Making Wine Quarters

In addition to the northern wheat quart, by the Jin Dynasty at the latest in the south has appeared in the form of a mass of rice quart. Jin's JI Han recorded the southern grass quat, also known as rice quat, in "Southern Grasses and Trees", which is the earliest record of southern rice quat.

Small currant is generally unique to the south, since the Jin Dynasty first appeared in the literature, the name of a wide variety of Song Dynasty "North Mountain Wine Scripture" **** there are four examples. Its method is similar, using glutinous rice or japonica rice as raw materials, first soaked polygonum leaves or snake hemp flowers, or twisted to take the juice. Take its juice mixed with rice flour, kneaded rice dough.

Traditional production process:

Chen liquor medicine, water, rice flour, polygonum grass powder → mixing → solid → cut block → roll angle → inoculation → into the tank insulation culture → into the plaque culture, change the plaque, and the plaque → loaded with the bucket, out of the bucket → sun drying.

The traditional production process of Xiaoqu

The traditional wheat quartz, completely natural inoculation of microorganisms. The inoculation of the small song before the Song Dynasty, is no exception. However, in <<Beishan Wine Scriptures>> there is a record of an artificial inoculation, namely: "ball into a cake, with the end of the old quartz one by one for the clothes". That is to say, the newly made quartet rolled on the old quartz powder, the old quartz powder will be stuck in the surface of the new quartet, the old quartz powder has a large number of rhizosphere spores, can be rapidly reproduced in the quartet, the formation of the growth advantage. Since the better quality of the stale quill can be artificially selected as the quill seed, it is possible to select the best and eliminate the worst. Through artificial selection and natural elimination year after year, the superior quality of the quartz (actually microbial strains) is retained. In the case of natural inoculation, the source of microorganisms in the brewery is mainly the water source, the raw material itself, or the brewing place and utensils. The excellent performance of the strain cannot be passed on from generation to generation, and the quality of the wine cannot be constant.

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, the addition of a great variety of Chinese herbs to Xiaoqu became a feature of this period. The Ming "Tian Gong Kai Wu" said, "Its into all kinds of juns and herbs, fewer several flavors, more than a hundred flavors, then each soil and each method, and can not be exhaustive." This traditional practice has continued into modern times. Mr. Zhou Henggang in 1964 collected in Qionglai, Sichuan Province, in the recipe for medicine, there is an example of the recipe with 72 flavors of medicine, a total of more than 50 kilograms, can be matched with 1,460 kilograms of raw materials (Sugar Quart, 1964, China Finance and Economics Publishing House). However, there are also little or even no medicines added to the Xiaoqu. For example, only spicy polygonum was added to the Dongyang liquor quart in the Ming Dynasty. The same is true for Ningbo Baiyao. Therefore, since the Ming Dynasty, Xiaoqu has developed in two directions: medicine Xiaoqu and drug-free Xiaoqu.

The microorganisms in the small song are mainly root molds, according to the relevant scientific and technological workers to separate and identify, in the isolation of 828 strains of Trichoderma viride molds, of which the root molds accounted for 643 strains. Root mold not only has the role of saccharification, but also has the enzyme alcoholization, so it has the role of alcoholization. There are many other microorganisms in the small song, modern industrial microorganisms from which a number of beneficial strains, continue to make contributions to mankind.

Development of Daqu

Since the Yuan Dynasty, the distillation of shochu began to popularize, a large portion of the wheat quartz used in the brewing of shochu. As a result, a kind of Daqu was differentiated from the traditional wheat quill, which was basically the same as the quill used for yellow wine in terms of raw materials, but had certain characteristics in terms of production method. In modern times, Daqu and Huangjiu's maiqu have become two different types of brews. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the areas around Henan and Huai'an became the main production bases of Daqu in China.

The concept of "Daqu" is not clear in the ancient wine literature, as it is a differentiation from the "Maiqu". It generally refers to the wheat quart with a larger shape of the quart. The Daqu here refers to the wheat quat used specifically for distilled spirits brewing. The main difference between the big song and the yellow wine used in the wheat song lies in the three aspects of the raw materials, song type and culture temperature.

1 raw materials

The raw materials for the big song are peas, wheat and barley. The ratio varies from place to place. Peas account for 30%-50% of the raw materials. Therefore, the extensive use of soybean raw materials is of great significance to the microbial species, relative quantity, and the aroma of the song and the wine.

2 Qu-making process

The shape of Daqu is larger, as described in <<Tian Gong Kai Wu>> the quartz made in Huai County at that time was made into brick pieces, and this shape of the quartz continues to this day.

Daqu production process:

Wheat→moistening→stacking→grinding→adding water and mixing→loading into the mold→stepping on the curve→entering the curve room to cultivate→turning over the curve→stacking the curve→out of the curve→storing in the warehouse→finished product curve

Brick-type dazhu is stepped on by the specialized curve maker. Treading is a hard and interesting work. It is quite elaborate. First of all, it is its tightly organized form and the way of working with each other, there is often a supervisor, by the master of the workshop or an experienced person. Qu workers have a strict division of labor, some people specializing in measuring raw materials and water, some specializing in mixing materials, some specializing in carrying, surface into the wooden mold, by the treading music workers step solid. There are a dozen or even dozens of treading workers. Each person stipulates how many feet, such as the first person to step on three feet, the second person to take over, at the same time, that is, turn over one side, and then step on three feet, the third person to take over, up to a piece of music after 60 people's footwork. Then by special into take out the wooden mold, there are special people engaged in the block edge corner parts of the tread system, someone is responsible for repairing the song, so that the song block smooth. By a number of people to move to the song room. The purpose of such a tightly organized system is to produce high-quality blocks. The most important thing is to make the blocks tightly packed, on the one hand, to minimize the breakage of the blocks in the process of transportation, and more importantly, the tightness of the blocks directly or indirectly affects the microorganisms propagated in the wine. The brick shape of the molds used for making the blocks is probably the best geometrical shape, which is also the result of centuries of experience. As mentioned earlier, the more primitive molds were small, garden-shaped, and flat-square, while the rectangular brick shape was determined to be the optimal geometry by combining various factors. These factors include, roughly, the viscosity of the surface, the need for evaporation of moisture from the blocks, the need to dissipate heat, the amount of force used in stepping, the need for stacking of the blocks, and the need for handling.

3 Cultivation Temperature

After the blocks are molded, they are sent to the cell, where they are naturally inoculated with microbial organisms from a variety of sources. In the airtight room, microorganisms begin to multiply and emit heat, and the rise in temperature accelerates the evaporation of water, so that the temperature and humidity of the entire room are rising. In terms of the operation of the cultivation process, there is no significant difference between Daqu and Huangjiu Maqu. Turning, ventilating and stacking are still necessary operational steps. But the key difference is the cultivation temperature. The big song changes in the direction of high temperature song.

The cultivation temperature of Daqu can reach 50-60℃. Practices vary from place to place. For example, the incubation temperature in the Tangshan area during the Republic of China period was 52 ℃, and the liquor quartz cultivation temperature of Moutai wine can reach 60 ℃. Workers who turn over the currant often enter the currant room naked to operate, and are not immune to sweating.

Daqu to the direction of high-temperature qu the development of one of the objective reasons, may be the qu room stacked in the qu the number of blocks increased, resulting in the qu room temperature rises fast, the amplitude of the (said earlier, this is due to the zigzag stacking method caused by the adoption of the method of qu), the Ming and Qing dynasties, the production of qu became a handicraft, qu workshop specializing in the production of wine qu, in order to maximize the use of space, the qu qu the room the number of blocks of qu the possible The number of blocks in the room could be increased as much as possible in order to utilize the space as much as possible. Another important reason is that people realized that the wine brewed with high-temperature quartz has a better aroma. Although the mechanism has not been fully elucidated, it is certain that the ratio of high-temperature bacteria to low-temperature bacteria grows with the cultivation temperature, and the metabolites of the high-temperature bacteria have a certain effect on the aroma of the wine.

The maximum temperature during the incubation period varies for different types of dashi.

There are three general types: medium-temperature, high-temperature and ultra-high-temperature.

Medium-temperature quartz is represented by the quartz used in Fenjiu, a clear-flavored liquor, with a maximum temperature of 50℃ or less.

The cultivation process is characterized by the following: the production of quartz focuses on the arrangement of the quartz, the windows of the quartz room are closed and opened twice during the day and night, and the temperature is raised and lowered twice. The control of the hot and cold temperatures is more stringent, the hot and cool rise and fall, small hot and cool, suitable for most of the growth of microorganisms in the medium temperature, with more white curve.

Mid-temperature quartz has the highest saccharification power, liquefaction power and fermentation power.

The high-temperature quartz is represented by the large quartz used in strong-flavored white wine. The maximum temperature during the production period is greater than 50 ℃. During the production period, the accumulation of the quartz is the main focus, and the coverage is tight to keep the moisture. The mastery of the temperature during the cultivation period is mainly realized by turning the quartz, and only when the maximum temperature exceeds the limit of the process requirements, the quartz is turned over and the moisture is released to reduce the temperature.

The process is characterized by more heat and less cool.

The sweetening power, liquefaction power and fermentation power of the quartz is not as good as that of the medium-temperature quartz.

Ultra-high-temperature quartz is represented by the large quartz used in soy sauce-type liquor. Such as Maotai wine used in the large quartz, the production of quartz focus on the accumulation of quartz, covered tightly, to keep warm and moisture-based, whenever the quartz temperature rises to 60-65 ℃, before starting to turn the quartz.