Chapter 4: Extracting Starch

Chapter 4: Extracting Starch

The Sorghum Candy sold in modern times has undergone several improvements, with the main ingredient now being sweet potato starch, no longer related to sorghum. However, the earliest Sorghum Candy was genuinely made primarily from sorghum starch.

The Yu Dynasty doesn’t have potatoes or sweet potatoes yet, but corn is available, which just meets the traditional ingredients for Sorghum Candy.

The first step in making Sorghum Candy is to extract sorghum starch. Sorghum has a high starch content, reaching 65%-70%. Although manual extraction is not as precise as industrial production, the yield is still more than half.

Yesterday, Qiu Huanian soaked the sorghum in alkaline wood ash water to easily remove the husks and increase the starch extraction rate.

He took out several bamboo-woven round sieves with a diameter of over one meter from the storeroom, scooped the sorghum from the basin, and rubbed it between his hands a few times, causing the husks to automatically detach from the grains.

After rubbing a small portion, Jiu Jiu and Chun Sheng woke up. The two children washed their hands and came over to learn how to husk the sorghum like him.

Since the work was not heavy, Qiu Huanian did not stop them. They worked together for half an hour, completely husking three pecks of sorghum.

Qiu Huanian laid out the mixture of grains and husks on the round sieves and placed them on a rack in the sunny part of the yard to dry, then turned to make breakfast.

For breakfast, he boiled two corn cobs and heated a bowl of chicken soup with dried vegetables for everyone. Jiu Jiu and Chun Sheng enjoyed their meal, and Qiu Huanian also found a sense of satisfaction.

After breakfast, Jiu Jiu and Chun Sheng went out with small baskets to pick wild vegetables. Qiu Huanian entrusted them to a neighbor who was also picking wild vegetables and attempted some carpentry using Du Baoyan’s tools.

Qiu Huanian’s carpentry skills were quickly learned for video shooting. He once filmed a series called "Restoring Farming Tools from Different Dynasties," personally restoring tools like the straight plow, curved plow, harrow, and hoe.

The Du family had no livestock to pull large plows, so farming was done by hand. Qiu Huanian planned to combine his experience to replicate a modern single-handed push plow commonly used in vegetable gardens. If successful, it would save a lot of effort during spring plowing.

However, without blueprints, he overestimated himself and struggled for hours without making progress. In the end, he only made several detachable square molds of about one liter size from scrap wood, to be used for making Sorghum Candy.

Lunch was again pickles, chicken, and mixed grain rice. The weather was sunny today, and the sorghum was almost dry by lunchtime. Qiu Huanian and the two children sieved out the dried and lighter husks, bagged the husked grains, and peeled two pecks of corn kernels, then laboriously carried them out.

"Brother Hua, where are you going?" someone greeted Qiu Huanian on the road.

"Going to the clan leader’s house to grind some sorghum and corn flour," Qiu Huanian replied with a smile.

"Grinding flour with so little grain?" the woman asked, puzzled.

Using the stone mill and mule costs money, and grinding a small amount is not cost-effective.

Although four pecks of grain is not much, it still weighs about thirty pounds. Qiu Huanian’s current body lacks nutrition and is somewhat weak, so he couldn’t carry the bags of grain for long. He placed the bags on a roadside stone to rest and chatted with passing villagers.

"I’m grinding sorghum and corn to make candy for Jiu Jiu and Chun Sheng."

"Grinding this amount first, and if successful, I’ll make more."

"Remember to come to my house for candy, sister-in-law."

...

The short journey took Qiu Huanian more than ten minutes, chatting along the way, as relaxed as if they were on a leisurely outing.

Zhao, who usually bullies in the village, was a delight to see at a disadvantage. With yesterday’s knife-wielding incident, Qiu Huanian became famous in the village, and villagers were happy to chat with him.

Unsurprisingly, by bedtime tonight, the whole village would know that Brother Hua from Du Baoyan’s family was going to make candy from sorghum and corn.

—Although most people thought he was either crazy or deliberately provoking Zhao.

Qiu Huanian was indeed deliberate, first making others think he definitely couldn’t do it, then suddenly producing it, ensuring the news spread widely. This was Qiu Huanian’s experience from being a blogger.

In simple terms, it’s about creating hype.

The clan leader's house is located at the entrance of the village, with a dozen or so tile-roofed rooms and a courtyard wall built of blue bricks, looking very impressive.

The stone mill is placed in the orchard outside the courtyard. Only the clan leader's house and Du Baoquan's house in the village have stone mills and mules to pull them. Villagers who need to grind grain have to pay to use the mills at these two households.

Du Baoquan's family has every reason to act so high and mighty in the village. Her family is now one of the wealthiest in Du Village. Her eldest daughter married the manager of a cloth shop in the county town, and her second son is studying at the county school. It is possible that in a few years, the whole family will move to the county town.

Qiu Huanian placed the grain on a stone next to the gate of the clan leader's house and was about to knock when the wooden door suddenly opened from inside, and a cute boy of about fifteen or sixteen with a round face and big eyes came out.

The boy looked unfamiliar; the original owner probably hadn't seen him before. From the red mole between his eyebrows, Qiu Huanian recognized that he was also a young man.

This lad was not shy at all. Seeing Qiu Huanian and the grain beside him, he directly smiled and said, "Here to grind grain? Too bad, my aunt's mule is taking me back to town today, so it might not be available."

From his words, Qiu Huanian deduced that the boy was probably the nephew of a female relative from the clan leader's family who had come from town to visit relatives in Du Village.

Qiu Huanian was about to say that he would come back tomorrow when the lad called out to him again, "Wait, you only brought this little grain? It looks like it won't take more than half an hour to grind. I might as well wait so as not to delay your business."

He turned back into the courtyard and called out the clan leader's eldest grandson, Yun Cheng, telling him not to hurry with the cart but to first lead the mule to help Qiu Huanian grind the grain.

Du Yun Cheng, fourteen years old, was a half-grown boy with a dignified and proper appearance, resembling the clan leader.

Seeing Qiu Huanian, Yun Cheng greeted him as "sister-in-law" and refused to accept any money from him.

"Usually, villagers grind grain for a whole day, grinding more than ten stones at once, and charge thirty coins. Sister-in-law, your little grain isn't even enough to make a dent. How can I take your money?"

Qiu Huanian had to put away his money pouch but promised to send Yun Cheng a small bag of sugar when it was made. Yun Cheng aside, the young lad next to him couldn't help but ask questions out of curiosity.

Yun Cheng led the mule to pull the stone mill, while Qiu Huanian occasionally added grain to the hole above the mill and chatted with the unfamiliar young man.

From their chat, Qiu Huanian learned that the young man was Meng Yuanling, Yun Cheng's maternal cousin, whose family ran a tofu shop in town and was fairly well-off. His father and Yun Cheng's mother were distant cousins, not closely related by blood, but because they lived close, the two families were very close.

Meng Yuanling was the youngest in his family, cute, lively, and loved to laugh, very much doted on. His personality was also more outgoing and open than the average young man, and he hit it off with Qiu Huanian, wishing they could become best friends on the spot.

"So you're the one who went at Zhao from Du Baoquan's house with a firewood knife yesterday!" Meng Yuanling grabbed Qiu Huanian's hand when the topic came up.

He had come to the village yesterday but unfortunately missed the chance to go to Qiu Huanian's house to see the excitement. When he heard about it from others, he deeply regretted not being there to cheer him on.

"I always thought Zhao was not a good person. Good for you!"

"Brother Ling!" Yun Cheng helplessly reminded him to watch his words.

Meng Yuanling pouted, clearly not convinced.

"You don't come to our village often, so you probably don't know her well. Why do you say that?" Qiu Huanian pretended to ask casually.

Meng Yuanling looked around and, seeing no outsiders, lowered his voice to tell Qiu Huanian, "I'll tell you, but you can't tell anyone else."

"Last year, Zhao suddenly approached my aunt, wanting to propose a marriage for her second son, the one studying at the county school, named Du Yunjing."

"My parents were somewhat interested because he was a scholar. But after half a month, when my aunt went to ask, Zhao said that a young man from a tofu-selling family like me wasn't worthy of her son. My aunt was so angry she almost got into a fight with her."

Although Zhao was in the wrong, Meng Yuanling was still an unmarried young man, and if the matter spread, his reputation would suffer, so neither family made it public.

But the grudge was settled, and Meng Yuanling's family hated Du Baoquan's family to the core. The clan leader also didn't think much of Zhao and was unwilling to give her face.

Hearing this, Qiu Huanian felt that Meng Yuanling had indeed suffered an unjust disaster and patted his hand to comfort him.

Meng Yuanling, however, turned his neck and said directly, "She looks down on my family for selling tofu, but I look down on her son for being like a scrawny weakling! We're all villagers here; who's looking down on whom? He's so capable, but he's still just a scholar, not a higher-ranking scholar!"

"Brother Ling, keep your voice down," Yun Cheng reminded him again as he led the donkey in circles.

"Ahem, ahem," Meng Yuanling coughed a few times, "Let's not talk about that, let's talk about something more interesting."

Next, prompted by Qiu Huanian's questions, Meng Yuanling gave a rundown of the town's situation, including how many streets there were, what shops were available, the prices of goods, and where it was good to do small business.

After the grain was ground, Meng Yuanling also had to take the mule cart back to town. Before leaving, he lingered, reluctant to go, and arranged to meet Qiu Huanian again at the tofu shop in town the next day with the candy.

As the sun gradually set in the west, Qiu Huanian carried the finely ground corn and sorghum back home. Jiu Jiu and Chun Sheng had already returned and were sitting on small stools in the yard picking through the wild vegetables they had gathered.

"Brother Hua! We picked a lot of tender bitter dragon sprouts from under the ridge today, and we also found a handful of morels," Chun Sheng immediately stood up to claim credit as soon as he saw Qiu Huanian.

Behind Du Village, there was a large, relatively gentle hillside where wild vegetables grew in abundance every spring. Villagers of all ages often went together to pick wild vegetables, as they would quickly grow back after being picked, so there was no competition.

"Chun Sheng and Jiu Jiu did a great job," Qiu Huanian did not skimp on praise.

Bitter dragon sprouts are a type of wild vegetable that looks like small celery. They are somewhat bitter when eaten alone but become sweet when paired with porridge.

Having eaten chicken soup in the morning and at noon, dinner had to be lighter. Qiu Huanian grabbed a handful of rice and a handful of sorghum to cook into mixed grain porridge, blanched and chopped the bitter dragon sprouts, and mixed them with salt and vinegar, making a simple dinner.

As for the thumb-sized morels, although they were delicious, a small handful wasn't enough for a full dish, so they had to be saved for making soup later.

After dinner, Jiu Jiu and Chun Sheng took the initiative to wash the dishes and clean the pot, while Qiu Huanian got up to process the grain that had been ground in the afternoon.

He put the sorghum and corn flour into large wooden basins, added water, and washed them several times. The water used for washing was poured into a bucket to settle, and the white substance left at the bottom of the bucket was crude starch, the raw material for making sorghum candy.

The remaining contents in the basin were not wasted either; they were steamed in a steamer for half an hour, turning into soft and porous gluten.

This gluten could serve as a staple, with a texture far superior to black flour buns and griddle bread, and could even be sold.

Washing the flour was a laborious task, and Qiu Huanian only managed to finish processing everything before it got completely dark. The steamed gluten was stored in the storeroom, and the wet starch was dug out and dried on a round winnowing basket, placed under the window to dry naturally.

That night, with clear goals and everything going smoothly, Qiu Huanian slept even better than the night before. The next morning, at the rooster's crow, the starch on the round winnowing basket had dried completely.

Two pecks of sorghum, roughly twenty-four pounds, produced twelve pounds of sorghum starch, with an extraction rate of about 50%.

Qiu Huanian rolled up his sleeves and officially started making sorghum candy.

He had arranged with Meng Yuanling the day before to bring his homemade candy to the tofu shop by noon, and Meng Yuanling would help him find a way to sell it.