285 Buying the Millstone
Jiang Yue and Xue Xiao looked at each other and then retracted their hands.
Since he had to borrow an o cart, they could buy more rice flour. Xue Sifu went to buy double the amount of rice flour.
He even spent a few hundred coins to buy an average-sized stone mill.
There was a stone mill in the village head’s house. Anyone could use it, but Xue Sifu felt that it was very inconvenient to move back and forth if he wanted to make it his business. Plus, he believed that this business would definitely last long, so it wasn’t good to go to the village head’s house to grind rice flour all the time. Thus, after discussing with Xue Erfu in town, he bought a stone mill in town and had the ox cart bring it back without even asking.
Although there was an ox cart, it was still dark when Xue Sifu and Xue Erfu returned.
The next day, before the sun rose, he soaked 18 to 24 kilograms of early rice. He was afraid that he would not be able to finish it in a day if he soaked too much.
The grinding stone was also washed clean.
He could let the cow pull the mill, but the space in the yard was too small. The cow couldn’t move inside, so he could only push the mill with human strength.
The rice was soaked to the point where it would turn into powder with a gentle pinch of the fingers.
This way, not only was it less laborious to grind, but the powder would also be very fine. If he directly used dry rice, it would definitely turn into a coarse powder, and he didn’t know how many times he would have to grind it.
After the rice was soaked, it still had to be drained dry. After draining it dry, he placed it in the hole above the stone mill and began to grind the rice.
After it was super fine, he added water and made it into milky rice dough. The consistency was still at the level where it could be made into rice noodles. Then, he took out the cooked rice noodles and put them in cold water. Finally, it was hung on a bamboo pole to dry.
As he wasn’t sure how long the dried rice noodles could be preserved, he didn’t dare to make too many. He only made about 30 kilograms of rice.
He could leave the rest of the early rice there and make it later.
After the rice noodles were dried, he went to the village head’s house to get a scale to weigh them. He found that there were 34 kilograms of noodles.
Jiang Yue felt that it was about the same. Under normal circumstances, the amount of flour used would usually match the number of noodles produced. In this case, depending on the ratio of water and rice, if the rice was especially dry, the water content would be less.
This many dried rice noodles could make several bowls to serve to customers. Of course, it still depended on the size of the bowl.
If there were a lot of side dishes, there would be no need to add so many rice noodles into a bowl. Then, the number of bowls would be even more.
Anyway, the dried rice noodles were ready to be served now.
In just four days, they had made 34 kilograms of dried rice noodles. Xue Sifu, Liu Guixia, and the others were all very happy. They were also prepared to go to town to sell a lot of rice noodles.
However, Xue Yifu only had the time to make the wooden cart for the cow yesterday, and the wooden cart would probably only be ready by noon today. As such, they would naturally not be able to do business in town today.
It wasn’t even noon yet, but Xue Wufu was already impatiently dragging the cow from the cow shed and tying it to a tree at the entrance of the yard.
He was just waiting to put it on the wooden cart.
In the morning, the cow was still released by Xue Yan and Jiang Yue. The cow had just returned from grazing, and both sides of its stomach were full.
“Are you done? When are you done? Is it finished?” Xue Wufu couldn’t help but ask.
“I’m almost done. It’ll be fine after I install the two wheels.” Xue Yifu’s smile was especially simple and honest. He was bent over and had his head buried, but his hands didn’t stop moving. However, everyone could see how happy he was. The more things he could do, the happier he became. He was starting to feel like a useful member of this family.