Chapter 60: Brewing Brown Candy
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Yu Bing hurriedly ran over and shouted in surprise, “Xiao Sheng! We’re going to be rich!”
Xiao Sheng followed closely behind. He smiled at the sugar cane and turned to look at Yu Bing. “Will we sell it directly or do you have other plans?”
When Yu Bing saw the sugar cane, her first reaction was to make brown sugar. Nutrient products like brown sugar could be sold for a lot of money in the supply company! ...
“I want to use it to make candy!”
When Xiao Sheng heard this, he said in surprise, “You know how to make candy?”
Yu Bing nodded proudly. “Actually, I have another idea. Previously, I saw that you’re able to hunt down some animals every few days. Now that there are sugarcanes, I want to smoke them and sell them at a much higher price!”
When Xiao Sheng heard a new term, he frowned at Yu Bing in confusion. “Smoke? What does that mean?”
This place was located in the north. In this era, transportation was inconvenient, so many people didn’t know about smoked meat. After all, this was a specialty dish of the southern states.
Seeing this, Yu Bing slowly said, “As the name implies, smoked meat is made by slowly smoking the meat with fire, so that it can be preserved for a long time in a cool and dry place. When smoking meat, the fire is the key. At that time, we’ll use the juice squeezed out of sugarcane dregs and these cypress branches on the mountain to burn the fire. This way, the smoked meat will have the aroma of sugarcane fruit and the unique fragrance of cypress trees. The key is that the meat smoked from cypress trees has the effect of embalming insects. It won’t look burnt either!”
Xiao Sheng’s eyes lit up when he heard this. This was a good idea. It was another profitable business without the cost of raw materials!
Yu Bing patted her head and said anxiously, “We don’t have a machine to squeeze sugar cane juice. What should we do?”
Xiao Sheng lowered his eyes and thought for a moment before saying calmly, “It’s okay. I can get a juicing stool.”
This time, it was Yu Bing’s turn to be stunned. She had only seen a juicer before. What the hell was a juicing stool?
It was rare for Xiao Sheng to see Yu Bing confused. He smiled and said, “You’ll understand after I bring it back. That’s an old antique. It should be called a Chinese juicer.”
Yu Bing stopped hesitating when she heard this. She would eventually see it anyway.
The two of them raised their sickles and slashed at the sugar cane. They only stopped after slashing for about 20 pounds. Yu Bing estimated that they could make a sample of brown sugar of about one pound.
The two of them carried the sugar cane back to the well at the side of the wooden house. Xiao Sheng went to borrow the juicing stool.
Yu Bing finished peeling the sugarcane and cut it into small pieces to increase the juice yield.
As soon as she was done, Xiao Sheng returned with the tool and even went home to get an aluminum lunch box to make a mold.
Xiao Sheng put down the chair and looked up at Yu Bing. “This has a history of more than a hundred years! We have to be careful with this heirloom. Don’t ruin their treasure.”
Yu Bing looked around the wooden juicing stool excitedly.
The so-called juicing stool was actually a four-legged wooden stool about a meter long. Its hind legs were slightly longer than its front legs. When placed on flat ground, the stool would tilt forward. There was also an armrest at the front of the wooden stool to suppress the wooden stool when juicing.
There was a depression in the front of the wooden stool. This was where the sugar cane was placed. There was a thin trough in front of the depression that was connected to the front of the stool. The sugar cane juice would be squeezed by the matching wooden stick in the depression. Then, juice would flow through the thin trough and into the wooden bucket used to store the sugar cane juice.
Everything was ready. Yu Bing was responsible for putting in the sugar cane pieces while Xiao Sheng was in charge of pressing. The two of them cooperated well and finished squeezing the sugar cane in an hour.
They started a fire and poured all the light yellow sugar cane juice into the big iron pot.
The two of them took turns stirring with the spatula. An hour later, the sugarcane juice in the pot turned into dense bubbles. After they threw out the foam, the fire simmered for a while before turning into a small fire and continued brewing until the color turned dark red and thickened.
Only then did Yu Bing let Xiao Sheng quickly move the big pot to the other side of the stove that didn’t have a fire. Then, she took a shovel and kept stirring. After a few minutes, she realized that there was anti-sand in the brown sugar and stopped stirring. She placed the anti-sand brown sugar into the lunch box and pressed it flat with the shovel to cool it.
After it hardened, the brown sugar was removed from the mold. Yu Bing used the knife to cut the brown sugar into small pieces. Then, she used the knife to pry it open. The brown sugar was completed!
Xiao Sheng twisted the cut corner with his finger and tasted it. His eyes lit up. “It tastes the same as the brown sugar in the supply company!”
When Yu Bing saw this, she raised her eyebrows and said proudly, “What I made will definitely be high quality!”