situation, the soaking time can be as long as five or six hours, or two or three hours, the main thing is to soak the dough thoroughly.

When the vinegar is steamed, you can start pouring vinegar. Open the pouring spout at the bottom of the pouring jar and pour out the first pouring vinegar. Change to another ceramic jar and wait until the vinegar is clear. Heat it to a certain temperature to sterilize the vinegar. After cooling, put it into a small ceramic jar and seal it for storage.

During the operation, it is important to note that the entire process needs to be kept clean and contamination avoided to ensure the quality and hygiene of the vinegar.

In order to enhance the mellow flavor of potato vinegar, Hualei also mixed some rice into the sweet potato. During the vinegar fermentation process, the moisture content and fermentation temperature at each stage were carefully controlled to ensure the quality of the vinegar.

Potato vinegar has a very unique flavor, which not only retains the nutrients of potatoes, but also adds the sour aroma of vinegar. It has a mellow taste, moderate sweetness and sourness, and is rich in trace elements and beneficial bacteria, which helps regulate the acid-base balance in the body and improve immunity.

After the potato vinegar was ready, Hualei took it to her house and asked Aunt Song to make hot and sour potato shreds and sweet and sour pork ribs. The homemade vinegar tasted good, and Hualei drank a full bowl of rice.

Then, the rest was taken to various places by their own ships for sale. Of course, Liang Xiangyi also helped take some away. The silver also went into Hualei's pocket quietly.

Over the years, since she had no shortage of money, Hua Lei had asked Sifangyuan Yahang to help keep an eye on shops and farms. Taking advantage of the right opportunity, she had quietly bought several shops and farms in good locations.

Just to keep a low profile, Hualei has rented out several shops and is not running them himself for the time being.

As for the newly purchased farm, Hua Lei simply asked Uncle Fu to get the title deed for her, and all other matters were carried out in a low-key manner according to the original model of the farm.

Whatever crops were originally planted on the farm, they will continue to be planted there, without revealing anything. Many people do not know who is behind the farm.

While the potato vinegar was still being made, Hua Lei started thinking about sweet potatoes. She wanted to use them to make wine.

Because he had purchased a new farm, he was also qualified to make more wine. After asking Old Marquis Pei to apply for a winemaking order from the relevant department, Hualei began to make wine with sweet potatoes.

Have someone select sweet potatoes that are free of insects and spots, wash them with clean water, peel off the skin, cut them into thin slices with a knife, steam them in a pot over water, take them out, and put them in a clean, water-free and oil-free ceramic jar.

After cooling to a certain temperature, add the koji and stir evenly to allow the sweet potatoes and koji to fully contact each other. Then cover with a wooden lid and place in a warm place to start saccharification and fermentation.

After a few days, when you open the ceramic jar, you can smell a very sweet smell. If you pinch a piece of sweet potato with your hand, it will be very soft. This shows that the sweet potato has been decomposed very thoroughly and the saccharification effect is very good.

Then add warm water to the sweet potatoes in a certain proportion, stir well, cover with a wooden lid, keep warm, and carry out secondary fermentation.

In the first few days, semi-enclosed fermentation is carried out, and after a few days, fully enclosed fermentation begins. After a month of normal fermentation, the wine can be distilled into a pot.

Of course, if you are not in a hurry, the secondary fermentation time of the sweet potato can be longer, and the sweet potato wine made in this way will taste more mellow and fragrant.

Add water to a large iron pot, bring it to a boil, pour in the fermented sweet potato lees, and then add a wooden zhenzi on the large iron pot. This was specially made by Uncle Zhao.

The wine steamed in the wooden zhenzi will not make you drunk easily, and it is also convenient to place a pot on it. A slot is made at the corresponding part of the middle part of the wooden zhenzi, and a circular opening is dug.

Put a slightly inclined wooden board into the slot and put a bamboo tube on it, so it can be extended outside the big iron pot. Place a clay jar to collect the wine under the bamboo tube.

Then place a large iron pot on top of the wooden sieve and fill it with cold water for cooling.

When the iron pot below is heated, the sweet potato lees in the pot will boil and rise. The wine-containing gas will cool down and condense into liquid when it meets the top pot filled with cold water. It will flow out of the bamboo tube along the inclined wooden board and drip into the pottery jar.

Before distilling sweet potato wine, all the gaps should be sealed with clean cotton cloth to prevent the wine from leaking out. In this way, the distillation device for winemaking is complete. Next, start to light the fire and boil the lees.

After a while, the wine will start to drip out of the bamboo tube. The first drop of wine that comes out cannot be kept as it may cause injury. After a while, the wine will start to drip into the pottery jar. Keep the fire low and distill the sweet potato wine.

The sweet potato wine distilled in this way is crystal clear, has a strong aroma, and is slightly spicy. It is very delicious and not easy to get drunk.

After the sweet potato wine was brewed, it was sent to Lord Pei for a taste. Lord Pei nodded repeatedly, saying that the taste was really good and completely different from the homemade rice wine. Each had its own merits.

Therefore, Hualei ordered a large amount of wine and sent it to the shops in Mobei. As for the remaining sweet potato wine, Hualei asked Liang Xiangyi to help take it to several cities in Jiangnan Prefecture for sale. Of course, there was no reason for their own ships to be empty, so they took a lot of it out by the way.

Next, Hualei took advantage of the winter when he had some free time to build a house and workshop halfway up the southern slope of the barren mountain.

I specially found the bricklayers and carpenters who helped build the workshop in Huayingzhuang, and asked them to go to the halfway point of the south-facing slope of Beishan to check whether it was suitable for building a wooden house.

Because of the terrain, there is a large area of ​​flat land. If you build a house along the slope, the back can be against the mountain, facing north and south, which is very suitable.

Moreover, the slope is not steep and there is no possibility of landslide. Therefore, Hualei wanted to build wooden houses for farmers to live in long ago, so that it would be more convenient to manage the barren mountain.

At the beginning, Hua Lei also thought about building a brick house. However, building a brick house in a barren mountain is not only inconvenient but also expensive. Most importantly, the foundation is not suitable and it is difficult to achieve a consistent height balance. So Hua Lei wanted to build a wooden house.

In her previous life, Hua Lei often led tours to many places in Europe, where people in many Western countries would build wooden houses to live in.

Compared with brick houses, wooden houses are more cost-effective, with a short construction period, low cost risk, and extremely convenient disassembly and relocation. In addition, wooden houses have good thermal insulation properties, keeping warm in winter and cool in summer, making them very suitable for people to live in.