Making Pottery

The fruit wine from the tribe is quite useful for cooking, but its alcohol content is rather low.

He wanted to try brewing Flour Fruit, and then see if he could distill it a few more times to make some high-proof liquor to use as alcohol.

As a veterinarian, he felt a bit out of place not having alcohol on his hands.

Wu Jiong: "You can try it if you want. There's so much Flour Fruit, wasting a little won't matter."

Jian Mo thought for a moment, "It shouldn't be a waste. Even if the fermentation fails, the chances of it spoiling are relatively small. Humans can't eat it, but it's not a big problem to use it to feed the Flying-Winged Beast or the Pack-Pack Beast."

Wu Jiong: "Then let's give it a try. I'll try to peel Flour Fruit when I have some free time tomorrow."

Jian Mo sighed, "The main problem is that I'm not very good at brewing wine."

As the saying goes, "every profession has its own secrets," and while Jian Mo excelled in her major courses, her knowledge of miscellaneous subjects like winemaking was relatively average.

Who would have thought that one day he would need to brew his own wine?

Chapter 19 Pottery Making

With so much Flour Fruit at home, and it was just piling up anyway, Jian Mo finally decided to try brewing some wine.

If all else fails, it'll just be a waste of some Flour Fruit; there won't be a huge loss.

There were soaked dough Flour Fruit in the river, so Jian Mo went and carried a basket of them back.

Wu Jiong assisted him. "Is it the same as making the Flour Fruit cake?"

Jian Mo: "No, no, no, we only need to get to the crushing stage; the rest is different."

Jian Mo planned, "I'm not going to use lye water anymore. I'll just crush it directly, then steam it, and then mix it with the fruit wine residue."

Wu Jiong cautioned, "If the final product tastes Flour Fruit, it probably won't taste very good."

Jian Mo was more optimistic. "No, I plan to distill it this time. The distilled liquor will taste like regular baijiu, and you probably won't be able to taste the raw ingredients much."

It was just a little bit of Flour Fruit, Wu Jiong, seeing that he understood, said no more.

The two of them mashed the Flour Fruit and then steamed it.

The steamed Flour Fruit didn't smell very good, but it was quite soft, somewhat like thoroughly steamed beans. It could be easily mashed into a paste.

It certainly looks like it's packed with starch.

After the Flour Fruit has cooled down a bit, Jian Mo scoops it into a large earthenware jar that has been washed with hot water and dried. Then he adds the remaining lees from the bottom of the fruit wine and stirs it vigorously until well mixed.

This step should have involved adding yeast, but he didn't have any on hand, so he had to use the lees from fruit wine instead.

Fruit wine is fermented with natural yeast, so there should be yeast residue at the bottom.

However, without proper yeast, the fermentation effect may not be as good, and it may need to ferment for a longer period of time.

After stirring evenly, Jian Mo covered the mouth of the jar with the prepared dry leaves, carefully tied it with rope, and placed the entire jar near the fire pit.

Now that the weather has cooled down, the hearth will provide the right temperature for fermentation.

Wu Jiong watched everything he did. "Is this all you're going to do?"

Jian Mo a conservative estimate. "I think it's about time. We'll check on it every two days, and if it really doesn't work, we'll figure something out."

Jian Mo was quite optimistic about this can of Flour Fruit.

He opened it twice during the process, Flour Fruit began to ferment under the action of yeast. Although it mostly tasted Flour Fruit, a faint aroma of alcohol could already be detected.

The color of the Flour Fruit was normal, without being red, blue, or green, indicating that it was not contaminated by other bacteria.

That's right, there's always water at the bottom of the wine jar.

When Jian Mo first saw it, she thought she had accidentally spilled water while cooking, so she wiped it off with a dry leaf.

He didn't think much of it when he saw it a second time.

It wasn't until the third time he saw it that he realized something was wrong. He picked up the wine jar and examined it for a long time, but there were no cracks or anything on it; it looked perfectly fine.

Wu Jiong saw him holding a wine jar and asked, "What's wrong?"

Jian Mo turned around. "Come here and feel it, is this jar leaking water? I feel something's wrong."

Wu Jiong came over and took a look. "It's alright, not much seepage."

Jian Mo looked puzzled.

Wu Jiong said, "A little bit will always seep out. This jar is good; we'll be able to keep most of it."

Jian Mo: "This is pretty good?!"

Wu Jiong touched it again, and asked in confusion, "What's wrong?"

Jian Mo suspected that Wu Jiong might not be interested in things in the kitchen, so he had no idea.

He also mentioned it to Qing Kuo and the others.

Everyone acted normally, Zhou Fu even comforted Jian Mo: "Your jar is actually quite good, mine is much worse. It cracked after a while and everything inside leaked out."

Jian Mo: "How could it crack after using it for a while?"

Qing Kuo's voice carried a hint of laughter. "What are you talking about? Nothing lasts forever!"

Zhou Fu suggested to Jian Mo, "If you really don't like the bottom being wet, you can dig up some soil and take it home. Put the soil at the bottom of the jar to line it, and the water won't leak out."

Jian Mo: "... The main idea is 'out of sight, out of mind,' right?"

Everyone laughed, Zhou Fu nodded earnestly. "Yes."

The area around the hearth is always damp, which is really annoying and unhygienic.

Jian Mo couldn't stand it anymore and finally decided to take the advice and go outside to dig up some mud to use as a base.

The earthenware jars here may have leaked water because they were not glazed.

It's fine for storing ordinary things, but it'll be exposed when you put liquid in it.

I've certainly gained some new life experience.

If he were on Earth, how would he know that clay pots can leak?

There was soil behind the house, Jian Mo took her basket and went to dig.

While digging, he noticed that the soil was quite fine and compact, and felt quite heavy, unlike ordinary soil.

He carried a basket of soil home and asked Wu Jiong, "Is this clay used for making pottery?"

After examining it carefully, Wu Jiong nodded. "What's wrong?"

Jian Mo: "When do you make pottery in the tribe? I'd like to try and make some too, and see if I can make pottery that doesn't leak."