How people brewed wine in ancient times

The development of China's brewing technology can be divided into two stages, the first stage is the natural fermentation stage, after thousands of years, the traditional fermentation technology from the conception, development and even maturity. Even in the contemporary natural fermentation technology has not completely disappeared. Some of the mysteries are still to be solved. People mainly make wine by experience, and the scale of production is generally small, basically hand-operated. The quality of the wine is not guaranteed by a set of credible testing indicators.

The second stage began in the Republic of China, when the introduction of Western scientific and technological knowledge, especially microbiology, biochemistry and engineering knowledge, led to a great change in traditional brewing technology, and people understood the mysteries of the microcosm of brewing, which led to a great reduction in the intensity of labor, an increase in the level of mechanization, and a better guarantee of the quality of wine.

China's yellow wine, also known as rice wine (ricewine), belongs to the brewing wine, and occupies an important place among the world's three major brewing wines (yellow wine, wine and beer). The brewing technology is unique and has become a typical representative and model of the oriental brewing world.

I. Raw materials for brewing yellow wine:

Yellow wine is a brewed wine made from grains, with wheat or wheat curd as the saccharification and fermentation agent. Historically, the raw materials used in the production of yellow wine in the north to corn (scientific name: Setaria italica, in ancient times, is Panicum, Liang, Jigen, millet, sometimes also known as Liang, now also known as grain, after removing the shell called millet). In the south, it was common to use rice (especially glutinous rice as the best ingredient) as the raw material to brew yellow wine. Due to the beginning of the Song Dynasty, the political, cultural and economic centers moved southward, the production of yellow wine was limited to the southern provinces. During the Southern Song Dynasty, shochu began to be produced, and it was popularized in the north beginning in the Yuan Dynasty, the production of yellow wine in the north gradually dwindled, and the people in the south who drank shochu were not as common as those in the north, so in the south, the production of yellow wine was preserved, and in the Qing Dynasty the yellow wine around the southern area of Shaoxing was dominant at home and abroad. At present, yellow wine production is mainly concentrated in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Fujian, Jiangxi and Guangdong, Anhui and other places, with a small amount of production in Shandong, Shaanxi, Dalian and other places.　Second, the name of yellow wine

Yellow wine belongs to the brewing wine, the degree of alcohol is generally about 15 degrees.

Yellow wine, as the name suggests, is yellow-colored wine. So some people translate the name of yellow wine as "Yellow Wine". In fact, this is not appropriate. The color of yellow wine is not always yellow. In ancient times, when wine filtration technology was not mature, the wine was cloudy and was called "white wine" or cloudy wine. The color of yellow wine is now also black or red, so it should not be taken literally. The essence of yellow wine is that it is made from grains, and since "rice" can be used to represent grain, it is more appropriate to call it "rice wine". Nowadays, the term "Rice Wine" is commonly used to denote yellow wine.

In contemporary times, yellow wine is a generic term for grain brewing wine, and grain-based brewing wine (excluding distilled spirits) can be categorized as yellow wine. Although yellow wine as a collective term for grain brewing wine, but some areas of the folk on the local brewing, and confined to the local sales of wine still retains some of the traditional title, such as Jiangxi's water wine, Shaanxi's thick wine, Tibet's barley wine, such as hard to say that they are yellow wine, the local people may not be able to accept.

In ancient times, "wine" was a generic term for all liquors, and in the historical period when distilled spirits did not yet exist, "wine" was brewed spirits. After the emergence of distilled soju, it is more complicated, "wine" this name is both the collective name of all wine, in some occasions, but also the collective name of the grain brewing wine, such as Li Shizhen?lt;<Materia Medica >> the liquor at that time is divided into three major categories: liquor, soju, wine. One of the "wine" section, are all grain brewing wine, because wine is a general term for all wines, but also a general term for grain brewing wine, after all, there should be a general term that only includes grain brewing wine. Thus, the emergence of yellow wine as a specialized name for grain-brewed wine is not accidental.

"Yellow wine", in the Ming Dynasty may be specifically referred to brewing time is longer, darker color of rice wine, and "white wine" to distinguish between the Ming Dynasty's "white wine" is not the current distilled liquor, such as the Ming Dynasty, "three", "white wine", is made of white wine, "white wine", "white wine" is made of white wine, "white wine" is made of white wine. Baijiu", is brewed with white rice, white quartz and white water, brewing time is relatively short wine, wine color turbid, white. The formation of yellow wine (or brown and other dark colors), mainly in the cooking or storage process, the sugar in the wine and amino acids to form a Melad reaction, resulting in pigmentation. There are also pigments made by adding caramel (called "sugar color") to deepen its color. In the Ming Dynasty, Dai Xi edited the & lt; & lt; Yang Yu monthly order & gt; & gt; Volume XI, there are: "Where the yellow wine and white wine, less into the soju, it is not sour through the night". From this reference can be clearly seen between yellow wine, white wine and shochu, yellow wine refers to the brewing time is longer old wine, white wine refers to the brewing time is shorter rice wine (generally with white quartz, that is, the rice quartz as a saccharification fermentation agent). In the Ming Dynasty, the exclusivity of the name Huangjiu was not yet very strict, and although it could not include all grain-brewed wines, at least those brewed on a larger scale throughout the south, which were treated with coloring in the brewing process, could be included. To the Qing Dynasty, the production of brewing wine around the preservation, but the old Shaoxing wine, rice wine wind surging nationwide, this kind of wine marketed throughout the country, high quality, the color is generally darker, may be with the "yellow wine" the name of the eventual establishment of a certain relationship. Because the emperor of the Qing dynasty has a special love for Shaoxing wine. During the Qing Dynasty, there was already a quot;ban on soju but not on yellow winequot;". By the time of the Republic of China, yellow wine as the collective name of grain brewing wine has been basically determined. Huangjiu is categorized under the category of native wines (domestic wines are called native wines to show that they correspond to the foreign wines of Po Lai Pin).

The development of China's brewing technology can be divided into two stages, the first stage is the natural fermentation stage, after thousands of years, the traditional fermentation technology from the conception, development and even maturity. Even in contemporary times, natural fermentation technology has not completely disappeared. Some of the mysteries are still to be solved. People mainly make wine by experience, the scale of production is generally small, basically manual operation. The quality of wine is not guaranteed by a set of credible testing indicators.　The second stage started from the Republic of China, due to the introduction of western scientific and technological knowledge, especially microbiology, biochemistry and engineering knowledge, the traditional brewing technology has undergone a great change, people know the mystery of the microcosm of brewing, the labor intensity of the production has been greatly reduced, the level of mechanization has been improved, and the quality of the wine has been more guaranteed.

Brewing technology before the Han Dynasty

Because of the remote era, the state of brewing technology before the Han Dynasty is how the development, I am afraid that it is difficult to return to its true face, only from the sporadic textual and archaeological data to speculate.

One, from the ancient period of brewing apparatus to see brewing:

Brewing technology before the written record, only from its brewing apparatus to be analyzed. Fortunately, in 1979, China's archaeologists in Shandong Juxian Lingyinhe Dawenkou culture tombs found five thousand years ago, a complete set of brewing equipment, for the unraveling of the mystery of the brewing technology at the time provides valuable information. This set of brewing equipment, including the potteries used for cooking, fermentation with a large mouth, filtering wine with a funnel tank, storage of wine with a ceramic urn, with the same place also found drinking utensils, such as single-ear cups, goblet-shaped cups, cups with high handles, etc., *** counting more than 100 pieces. According to the analysis of archaeologists, the tomb owner may have been a professional brewer. (Wang Shuming: "Brewing in the Late Dawenkou Culture", <<Chinese Cooking>>, No. 9, 1987).

In 1974 and 1985, archaeologists discovered a complete brewery of the middle Shang Dynasty at the Shang Dynasty site of Taisi, Gaocheng, Hebei. The condition of the facilities therein was also similar to that of the Dawenkou culture period.

From the configuration of the brewing apparatus, the basic process of brewing in the ancient period included steaming, fermentation, filtration and storage of wine. After steaming the raw materials, to facilitate the role of microorganisms, made of wine, but also easy to be broken down by enzymes, fermentation into wine, and then filtered, filtered out the lees, to get the wine (also does not rule out the mash made of wine directly eaten). These processes and these rudimentary utensils are the most basic elements of winemaking. It is basically the same type of utensils as those depicted on the frescoes in the tombs of the kings of the Fifth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. Since the combination of brewing utensils includes utensils for boiling materials (ceramic tripods or general's helmets), indicating that the raw materials for brewing were boiled before brewing, it can be further hypothesized that brewing wine by means of wine curd may have been one of the ways of brewing wine 5,000 years ago. Since the boiled raw materials basically no longer germinate, it was possible to cultivate them into sake brews. Based on the combination of brewing equipment, we cannot rule out the use of the tiller method for brewing wine.　There is a passage in <<Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine - Ling Shu>> which also explains that in the ancient times of brewing wine, boiling the raw materials was one of the steps. The text is: "Wine, ...... the liquid of cooked grains." In <<Huangdi Neijing-Suwen>> in the "soup liquid mash sweet theory", "Huangdi asked: 'for the five grains of soup liquid and mash sweet Naihe?' Qibo said: 'must be rice, cooking rice pay, rice is complete, rice pay is firm'". This also indicates that brewing mash, to use rice pay to steam rice. In short, brewing with boiled raw materials indicates that the use of qu is very common. Qu method of brewing wine was later one of the main ways of brewing wine in China. Of course<<The Yellow Emperor's Internal Canon>> was made by a later generation, and it is difficult to confirm whether some of its statements really reflect the situation in ancient times.

Two, the brewing of the Shang and Zhou:

1, the Shang Dynasty

The Shang Dynasty aristocrats drinking alcohol was extremely prevalent, as can be confirmed by the large number of bronze wine vessels that have been unearthed. Alcoholic beverages at that time were wine, sweet and sacrificial spirit.

Brewing li (beer) with the tiller method may also have been one of China's brewing techniques in ancient times. Both liling and tillering are recorded in the oracle bones of the Shang Dynasty. This aspect can be referred to the section on the origin of wine in Chapter One.

2, <<Zhou Rites>> in the "five Qi", "three wine" The Western Zhou Dynasty established a set of institutions on the brewing of wine, wine with strict management. First of all, this set of institutions, there are specialized technical personnel, there is a fixed brewing style law, there are wine quality standards. As <<zhouli-tianguan> > recorded: "wine is, sergeant four people, eight people under the sergeant, two people in the house, the history of the eight people." Wine is in charge of the wine decree, in order to type method of teaching wine material,......, discern the name of the five Qi, one said pan Qi, two said sweet Qi, three said ounce Qi, four said Da Qi, five said Shen Qi. Discriminate three wine things, one said the matter of wine, two said the old wine, three said clear wine." "Five Qi" can be understood as the five stages of the winemaking process, in some occasions, but also can be understood as five different sizes of wine.

"Three wines," namely, matter wine, old wine and clear wine. It was probably the classification of wine in the royal palace during the Western Zhou period. Wine is specially prepared for the rituals and wine, something when the temporary brewing, so the brewing period is relatively short, the wine brewed, immediately after the use of, without the need to go through the storage. Shiso is a type of sake that has been stored. Sake is probably the most advanced type of sake, and is probably filtered and clarified. This shows that the technology of sake brewing is more perfect. For a long time in ancient times, sake and lees were consumed directly without separation.

3.<<Rites>> in the "six musts"

Reflecting the various ceremonial systems before the Qin and Han dynasties, the <> was written in the Western Han Dynasty, and now has a commentary by Zheng Xuan of the Eastern Han Dynasty. It records a passage that is still considered to be the essence of brewing technology: "In the month of mid-winter, it is the order of the big chiefs, Panicum rice must be Qi, the cork must be time, Zhan Khei must be clean, the water spring must be fragrant, the pottery must be good, the fire Qi must be obtained, and the use of six things, the big chiefs supervise, there is no difference (<< Ritual Records - Monthly Decree >>)." Six must be" although the number of words is small, but the content involved is quite extensive and comprehensive, indispensable, is the brewing of the six principles to master. From now on, these six principles are still of guiding significance.

4. Shochu in ancient times

"Shochu" was a kind of high-grade wine in ancient times. In the Book of Rites - The Monthly Orders, there is a passage that reads: "In the month of Mengqiu, the Son of Heaven drank shochu". According to the Shuowen Jiezi (说文解字)>>>, shochu was a triple liquor. Does triple liquor mean adding two more rice crackers to the wine mash, or adding two more times to the already-brewed wine? There is no clear explanation in the records, but one of the characteristics of shochu is that it is more mellow than normal wine, so both possibilities exist. However, judging from the brewing method in the pre-Qin era<<Nourishing Life Fang>>, it is likely that shochu was brewed by adding good wine to the brewed mash in three batches.

Three: The oldest records of the wine-making process

There are many oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty, but it is difficult to find complete records of the wine-making process. The brewing technology of the Zhou Dynasty can only be speculated on the basis of a few words.

The earliest records of the brewing process ever found in China can be found in the palindromes <<Nutritional Formula>> and <<Miscellaneous Therapeutic Formula>> unearthed from the tomb of the Western Han Dynasty in Changsha's Mawangdui.

One of the examples is the "mash li zhong" method of production **** including ten processes.

Because this is China's earliest record of a more complete brewing process technology, and the book reflects things are pre-Qin period, so it has a high research value. The general process is as follows:

Medicinal herbs → chopped → soak (boil) to get the juice → soak quartz ← (water)

│ ↓

│ mix ← rice ← steaming ← rice

└─ → ↓

Fermentation

↓

Wine mash ← medicinal herbs

↓

Good wine → continue fermentation

↓

Medicinal wine

From the above, we can find the following characteristics of winemaking in the pre-Qin period:Two kinds of wine querns were used; the querns were soaked first and the juice was taken for winemaking. At the end of the fermentation period, good wine was added to the mash in three batches, which was the unique technology of "shochu," as it was called in ancient times.

Brewing technology from the Han Dynasty to the Sui Dynasty

I. Brewing technology in the Han Dynasty

Since the Qin and Han dynasties, the political unification of the country has led to the rapid development of social productive forces, and the level of agricultural production has increased dramatically, thus providing a material basis for the prosperity of the brewing industry.

Shandong zhucheng liangtai unearthed a Han dynasty portrait stone has a kitchen map, part of the picture for the brewing situation depicted the whole process of brewing at that time are shown. One person is kneeling down and mashing the curd, and next to him there is a ceramic jar where the curd should be soaked, one person is adding wood to burn rice, one person is chopping wood, one person is fiddling with the rice beside the cauldron, and one person is responsible for filtering the curd juice into the rice and mixing the fermented mash well. Two people were in charge of filtering the sake, and one person was holding a spoon, presumably to fill bottles with the liquor. Below are the large vats for fermentation, all resting in the middle of the sake shop. Presumably, one person had stolen the wine and was being beaten up when he was caught. The sake was probably filtered using a silken bag and squeezed dry by hand. The filtered sake was put into small-mouthed bottles for further aging.

Based on this chart, you can sort out the route of the brewing process in the Eastern Han Dynasty as:

Wine Quarter Blocks Brewing Raw Materials

↓ ↓

Mashing Steaming

↓ ↓

Soaking the Quarter Cooling

↓ ↓

Filtering of Quarter Juice ───→ Into the Large Mouth Jar for Fermentation (Wine Kiln)

↓

Filtering

↓

Into the small mouth wine bottle

This brewing process route can be said to be the main operation method of brewing wine in the Han Dynasty and a long period of history before it.

Wang Mang, who came to power in the new Han Dynasty, restored the monopoly of wine in the Western Han Dynasty, and for this purpose, a detailed ratio of raw materials for brewing was formulated, i.e., a brewing with two dolors of coarse rice and one dolor of quartz, yielding six dolors of six buckets of finished wine. Wine yield 220%, this ratio is also very close to the present. From this, we can also see that the amount of wine quartz is very large (accounting for 50% of the rice used for brewing), which indicates that the sugar fermentation power of wine quartz is not high.

Toward the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Cao Cao discovered that the home brewing method of a deceased magistrate in his hometown (the Jiuyun Chunjiu method) was new and unique, and that the resulting wine was incredibly mellow and rich. He offered this formula to Emperor Xian of Han Dynasty. This method is an important supplemental fermentation method in the history of brewing, and even in the history of fermentation. This method is called quot;feeding methodquot; in modern times. In the fermentation engineering is categorized as "feed-batch fermentation" (Feed-batch fermentation). Feed-batch fermentation has since become the most important method of feeding in the brewing of yellow wine in China. The brewing method in the Qimin Yaojiao (The Essentials of the People) generally utilized this method.

The "Nine Brews Spring Wine Method" is a fermentation cycle in which the ingredients are not added all at once, but are divided into nine inputs. This method is described in the Qimin yaojutsu (The Essential Art of Qi Min), which begins with soaking the quartz, adding a stone of rice for the first time, and then adding a stone of rice every three days thereafter, for a total of nine times. Cao Cao claimed that the quality of wine made by this method was very good. Therefore, he recommended this method to the emperor at that time.

Qimin Yaojutsu in addition to the above replenishment method quot;decreasing replenishment method", there is also "increasing replenishment method". Such as "law wine 67" country "___ rice wine method", the first add material 3 dou three liters, the second add six dou six liters, the third add a stone three dou two liters, the fourth cast add material two stone six dou four liters. The most important thing is that the amount of material should be decided according to the strength of the heat of the song.

The fact that the feeding method began to be used in the Han Dynasty indicates an improvement in the quality of the liquor quartz from the point of view of the function of the quartz. This may be related to the common use of block quartz at that time. The numbers of root molds and yeasts in blockquote are relatively higher than those in loosequote. Since these two types of microorganisms could be propagated in the fermentation solution, it was not necessary to use too much of the quartz, and it was only necessary to expand the culture step by step. The method of the feeding method therefore also has the function of expanding the culture step by step in essence. This is illustrated by the fact that the dosage of Shenqu in Qimin Yaojiaozhu is very small.

According to the Xijing Miscellany: The Han system: the clan temple August drinking shochu, with nine brews of taijiu, the emperor serves the ancestral temple, to the first month of the month to do wine, August into the name of the shochu, a said nine brews, a mellow shochu ".

Second, the brewing technology in "The Essentials of the Qi People"

The Northern Wei Dynasty's Jia Si Fenghua wrote the monumental "The Essentials of the Qi People," a monograph on agricultural technology, and as one of the products of the agricultural by-products, the wine production technology occupies a certain amount of space. Among them, there are eight examples of the method of song-making and more than forty examples of the method of wine-making. What is included is actually the brewing method of various regions (mainly in the north) since the Han Dynasty, which is the first systematic summary of brewing technology in the history of China. The brewing technology route is roughly the same as the brewing route of the Han Dynasty summarized earlier. However, what is more valuable is that many principles of brewing technology are summarized in "The Essentials of Qi Min", which still play a guiding significance in modern times.　1, with the method of qu

Wine brewing with wine quartz is a feature of our country, how the ancients used the quartz is worth studying. Qu is a saccharine fermenter, and in ancient times, it was regarded as a primer for fermentation. In ancient times, one of the key steps in brewing wine was to first make this primer from the wine quill, and whether or not the wine quill was used properly often determined the success or failure of the brewing of wine. This is because the ancient brewing quill is naturally inoculated with microorganisms, and is highly susceptible to contamination with stray bacteria.

There are two ways to use the ancient method, one is to soak the wine in water, to be launched after the wine (that is, after the enzyme in the quartz are dissolved and activated), filtering the juice, and then put into the rice to start fermentation, which is known as soaking the quartz method; the other is to crush the wine into a fine powder, and directly mixed with the rice, which may be referred to as the "end of the quartz mixing rice method This may be called the "rice mixing method". The soaking method is probably older than the mixing method. The soaking method is probably transformed from the sugaring and fermentation of tiller (grain buds). The method of soaking qu was the most common method of using qu in the Han Dynasty and even in the Northern Wei Dynasty, which can be concluded from the extensive use of the method of soaking qu in the Qimin Yaojiao (The Essentials of Qi Min).

Anciently, it was understood that the water used to soak the quartz should be treated separately according to the different seasons. Winter brewing water can be directly immersed in the song; after the spring, the temperature is high, the water is not clean, you need to boil the water, boiling water can not be directly immersed in the song, need to be cooled down before immersed in the song (boiling water will be in the song in the microorganisms will be scalded to death, and the enzyme will be inactivated).

Dipping, but also have to pay attention, should be based on the season, the water temperature to determine the dip time. In order to ensure the effect of soaking the song.

2, the use of acid slurry

Brewer's yeast likes to grow in a more acidic environment, the optimal pH for its growth is best between 4.2-5.0. Some microorganisms such as bacteria are easier to grow in a neutral pH environment. They are inhibited at lower pH. When rice is added to water, its pH is often not in the range of 4.2-5.0. In order to overcome this contradiction, the ancients, in addition to choosing the brewing time in the lower temperature of the winter, but also used that bold, but also wise "acid for acid" strategy: sour paste method. Originally brewing is taboo is the wine becomes sour. However, the ancients skillfully utilized the strategy of acidification before brewing, so that the acidic environment in the wine mash was conducive to the growth of beneficial yeasts, and not conducive to the growth of spoilage fungi (bacteria), which, on the contrary, inhibited the souring of the wine. The earliest record of this method is the Qimin Yaojiao (The Essentials of Qi Min). There are three instances in the Qimin Yaojiao in which the acid slurry method was used in the brewing of wine.

3, solid and semi-solid fermentation method One of the important features of China's yellow wine brewing is the high concentration of solids in the fermentation mash. This feature is even more obvious when compared with foreign wine fermentation and beer fermentation. Beer also uses grains as raw materials, and the ratio of malt to water in its saccharification mash is about 1:4.3. Whisky, on the other hand, has a saccharification mash of about 1:5.

The Book of Han - Pingdang biography, such as Jun note: "a bucket of rice to get a bucket of wine for the top honors, a bucket of millet to get a bucket of wine for the middle honors, a bucket of corn to get a bucket of wine for the bottom honors". A bucket of rice out of wine a bucket, visible brewing raw rice in the fermentation mash concentration must be very high.

The ratio between rice and wine for brewing was 2:1:6.6 during the Wang Mang period of the New Han Dynasty, a ratio that is relatively common in China. The concentration of solids in the fermentation mash is also considerably higher than that of beer.

The concentration of solids in the fermentation mash of the brewing method in the Qimin Yaojiao can be broadly categorized into three types: one is extremely concentrated, such as ___michu wine and ___miju. The ratio of solids to water is 1:0.7-0.8, with the center being around 1 :1. The thinnest of all is summer shochu, which is about 1:3. This is a relatively bland sake that is fermented for less than 24 hours, brewed in the evening, and sold the following morning. But in any case, the vast majority of wines are stronger than beer.

From the records of the "Essentials of the Qimin Art," it appears that the wine that uses the least amount of water is "____ rice wine" (a type of French wine), but in fact, it is several types of shochu that use the least amount of water and are the most concentrated. Shochu is characterized by the fact that it is not brewed by the common method of soaking the quill, nor is the raw material steamed, but is first ground into a powder and then steamed. The powder is mixed with steamed rice flour and fermented in a vat, which is almost like solid-state fermentation. Another feature of the shochu brewing method is that the brewing time is as long as seven or eight months, and the fermentation is basically carried out under closed conditions, i.e., when the rice flour is blended with a small amount of water, it is put into an urn, which is even more hermetically sealed so that there is no leakage of air. Due to the basic isolation of foreign oxygen into the boundary, the fermentation is always in an anaerobic state. It is favorable for alcohol fermentation. This method of brewing wine, wine color as thick as sesame oil, the first can drink good wine a bucket of people, only forbidden to get a liter and a half, drink three liters of drunkenness, do not pour, must die, where people are drunk drunkenness and ignorant,......, a bucket of wine, drunkenness of twenty people. Those who get no not pass the rate."

5, temperature control

Ancients and modern people in the temperature of this physical quantity is nothing more than the expression of the different, exactly the ancients are not expressed in numerical values, but with the human body temperature or the temperature of the boiling water as a reference to roughly determine the brewing should be controlled in the range of what temperature. Our people in the brewing process has mastered the key aspects of the temperature control points, which in the "qimin yaojutsu" in a more complete embodiment. This is the control of temperature when soaking quartz; the control of temperature when spreading rice; and the maintenance of proper fermentation temperature.　6, brewing after treatment technology

To the Northern Wei Dynasty, brewing after treatment technology is still relatively simple. From the East Han Dynasty portrait stone on the "kitchen picture can be seen, wine filtration is the use of silk bag natural filtration plus hand squeezing.

Qimin yaojutsu" mentioned the "bet on wine" method. But how to "bet" is not clear. Such as in the "Japonica method of wine" is done: "make clear, to pot cover, sealed with dense mud, after seven days, it will be very clear and clear, pick up the clear, and then bet?quot;. The first is to let the liquor naturally clarify, take the upper clear liquor, the following lees are used to bet on the method to further take its liquor. In the ancient Chinese characters, "押" is "压", which means to press the lees from the top to the bottom with a heavy object. This was the way to dry the lees. It is possible that a press and some kind of filtering medium would have been used to press the lees down, and the slightly clearer liquor would have shown up again. I don't know if there were special wooden pressing tools at that time.

Brewing technology during the Tang and Song dynasties

I. A brief review of the literature

The Tang and Song dynasties were the most brilliant periods of development of yellow wine brewing technology in China. After thousands of years of practice in the brewing industry, the traditional brewing experience has been sublimated, the formation of the traditional brewing theory, the traditional yellow wine brewing process, technical measures and the main process equipment in the Song Dynasty at the latest in the basic stereotypes of the Tang Dynasty has been handed down to the complete brewing technology literature is relatively small, but scattered in the history of other sporadic information is extremely rich. In the Song Dynasty, the brewing technology literature is not only large in number, but also rich in content, with a high theoretical level.

In China's ancient brewing history, the highest academic level, the most complete embodiment of China's yellow wine brewing technology, the brewing practice in the most instructive value of the brewing monograph is the end of the Northern Song Dynasty into the book of "North Mountain Wine Classic".

The North Mountain Wine Classic*** is divided into three volumes, the upper volume of the "scripture", which summarizes the important theories of brewing through the ages, and the whole book of brewing, making a compendium of exposition. The middle volume discusses the technology of brewing, and includes more than a dozen formulas and methods of brewing. The next volume discusses the technology of brewing wine. Compared with the content of the brewing part of Qimin Yaojutsu, Beishan Wine Scripture is obviously a step forward, which not only lists the methods of brewing, but also analyzes the reasoning behind it. It is more important to analyze the reasoning behind it, and thus it is more of a theoretical guide.

If the Beishan Wine Classic is an example of the brewing technology of a larger-scale brewery, then Su Shi's Wine Classic, written during the same period as Zhu's, is a masterpiece of home brewing. Su Shi's Wine Meridian is simple and concise, and the wine-making methods he learned are fully realized in the few hundred words of the Wine Meridian. Su Shi also wrote many other poems about brewing wine, such as "Song of Honey Wine", "True One Wine" and "Gui Wine".

The book "Koji Ben Cao" (麴本草) made by Tian Xi (田锡) of the Northern Song Dynasty contains a large amount of information on liquor and medicinal wines, and is particularly valuable because it records the soju of Siam (present-day Thailand), which provides valuable historical information for the study of the origin of distilled soju.

Presumably because of the special status of wine in the Song Dynasty, there was an urgent need for an encyclopedic book on wine, and Dou Ping of the Northern Song Dynasty wrote a book called "Wine Spectrum", which cited a large number of historical data related to wine, from the origin of wine, the name of wine, the matter of wine, the merit of wine, Wink (referring to the drinking of wine in a measured manner), chaotic virtue (referring to the alcoholism of excessive), the commandment of the loss of (commandment of the wine), the gods and wonders (some strange and bizarre things), and the gods and wonders (some strange and wondrous things), and the wonders and wonders (wine-related), and the wonders of wine. (some strange and odd things related to wine), exotic (foreign wine), sexual flavor, drinking utensils and wine order, which is a dozen aspects of wine and wine-related content of the multi-faceted description.

Presumably written in the Southern Song Dynasty, "Wine Names" is a comprehensive record of the Northern Song Dynasty, more than a hundred kinds of more famous wine names around the country, some of these wines are brewed from the royal relatives, some brewed from the ministers, some from the famous hotel, wine library, but also from the private sector, especially interesting is that most of these wine names are extremely elegant.

Second, "Beishan Wine Jing" in the brewing theory

"Beishan Wine Jing" borrowed the "five elements" doctrine to explain the process of transformation of grains into wine.

The Five Elements refer to the five substances of water, fire, wood, gold and earth. Ancient Chinese thinkers attempted to explain the origin and unity in diversity of all things in the world by using these five substances, which are commonly seen in daily life. In the Beishan Wine Classic, Zhu Zhu used the Five Elements to describe the process of transforming grains into wine. According to Zhu Zhu, "the name of wine is sweetness and simplicity, and the intervals between gold and wood, with the earth as the medium, from the sweetness of sourness, from the sweetness of simplicity, and the wine is made (yeast rice so to be sour, and ___ so to be sweet). The so-called sweet of earth, combined with water for sour, and the sour of water, combined with earth for pungent, and then we know that the pitcher, so as to make pungent also."

"Earth" is the place where grains grow, and "using earth as a medium" can be understood as using earth as a medium to produce grains, where "earth" can also refer to grains." Gan" represents a sweet substance, and the sweetness of earth means the transformation from grain to sugar. Xin" represents the substance with the flavor of wine, and "Acid" means sour pulp, which is one of the substances that must be added in the process of brewing wine. To summarize Zhu's viewpoints, we can find that the process of brewing wine at that time can be represented by the following schematic diagram: earth→grain→sugar→xin

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Water--→acid

In this process, it can be clearly seen that the brewing process can be divided into two stages. that winemaking can be divided into two stages, i.e., first the grain turns into sugar (Gan), and then the sugar is transformed into wine. (sweet to pungent).

Modern winemaking theory has clarified the mechanism and detailed steps of the grain winemaking process. From a broad perspective, it is also divided into two stages, one of which is the stage of conversion of starch into sugar, which is completed by amylase, saccharase, etc.; and the second is the stage of fermentation of sugar into alcohol (ethanol), which is completed by a series of enzymes (also known as alcoholizing enzymes).

The modern and ancient theories are similar, except that the former is elaborated from the molecular level and the mechanism of enzyme action, and the latter is deduced from the taste of wine.