394 Preparations
Xue Yifu was afraid that they would drag the bamboo back by themselves, so he put aside his work and came to help chop and drag the bamboo.
With Xue Yifu’s help, it did not take long for them to drag the bamboo back.
The bamboo tubes for making popsicles were really easy to make. Xue Yifu only needed to saw them once, and it didn’t take long for him to saw them into 60 bamboo tubes. With the 40 that he had made at home, there were exactly 100 of them.
There were still quite a few thin poles left, so Xue Yifu was not in a hurry to make them. He leaned the few large bamboo poles against the wall, then continued to make the bowls. He was full of energy as he worked.
Jiang Yue and Xue Yan put the 60 bamboo tubes into the basket together, and Xue Yan carried them to the river to wash them.
Each bamboo tube was of similar size, and even if there were 60 of them, they were not that heavy, so Xue Yan could still carry them.
Jiang Yue didn’t go alone, Xue Yan followed her, so her family was at ease.
By the time they came back after washing the bamboo tube, the people in the house were already making rice noodles again, and they had made quite a lot. Xue Wufu was running around in the yard like a monkey, drying the rice noodles at spots that were open.
However, because they planned to make a lot of rice noodles today, they soaked a lot of early rice and ground them into powder. The courtyard definitely couldn’t dry that much today. Therefore, Xue Wufu had set up a lot of bamboo poles outside the courtyard, surrounding the courtyard wall of the house. That way, there was more space for the rice noodles to be dried outside.
This was the first time they had dried the rice noodles outside. They were white and thin, hanging on the bamboo pole-like layers of curtains. Passersby who saw them felt curious as to how it was made.
More than anything else, they were envious.
Since they dared to make so many rice noodles, it must mean that their business was doing good!
Before noon, Xue Dafu and the others had finished their work in the workshop and returned to help make and dry the rice noodles.
They all worked hard under the sun.
He estimated that the rice noodles he made today could be sold for many days in the future. At that time, there would be no need to rush to make rice noodles, and there would be more people at home who have more time to make ice.
Since Jiang Yue wanted to try and see how many popsicles could be made from 20 kilograms of saltpeter, Xue Erfu and Xue Wufu stopped helping her with the rice noodles and helped her with this.
Everyone in the family knew that he had made 20 sticks yesterday.
After trying a few times today, he finally realized that he could only make 30 tubes at most.
20 kilograms of saltpeter could produce 30 popsicles in one big pot. If 60 kilograms of saltpeter were to be produced at the same time in three big pots, it should be able to produce 90 popsicles. 120 kilograms, made by six big basins at the same time, would be 180 sticks.
However, there were not enough bamboo tubes in the house right now. There were only ten bundles.
However, this problem was also easy to solve. If they really wanted to make an ice stick like this, they could just cut more later. The bamboo forest was not far away, and it wouldn’t take long to finish the sticks.
That way, they could make 180 popsicles at the same time. If the popsicles sold well, they could make a few more a day and easily make thousands of them.
Moreover, the weather was getting hotter each day. If the big pot was placed under the sun, the water would evaporate faster than usual, and the saltpeter in the ice would also separate faster.
At that time, the saltpeter could be immediately used again.
When it freezes, a lot of saltpeter would come out, which could be scraped off immediately and put into another basin.
By the time it was five in the afternoon, Xue Yifu had already finished assembling the small wooden planks. Now, there were six big and six small bowls in the house.