Pictures of Rural Fermented Soybeans

Materials

Soybeans, salt and water.

Production method

Select soybeans, remove bad, spoiled beans and other impurities, wash with water, put into a pot and cook with water. The soup is clear and must not be mushy. The beans are especially crispy when twisted by hand, and then turn off the fire and simmer until the next morning when the beans are red hot. Then use a meat blender to grind the beans into an even paste. The paste can be wet or dry, but if it is too dry, it will be difficult to clump into wine grains, affecting normal fermentation. Too much water, the sauce spirits will be too soft, not easy to mold, spirits are susceptible to heat, insects, corruption and deterioration. The general size of wine spirits is suitable for three pounds of dried beans, about 30 cm long, with a cross-sectional area of 20 square centimeters. It is easy for fermentation and enzymatic changes. In a cool and ventilated place indoors, let the sauce grains dry outside (about three to five days), then wrap a layer of kraft paper around the outside of the grains (to prevent corrosion by mosquitoes and flies, dust staining, etc.). , and place in a cool, ventilated place. With an inch or so between the grains, the grains can be layered for a long time, but separated by thin strips of wood, the grains will take about a week. To some extent, it's good to have gray hairs inside. The sauce will be served on April 18 or 28 of the lunar calendar. After removing the outer wrapper, the billets of sauce are carefully washed in water, brushing off all impurities from the skins; the sauce is then cut into the smallest possible pieces and put into jars. The jars should be placed in front of a window in full sunlight. To avoid too much coldness, the sauce-jars are generally to be placed on masonry. Immediately afterward, large-grained sea salt is melted well in clean well water in the proportion of two pounds of bean material to one pound of salt, and then the sediment is removed and injected into the jar, the ratio of water to crushed sauce blanks being about two to one. Then cover the mouth of the jar with a clean white cloth. Three days later, the pain begins. Sauce rake (that is, a wooden stick under the point of the board) rake once a day, about a month. Rake once a day in the morning and once in the evening, about 200 times each time, fishing out the foam and throwing it away until the strong substance (foam produced on the surface of the sauce) is completely removed. The sauce will become very fine after each day's raking, and the sauce will be ready to eat as soon as it is delivered. During this time, special care should be taken to avoid "muffling the head of the sauce" - an odor resulting from the over-fermentation of the sauce. In order to prevent rain and ventilation, the jar mouth should be covered with a "sauce jar cap". Rural traditional sauce cap production method is local materials, straw or reed straw woven straw hat, breathable rain.