The lunch meal is relatively simple.
One fried with long beans and meat, one fried with vegetables, one bowl of pickles, one bowl of porridge and a piece of pancake for each person.
Cheng Wanwan asked Sidan to deliver food to Master Yu and Sanniu to deliver a bowl of porridge to He Xiao, so that the boy and the master could develop a relationship first.
A large family sat down to eat. After the meal, it was Cao Yingying's turn to wash the dishes. On the first day she came, she broke two bowls at a time. Now she is very efficient. A dozen bowls are washed clean at once. The cabinets are neatly kept.
Cheng Wanwan was studying how to make soap in the yard.
All the raw materials were placed in front of her, a pile of plant ashes, a can of boiled lard, a pot of wine, and a large ceramic pot.
Zhao Sanniu was chopping firewood and asked curiously: "Mom, what are you doing? Do you want my help?"
Cheng Wanwan nodded: "Okay, come here and help me first."
She couldn't handle it alone, so she said, "Put this pot on the stove first."
Zhao Sanniu didn't know when there was such a pot in the house, but he didn't ask much, picked it up and put it on the stove.
Cheng Wanwan called Zhao Sanniu to filter the plant ashes with her, filtering out some unburned small pieces of wood and mud and stones, then poured the pure plant ashes into a porcelain pot, added twice as much water, and stirred constantly. .
The reason why a porcelain pot is used instead of an iron pot is because after the plant ash is boiled and precipitated at high temperature, a high concentration of alkali solution will be produced. Iron and alkali will produce a chemical reaction, so avoid it as much as possible.
After the plant ash and clean water are fully mixed, firewood can be burned to heat it, and the fire will burn fiercely to increase the concentration of the lye.
How to determine whether the concentration of lye reaches the standard? The book mentions a method: put the eggs in. If they can float, it means success.
Then, pour the prepared lard and alcohol into the porcelain pot, and stir vigorously while turning on the fire.
Zhao Sanniu was a very strong boy. After stirring with a mallet for a while, he couldn't hold it anymore. He shouted loudly: "Second brother, come and help me!"
Zhao Ergou didn't go out to do business and kept busy at home. When he heard the call from his third brother, he came over immediately.
He took the mallet and stirred the high-temperature solution, and asked in confusion: "Mom, what are you going to do with this? It looks weird..."
Cheng Wanwan stared at the pot and said, "You'll know when it's done."
If it fails, the children's happiness will be in vain.
Zhao Ergou stirred harder and saw that the light yellow liquid gradually became transparent, and the layer of grease on the surface disappeared.
Cheng Wanwan smiled, now he had achieved 80% success.
She dropped a drop of water in, and the water completely melted in, which meant that the chemical reaction was over.
She poured in the salt water she had prepared. The solution in the pot suddenly began to roll up and down, and then she stirred quickly. This step is called salting out, which is to separate the light yellow substance and increase the hardness of the finished product.
Finally, the pale yellow precipitate that emerges is soap.
Only then did Cheng Wanwan realize that she had not made a mold in advance, so she had no choice but to ask Zhao Sanniu to go to Lao Zhao's house to cut bamboo tubes, because the people in the old house knew how to weave bamboo, and there were several bamboos in the yard all year round. Zhao Sanniu ran over quickly with a hatchet, and after a while, he brought back more than ten bamboo tubes.
Cheng Wanwan poured the precipitated soft solution into the bamboo tubes, and surprisingly ten bamboo tubes were filled.
She placed ten bamboo tubes on the windowsill and waited for them to solidify.
Zhao Ergou and Zhao Sanniu's arms were thick with fatigue. They were very curious about what this thing was, but Cheng Wanwan refused to say anything.
When they took a shower at night, these two boys knew it.
She sat in the room and calculated an account. According to the current price, a pound of fat pork cost about 20 yuan, which can make a can of oil. A pot of wine is more expensive, maybe more than 100 yuan, a little bit. The salt water cost two cents, and the plant ash was ignored. The total cost was less than two hundred cents, but she made ten pieces of soap... no, more than ten pieces, because she used bamboo tubes to solidify and replaced them with unique molds. It can produce about thirty bars of soap.
As far as she knows, the price of ordinary bath beans on the market is at least three to four hundred cents. And because bath beans are exclusively for upper-class nobles, they usually add spices, herbs, etc., and the price of a bath bean can cost more than one or two silver dollars. , the prices of some unique fragrances will also rise.
Her decontamination ability is much better than bath beans. It can definitely be sold for half a tael. If she thinks of ways to add various fragrances, the price can double.
Also, after the soap precipitates are extracted, what remains is crude glycerin, which can be used as the most primitive skin care product. Once the market is developed, it will also be a profitable business.
Cheng Wanwan was thinking silently in her heart.
The reason why she started a new business was that the first thing was that she really needed this thing at home, and the second reason was that her lockers were not enough.
The thing she bought the most was books. One cubic meter of space was filled with books. When she went out to bring anything back, there would be no place to put it. She couldn't wait to upgrade her locker, but the upgrade would cost 5,000 taels of silver.
It would take at least three or four years to earn so much money just by selling braised meat and cloth.
Three or four years was really too long for her, so she had to do a business that was absolutely profitable.
While she was thinking, Zhao Dashan walked in from the door: "Mom, I want to discuss something with you."
Cheng Wanwan looked at him encouragingly: "Go on, mother is listening."
The boss is the most sensible and has never suggested doing anything on his own initiative. This is the first time.
"I was just working in the fields when I heard from Grandpa Li Zheng that Zhao Mazi's family was selling land." Zhao Dashan said, "The land next door to our new home is three acres in total. His son wanted to get married because he lacked the gift money for his wife. This low-grade land was sold, and the asking price was one tael of silver per acre, but the people in the village found it too expensive and were unwilling to buy it."
The best fields in the village cost two taels of silver per acre, the medium fields cost one and a half taels, and the inferior fields cost one tael of silver. Zhao Mazi didn't raise the price randomly, but who made the village have so much wasteland, and the price of the wasteland was lowered. Price, of course the villagers would rather spend one tael of silver to buy two acres of wasteland, as the farming season is about to begin and there is time to cultivate the land.
Cheng Wanwan said, "Do you want to buy this land back?"
Zhao Dashan nodded: "When I lived in the old house, I could grow vegetables in the yard. Now the yard is paved with tiles, so I can't grow it, but I have to plant some. I want to buy the land next door, which is perfect for growing vegetables. "
"I think your idea is very good." Cheng Wanwan smiled, "I'll get you the money."
Things like farming are planned and managed by Dashan, so she really doesn't have to worry about it at all.
She took out some more money from the room and said, "In addition to the three acres of land next door, you can also buy some land near the wasteland behind our house."
I bought forty acres of wasteland before, and built a house, a chicken coop, a duck shed, etc., which took up almost five acres of land. Now I have the idea of starting a soap business, and I need to build another soap workshop. This land It's totally not enough.
She said, "Buy another twenty acres."
Zhao Dashan didn't ask why he bought so much land, he took the money and went to do things.
Buying land is not a big secret in the village. If someone sells land, someone will naturally buy it. If the person buying the land is someone else, the villagers may still discuss it, but when they heard that it was Dashan Niang’s family who bought the land, everyone became angry. There is nothing more to say, just work hard and try not to be left too far behind by Dashan Niang.
