My life skills in Daming Liver

"Song Yingxing is a scumbag!" Su Ze couldn't help complaining as he looked at the pot of yellow mud sugar water.

At the beginning, the sugar production went smoothly. The Cochin black granulated sugar was boiled and melted, and then the yellow mud was added. After a day and a night of precipitation, the yellow mud did absorb part of the colored substances in the black granulated sugar and precipitated at the bottom of the cauldron.

But the upper layer of the sugar water was far from being "white as snow" as Song Yingxing said, but a puddle of yellow-brown muddy solution.

Sure enough, this method was only heard by Song Yingxing, and then written in "Tiangong Kaiwu". Even if sugar can be refined in this way, it can't make the snow-white icing that Song Yingxing said.

Su Ze poured the upper layer of brown sugar water into the pot, and after heating, he got a ball of burnt black sugar, which was not even as good as the previous Cochin brown sugar.

Su Ze sat down and began to think. The principle of the yellow mud water leaching method is to absorb and filter the sediment. The yellow mud is an adsorbent that absorbs the colored substances in the brown sugar. There is no problem in principle, but if you want to absorb all the colored substances in the black sugar water, you need Yellow mud is definitely not acceptable.

In other words, the method recorded by Song Yingxing is only the first step in refining sugar.

Thinking about it, the method of refining sugar must be a commercial secret. Song Yingxing just heard about the first step of the process, and he took it for granted that this method can refine sugar.

However, in many notes at the end of the Ming Dynasty, this kind of white granulated sugar was indeed recorded, which should indicate that the technology of refining white sugar in the middle and late dynasties was indeed mature.

Su Ze began to recall the articles he had read related to sugar production.

Although it is hearsay that the method of making white sugar with yellow mud and water in "Tiangong Kaiwu", the technology for making rock sugar in the Ming Dynasty was already very mature.

Sugar production is actually a bit similar to salt production. An important step in modern sugar production is crystallization.

When Zhu Qi and the others refine salt, the way to let the crystalline salt precipitate is to pour brine to let the salt in the saturated turbid liquid precipitate.

The method of sugar crystallization is to use protein as a seed crystal, and after heating, sugar will crystallize and precipitate around the seed crystal.

Fuqing rock candy usually uses egg white as the seed crystal, but eggs are considered a relatively precious food in Changningwei, so Su Ze decided to use soy milk.

Egg white is protein, so soy milk is also protein, so it should be fine, right?

Su Ze put the brown sugar water that had been treated with yellow mud precipitation into the stove, then stuck it in the soy milk with a bamboo stick, and then put it in the pot, waiting for the precipitation of sugar crystals while heating.

This pot of sugar water was no surprise—it was mushy.

Looking at the sugar water, which became darker as it boiled, Su Ze also felt a little distressed. But he put down the spatula and began to sum up and think about the reasons for this failure.

Brown fine crystals have appeared at the bottom of the pot, so the idea of ​​adding protein to precipitate crystals should be correct.

Why the color becomes darker as it cooks? On the one hand, the temperature is too high, which changes the color of the white sugar, and on the other hand, the sugar water in the pot boils and cannot crystallize normally.

Su Ze remembered the process of frying the sugar color in "Culinary Arts". As the iron pan was heated, the color of the sugar color would become darker and darker. The failure this time should be due to the high temperature at the bottom of the pot.

Now that the reason has been found, it is necessary to control the heating temperature. Su Ze quickly thought of a method that he had learned in high school chemistry class - the water bath method.

Su Ze scooped up some sugar water again, put a small iron pot in the iron pot filled with water, and repeated the previous steps.

Sure enough, through the method of water bath, after adding the bamboo sticks with soy milk in the brown sugar water, light yellow sugar crystals began to grow along the bamboo sticks!

It's done!

Su Ze looked at the precipitated sugar crystals in surprise. Although the color was still a little yellowish, it was much better than before!

[Manufacturing white sugar, sugar making experience +10, Lv1, 11/100]

Gain experience! This also represents a sense of success in making sugar!

The next message from the system made Su Ze ecstatic!

[Discover the location "sugar factory", you can learn the skill "chemical industry", do you want to learn it? 】

Chemicals!

What are you waiting for, learn and learn!

This is a vital skill of God! Su Ze is also planning to find a way to rub the rifle with his hands. To improve gunpowder, he needs "chemical" skills!

Not to mention that chemical industry is the foundation of modern industry!

Why wasn't this skill triggered when I refined the salt last time?

Is it because the refined salt was made in the kitchen of the family temple last time? Doesn't qualify as a "factory"?

There is really no explanation for this broken system, and it's all up to you to figure it out.

Su Ze has "chemical" skills in his pocket, and some basic chemical production knowledge has entered his mind.

Looking again at the method of making sugar crystals that I have tinkered with, there is indeed a simple prototype of chemical production.

The yellow mud precipitates physical adsorption to remove impurities, and the protein is added to heat in a water bath to precipitate sugar crystals. The reason why the sugar crystals are not pure and transparent is because the temperature in the pot is still too high.

Sugar water will still change color at 100 degrees. In modern production, not only the water bath method is used, but also the method of reducing the pressure to lower the boiling point, so that sugar crystals can be precipitated when the sugar water rises to less than 100 degrees.

However, with the current level of metal casting, don't even think about pressure vessels. Being able to produce this kind of light yellow sugar crystals is already quite good.

When the bamboo sticks were covered with sugar crystals, Su Ze took the sugar crystals out of the pot and crushed the sugar crystals. As expected, he got pale yellow white sugar.

Su Ze has never seen what the white sugar in Fuzhou Mansion looks like, but the appearance of his own white sugar is much better than that of brown sugar, and it can definitely be sold at a price exceeding that of rock sugar!

After finding the right direction, the rest is the physical work of repeated labor.

With Su Ze's strength attribute as high as seven points, he worked for a full day and night, and only then did half of it, that is, fifty catties of cochin brown sugar, be made into twenty catties of white sugar.

Su Ze calculated that the actual sugar yield should be around two to one, that is, two catties of cochin brown sugar can produce one catty of white sugar.

The reason why the output is low this time is because a lot of sugar water was wasted in previous experiments.

Last time at the sugar store in Nanping County, the price of a catty of Fuqing rock sugar was one tael or five silver, so how can I sell these white sugars for a similar price.

That twenty catties of sugar is a full thirty taels of silver!

Su Ze clicked his tongue secretly, what is sudden profit! Sure enough, technological progress is huge profits!

But Su Ze is also very clear that this kind of huge profit can only last for a while.

When the method of making white sugar is popularized, white sugar will no longer be a luxury for high-end enjoyment, the price will return to a rational level, and the profit will not be so high.

In the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, the price of a catty of white sugar was five renminbi, which was almost twice that of black granulated sugar, so the profit of white sugar was only twice that of black granulated sugar.

Since the history books say that refined sugar technology has already appeared in this period, it is possible that these people who mastered the technology are just like Su Ze, still making a fortune silently, and the technology has not yet spread.

Once the technology spreads, the price of white sugar will also drop sharply.

The yellow mud water pouring method recorded by Song Yingxing came from the Fujian-Guangzhou area. If Su Ze wants to use sugar to make money for luxury goods, he must act quickly.

Thinking of this, Su Ze wrapped up the sugar, and the ghost market at the end of the ten-day would not come. This time, when he went to Nanping County, he had to cash out the sugar as soon as possible.