Traveling through ancient times: Savages are hungry for food

Lei strode towards Sang Tian, and Wu followed tremblingly behind him.

"Sang, is what Cang said true? Can you really make salt? This is not a joke!" Lei said anxiously.

Wu Canglao's voice also came: "If, you really can make salt. Then it is really God bless Tianlang..."

Sang Tian currently knows three ways to make salt: seawater salt, wood ash salt, and salt-containing stones salt...

However, the Tianlang tribe is more than ten sunsets away from the seaside, and it is currently impossible to produce salt there on a long-term basis.

The salt-containing rocks are filled with impurities and are highly toxic. Manual filtration alone is simply not feasible.

As for making salt from wood ash...

"Yes! I can make salt. The best way to make salt is from seawater, but the Tianlang Tribe is far from the sea, so making salt from seawater is not realistic. But there is another way - making salt from wood ash!

We have hunted so many game these days that most of the tribe’s salt has been used for smoking and pickling meat... Now there is very little salt left for the more than 200 of us to eat.

Salt made from wood ash can only be used for short-term emergency use and should never be consumed long-term! Otherwise, it will be harmful to your body!

Fortunately, there's still a month until the Autumn Fair, so it's fine to eat it in moderation for a short period of time. That's why I'm determined to make wood ash salt!"

……

This is because the salt made from wood ash is potassium salt. Long-term consumption of potassium salt by the human body will cause excessive potassium intake, leading to potassium poisoning, hyperkalemia, renal failure and other diseases!

Symptoms may include numbness in the limbs, pale skin, slow heart rate, muscle weakness, nausea, headache, etc.

Salt made from wood ash cannot be consumed for a long time, so the tribe can only exchange salt from the coastal tribe for long-term consumption.

Of course, this was excluding the possibility that the tribe members would go to the seaside one day. But Sang Tian always thought that if he could go there once, stay at the seaside for ten days or so, and work day and night to make salt, he would definitely be able to produce a lot of salt!

"So that's how it is! We really only have a little salt left, and we're planning to hunt a lot of meat these days, so this won't be enough for our tribe to eat!

Since Sang knows how to make it, just make enough for one month.

We still need to exchange a lot of sea salt at the autumn fair!"

……

Sang Tian nodded.

Sang Tian has been collecting wood ash these days, but it's not enough. Lei Paiyong and Cang went to every household to collect wood ash.

At the same time, he called on the efficient females in the tribe to help Sang Tian.

……

Under the bamboo shed in the square, the tribesmen who received the news were rushing back and forth, talking in a flurry.

"Have you heard? Sang wants to make salt! That's salt! She's amazing! How come she knows everything?"

"What? She can make salt? The tribe spends a quarter of its food annually on salt! If Sang really can make salt! Then we can save a lot of food!"

"Is this true? Isn't that amazing?"

……

Lei explained that salt made in this way was only safe for a short time. Although they were somewhat disappointed, they were still excited. After all, apart from the tribes near the sea, even the large cities of a thousand people couldn't master the salt-making method!

For a tribe of more than 200 people, knowing how to make salt is truly amazing!

……

Everyone actively collected the wood ash and brought it over in bundles.

The female is ready to help Sang Tian!

The males in the tribe were also busy. By this time, the ground had dried up a little and was no longer slippery.

Lei sent all the males of the hunting team and half of the females of the gathering team to collect corn from a cornfield half a day's journey away from the tribe, and by the way, get rid of the group of sharp-toothed beasts!

I haven't started gathering corn yet because it's far away, and it happened to rain today, so I won't go hunting or gathering. It's only a little after eleven o'clock.

If we walk faster, we'll definitely be back before dark. We'll try to get all the corn back at once, because it's too far away to make a special trip.

The elders in the tribe collected wood from the surrounding area. After all, making salt takes time and consumes a lot of firewood!

……

The salt making process officially begins!

Salt production involves four major steps: dissolution, filtration, evaporation, and collection.

The first thing to do is to mix wood ash and clean water in a ratio of 2 to 1, and fully dissolve them so that the fake salt components can be fully dissolved in the water.

The other females also followed Sang Tian's example and each carried a few bamboo buckets to stir the wood ash water.

After stirring evenly, wait for the wood ash water to settle.

The other females continued to do it bucket by bucket.

Sang Tian was going to prepare the filter.

Sang Tian poked holes in the bottom of a bamboo tube to let the filtered wood ash water flow down.

In fact, this filtering device is shown in the chemistry textbook for the third grade of junior high school. It does not have to be exactly the same, as long as the logic is the same.

Place a layer of larger stones on the top, then a layer of cotton cloth, which Sang Tian replaced with a soaked compressed towel.

Follow with a layer of smaller stones and then a layer of compressed towels.

Follow this logic until the large stones gradually become smaller, and finally a layer of fine gravel is laid, followed by a layer of cotton cloth.

That’s it. The more layers, the better, and the cleaner the filtration.

……

The wood ash water in the bamboo bucket has settled, and the ash has sunk. The water that has risen to the surface is clearer.

Then pour the soaked wood ash water into the filter device that Sang Tian had just made for filtration. The whole process is to remove insoluble matter.

It is obvious that the water flowing from the bottom of the bamboo tube has become much clearer, and all the water flows into the big stone pot.

In order to make the filtration cleaner, Sang Tian repeated the filtration process three times. Now the filtered water has become very clear and impurities are almost invisible to the naked eye.

You now have a clear potassium salt solution.

After the first stone pot was filled, the female in charge of the fire had already laid out the firewood. Slowly, the potassium salt solution in the stone pot began to boil.

Now all you have to do is wait for the water to evaporate.

The production process is actually very simple. The principle is that wood ash contains rich potassium salts, such as potassium chloride and potassium carbonate. These components are easily soluble in water and can be extracted by heating and evaporating the water.

The other females have mastered the process and are now working together.

Some tribesmen were stirring the wood ash water, some were filtering it, and some had already poured the filtered potassium salt solution into stone pots and started heating it.

No stirring is required during heating.

Every time the water level drops a little, small particles appear on the wall of the stone pot.

It's not pure white, but off-white. Slightly yellowish.

Everyone was excited. This is salt! They made it!

……

Time passed minute by minute, and after an hour, all the water in the first stone pot had evaporated.

There is a layer of fine salt on the walls and bottom of the stone pot.

Sang Tian dipped a finger into the water and put it in his mouth to taste it...

Sang Tian's expression was painful: "Ah, ugh!"

The others were stunned: "What's wrong? Is Sang okay? Did he fail?"

Sang Tian gulped down two large gulps of water before stopping and saying, "It's too salty!"

Everyone smiled happily and put some into their mouths to taste it.

"That's the taste! It's definitely salty!"

……

The bitterness of this salt is much less than that of sea salt, and you can't even feel it unless you taste it carefully.

Sang Tian guessed that they probably didn't filter the sea water clean, so it tasted very bitter.

……

Sang Tian swept the salt from the bottom of the pot, collected it, and slowly put it into the bamboo tube.

A full stone pot of water can only fill one bamboo tube, which is not efficient.

Fortunately, everyone has plenty of time and plenty of ash.

It doesn’t matter if it evaporates slowly!

……

At dusk, night has quietly fallen...

Salt production stopped.

Everyone started roasting meat in the square, especially roast duck.

I guess the tribesmen who went out to collect corn will be back soon.

Sang Tian took out the cane sugar and brushed it on the skin of half of the roast duck to make honey roast duck.

The remaining half is naturally spicy!

The tribesmen already knew how to use all the ingredients and spices that Sang Tian had found, and the dishes they made were very flavorful.

……

When it was almost completely dark, the tribesmen returned.

Cang and his group, who were walking in the front, each carried a wild boar on his back, as many as 13 wild boars!

The tribesmen who came out later all carried bags full of corn on their backs. The females carried as much corn as they could carry, while the males carried as much as they could carry.

After walking such a long way, everyone put down the food they were carrying and collapsed on the ground...

The female who was grilling the meat had no choice but to share the meat with them while they were sitting and resting.

……

The first thing Sang Tian did was to go over and check on Cang’s wound.

When he left at noon, he was still a little weak and must have been feeling very uncomfortable.

Sang Tian touched Cang's forehead and found it was at normal temperature. She removed the gauze and saw that the wound was already healing!

Sang Tian: Thumbs up! This ancient person's body is indeed very good...it started to heal so quickly.

……

Soon, the tribesmen who weighed the food had divided it up.

All the corns together weigh a pound, so each person gets about 64.5 pounds.

It is also a very good harvest.

……

Lei and Wu checked the salt produced today and found that the quality was very good.

Considering that others will have normal gathering and hunting tomorrow.

However, three days have passed and the hunting has resumed as normal. Tomorrow the spear hunting team and the mountain tiger hunting team will rest.

He helped the elders in the tribe make salt.

However, tomorrow the collection team needs to collect all the chestnuts, bamboo shoots, etc., and they have to collect them together.

……

Sang Tian returned to the cave carrying the corn she was given.

After taking a nice bath, she changed into the new fur coat that Duo had made today.

I fell into a deep sleep as soon as I got into bed...

……