375 Calculations
“It’s frozen. It really is frozen. Look at that! The small pot is also frozen. That’s great!” Li Hehua and Yu Hongyan were in a daze. They held each other’s hands and were extremely happy.
Xue Sifu excitedly turned around and punched Yifu, “Yifu, it’s really frozen!”
Xue Yifu only gave an especially coy smile. He was clearly very happy.
Xue Yan also laughed. As long as the family was happy, he was happy.
Jiang Yue did not laugh. Instead, she went to find a piece of bamboo and scraped off the saltpeter crystals that had appeared on the ice.
At the bottom of the ice pot, there were a lot of saltpeter crystals.
The temperature of the water had dropped and the saltpeter’s dissolution had dropped, causing the saltpeter crystals to form, then the bottom and the middle should be because too much saltpeter had been added. Before it could melt, the water had already frozen.
Only Xue Sifu noticed this. He immediately squatted down and also looked at where Jiang Yue was scraping. “Did we add too much saltpeter? So these aren’t finished?”
Jiang Yue couldn’t directly say that he had added too much saltpeter, and she couldn’t say for sure that the ice would freeze if there was enough saltpeter. She knew that she had to pretend to be exploring, so she said, “I don’t know. Why don’t we try adding less saltpeter in the next pot?”
“Alright!” Xue Sifu had no objections.
“Sifu, you’re really something.” Yu Hongyan laughed. you said you’d take half a bag, and you really did it. “We’re all relieved now.”
Now that they knew they could make ice, they felt more at ease. Liu Guixia, Li Hehua, and Xue Yifu all nodded.
Xue Sifu immediately laughed, “That was just a casual remark. Because Xue Yan said that the saltpeter can be reused, I wasn’t afraid of running out of saltpeter, so that’s why I poured a lot in.”
“No matter what, it’s a success.” Liu Guixia was at ease.
Jiang Yue was still scraping the saltpeter off the ice.
There was a big scoop next to her that they had not used just now, but now it was just the right time to put the saltpeter she had scraped into it.
Xue Yan also found a piece of bamboo, then squatted down and helped to scrape the excess saltpeter.
Liu Guixia and the others also helped to scoop out the saltpeter and put it into the big scoop. Before that, they also found a clean cloth to cover the small pot, in case something fell into it and caused the ice in the small pot to be inedible.
There were so many saltpeter crystals at the bottom of the big pot of ice, and the big ladle couldn’t fit it, so Li Hehua went to find a wooden bucket.
She placed the scraped saltpeter into the wooden bucket.
Xue Sifu and Xue Yifu, on the other hand, went to find something to chisel the ice.
Seeing that the saltpeter on the surface of the large pot had been scraped clean, they began to chisel the ice and removed the large piece of saltpeter crystals at the bottom of the ice that had not melted yet.
While Xue Sifu was busy with this, he added, “We added half a bag just now. Although we didn’t use a scale, it should be about thirty kilograms. That must’ve been too much. We’ll just add less for the next pot.”
It can’t be calculated this way… Jiang Yue wanted to say.
This also included the saltpeter crystals that had separated out due to the lowered temperature. This part still had to be added in. It could not be reduced, or else it would not form ice.
However, the ice had already formed once, and if it didn’t, it would mean that the amount of saltpeter added was too little. Sifu would definitely notice the issue and make the changes. Therefore, Jiang Yue didn’t say anything.
Xue Yan naturally didn’t say anything.
Xue Sifu didn’t even use a scale to weigh it. He directly used his hand to carry the wooden bucket and estimated, “Let’s try adding twelve kilograms to the next pot.”
The others naturally followed him.
However, both Jiang Yue and Xue Yan knew that based on the size of the pot, 12 kilograms of water would not be able to form ice.