sbdcsierra Chapter 28 Successful Salt Production
Chapter 28 Successful Salt Production
In their eyes, this is all free food!
Xiong Fei and Ma Yuan were even more eager to collect more seafood.
However, they did not forget the most important thing on their trip: to obtain salt.
They only brought a small stone pot with them this time. If they wanted to boil salt, they would need to find a large stone pot that could cook enough food for thirty or forty people, just like the ones in the tribe.
It was getting late, and to avoid any danger, Lang Cang decided that they would rest for the night and start looking for stones to polish the stone pot early the next morning.
The next morning, when Lin Baiyan woke up, Xiong Fei and Ma Yuan were already carrying a stone that was more than half a person tall and had begun to polish it. It seemed that they had gone to find it just as dawn was breaking.
The male orcs are stronger, and it looks like they'll be almost finished with the work.
Lin Baiyan first reheated the leftover fish soup from last night, and then ate breakfast with the remaining roasted lamb leg.
As for the three male orcs, they had already taken turns going to the beach during their night watch and filled their stomachs with a midnight snack.
Lin Baiyan looked around the stone pot, then pointed out the inside, "The inside needs to be polished smooth, without any small stones, otherwise it won't be clean when making salt."
Ma Yuan nodded and began rubbing the inside of the stone pot with a small stone.
Lang Cang returned just then, dragging a piece of broken wood. "Awake?"
Lin Baiyan turned and glanced at him. "Didn't I tell you to wake me up earlier last night?"
Lang Cang coughed twice but didn't reply. He saw the kitten curled up in a ball, sleeping soundly with its tail in its arms, so he didn't wake it.
Besides, Lin Baiyan had already given a rough idea of what was needed, and the few male orcs could prepare it themselves.
He changed the subject, "What do you think of this wood? Is it the kind you wanted?"
He pointed to the timber that had just been dragged back on the ground. The timber was very thick, and Lin Baiyan estimated at a glance that it was at least seventy or eighty centimeters in diameter.
He nodded. "Pretty much." Lin Baiyan wanted to make a few wooden buckets from the wood, so that they would be able to fetch water when they came back in the future.
"There's no rush. We can polish it slowly when we have time. As for the water container, we can use the two large river clam shells we just picked up last night." The young man thought for a moment and looked up at Lang Cang.
"Then I'll go to the riverbank and see if there are any similar seashells."
After the stone pot was polished, Lang Cang returned carrying two seashells filled with seawater.
Xiong Fei and Ma Yuan had already quickly set up a makeshift stove and placed the stone pot on it. Lin Baiyan glanced at the seawater that Lang Cang had brought back; it was relatively clean.
So he instructed Lang Cang to pour all the seawater from the seashell into the stone pot and then heat it continuously.
Xiong Fei and Ma Yuan each carried a clam shell to the beach to fetch seawater. The young man called out from behind them, "Keep an eye on things, make sure it's clean and clear seawater!"
Xiong Fei responded loudly from a distance.
Lang Cang looked curiously at the seawater in the stone pot. "What are you doing?"
This year, without even turning his head, he said, "Salt production!"
Lang Cang was somewhat surprised. Was salt making really that simple?
"Should we add anything else to it?"
Lin Baiyan met Lang Cang's somewhat curious gaze and shook his head, "Just keep cooking it like this, and it should release salt."
This is the simplest way to make salt from seawater, and what you get is coarse salt, which is nothing compared to the pure white refined salt that ordinary people eat in Lanxin.
Logically speaking, coarse salt produced through such processing should not be consumed directly, as it contains numerous impurities and harmful substances.
But now they don't have many tools. The methods and formulas used for salt making were all returned to their high school teachers by Lin Baiyan when the college entrance examination ended.
Now, if you ask him to drive piles, build houses, construct bridges, or dig tunnels, he can do it. He also knows a little about cement and limestone.
After all, that's what he studied in college.
However, no matter how hard Lin Baiyan racked his brains, the only thing he could come up with so far was to filter the coarse salt and boil it again.
However, he remembered that the salt produced in this way contained impurities such as magnesium chloride and potassium chloride.
No matter how hard the young man racked his brains to think about it in detail, he couldn't come up with a way to further remove the impurities.
Even if he knew how to extract refined salt, a skilled cook can't cook without rice; with the tools they have now, it's probably impossible.
Lin Baiyan decided to stop worrying about it and focus on getting the coarse salt out first.
The male beastmen carried seawater from the seashore in trip after trip and poured it into the stone pot.
As they simmered the food over and over again, Xiong Fei and the others grew bored and set up a stone pot to cook seafood while they waited.
Lin Baiyan was also peeling crabs to pass the time.
Gradually, as time went by, some white crystals began to condense at the bottom of the stone pot.
When Lin Baiyan went forward to check again, he finally saw the thin layer of salt at the bottom through the clear seawater.
Lin Baiyan excitedly turned back to Lang Cang and waved to them, "Come and see, it looks like salt has been harvested!"
Lang Cang's expression changed, and he quickly walked to the stone pot. Xiong Fei and Ma Yuan also put down the seashells in their hands and followed him.
With his sharp eyes, he immediately noticed the white crystals that had condensed on the wall of the stone pot.
Lang Cang reached out, pinched a small amount of the white crystal on the stone wall, examined it carefully, and then put it in his mouth to taste it.
Lang Cang's expression hardened; it was salty, and it really was salt.
He stared at Lin Baiyan in shock. The young man was amused by his expression and winked at him with a hint of smugness.
He said that they would never have to worry about salt again!
Lang Cang turned his head to look at the opposite side, where the boundless sea stretched out before them. From now on, they would have an inexhaustible supply of salt to use!
Moreover, the salt they boiled was even purer than any salt Lang Cang had ever seen before!
In Mao Bai's memory, salt did exist, but the salt they ate tasted worse. It was more bitter than salty, and it wasn't this snow-white in color. It also clumped up easily.
The young man looked at the salt on the stone wall, took out a little and crushed it with his hand. He could still see some small particles and impurities.
But it was much better than he had imagined, and Lin Baiyan nodded with great satisfaction.
After Xiong Fei and Ma Yuan tasted it, Xiong Fei's eyes filled with tears. After a long while, he managed to stammer out, "Wouldn't we become the richest tribe on the Beastman Continent from now on?"
Hearing Xiong Fei say that, Lin Baiyan chuckled, "That's right, from now on we're money beasts!"
Xiong Fei's thinking wasn't wrong. As far as he knew, salt and animal hides were hard currency on the Orc Continent, and were things that every tribe needed.