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Chapter 19 Section 2 Understanding and Utilization of Microbial Activities

Ancient Chinese Biology 汪子春 939Words 2018-03-20
Microscopes were not invented in ancient my country, so we failed to observe and describe individual microorganisms. However, we have made many outstanding contributions in the use of microbial activities.Special mention here is the achievement of using microbial fermentation to make wine. Wine making has a history of at least four or five thousand years in my country.The ruins of a wine making workshop were found in the Yin Ruins; in the oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions that have been unearthed, there are many words about "wine" (such as (Miyou), ). "The Book of Songs · Binfeng · July" records that "rice is harvested in October, for this spring wine, to promote longevity eyebrows." It shows that rice wine was used to make wine at that time. "Shangshu·Shuomingpian" said: "If you want to make wine (wine and sweet wine), you can only use koji (wine koji and grain buds)." It shows that grains with microorganisms can be used for wine making, and grains that have grown bud.In the Han Dynasty, "bake koji" was produced to make wine. Bake koji not only contained yeasts that could promote alcoholization, but also molds with strong saccharification ability, so that the two processes of saccharification and alcoholization were completed at the same time when making wine. It is the so-called "double fermentation method". "Double fermentation method" is an invention in ancient my country.The songs mentioned in Yang Xiong's "Dialect" are (Mai Shu) [ku Ku], (Mai Xue) [hua Hua], (Mai Cai) [cai Cai], (Mai Bei) [pi Pi], 麰 [mo Mou〕, (Mai Guo) [Guo Guo], (Mai Meng) [Meng Meng], etc. "Han Shu Shihuo Zhi" also records the oldest surviving prescription for brewing wine with koji in our country: "One brew uses two hu of thick rice, one koji, and six hu and six dou of wine."

In the 6th century A.D., Jia Sixie summarized my country's brewing technology in "Qi Min Yao Shu", which reflected the new level of my country's use of microbial fermentation to make wine at that time.Wine making generally includes two steps of koji making and wine making.Koji making is to cultivate microbial strains before brewing. "Qi Min Yao Shu" divides wine music into two categories: stupid music and divine comedy, which are equivalent to the current Daqu and Xiaoqu.According to the records of "Qi Min Yao Shu", when brewing wine with Divine Comedy, "one bucket kills three stones of rice", that is, the amount of koji used only needs 1/30 of the total amount of raw materials; The amount of curvature also only accounts for 1/7 of the total amount of raw materials.It can be seen that the saccharification power and alcoholization power of my country's winemaking at that time have been significantly improved.When making koji, raw material is mixed in, which plays the role of inoculating microorganisms.At the same time, attention was also paid to the humidity and temperature of the raw materials and the airtightness of the koji room, which was conducive to the growth and reproduction of mold, and the "five-color clothing" was used as the standard for making koji, which shows that at that time we had a certain grasp of the growth law of microorganisms.During the brewing and fermentation process, great attention was also paid to the "koshi" (that is, the activity of glucoamylase and alcoholase), at that time, it was already known to feed materials in batches according to the "koshi".

In addition, in ancient my country, microorganisms were used to ferment vinegar, sauce, and soy sauce to enrich daily food.According to "Qi Min Yao Shu", in the Northern Wei Dynasty, people had already linked the formation and sinking of "clothes" (acetic acid bacteria film) with the formation of vinegar, and seemed to have realized that the production of acetic acid was related to the production of certain living substances. The effect is related.
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