British hegemon

Chapter 56 Salt Boiling Industry

Upon arriving at the salt-making workshop on the island, the gaunt workshop manager was already waiting outside the wooden shed.

On the sea salt flats, a trench diverts seawater from Ramrush Bay into two ponds in the shallows.

The hot sun and the blowing sea breeze evaporate the water in the seawater, leaving behind a salt-rich solution, also known as brine.

Behind the pond, near the salt-making workshop, is a pit for storing brine, with a simple thatched shed built over it.

Although August and September are mostly sunny, there are occasional heavy rains. This pond ensures that the brine that has been evaporated by the sun will not be diluted by the rain.

Four or five tenant farmers, temporarily working as salt workers, used buckets to draw brine from the pit for salt production and then delivered it directly to the shed where the brine was boiled.

These shacks are divided into three parts.

The first part of the shed was used to store firewood, peat fuel, and brine for boiling; the third part was a ventilated room for drying semi-finished salt.

The second section, located between them, is the core boiling room, where three huge iron pots for boiling salt are placed on three earthen stoves.

The salt workers poured the brine into an iron pot. Once the pot was full, they lit the fire. When the brine reached its boiling point, scum appeared on the surface of the water, which the salt workers removed little by little with a ladle.

Then the salt begins to crystallize, and the salt workers keep stirring the increasingly concentrated liquid to keep it in motion.

Before the surface salt crystallizes and separates, inferior beer is continuously added to precipitate impurities and accelerate coagulation.

Finally, the salt workers carefully shoveled the salt from the iron pot into baskets and carried them to another straw shed to dry.

This pot of brine is basically enough to make sea salt.

Then pour in the next pot of braising liquid and repeat the above steps.

The gaunt steward carefully followed behind the group, explaining the salt-making process at the sea salt beach workshop to Roger in detail. "Sir, this is roughly how salt is boiled."

"Adding beer can remove invisible impurities from sea salt, and the quality of the salt is also better. This is the secret to our Dairy Farm's ability to produce fine salt."

"If you don't add beer, and you just boil seawater into salt crystals, that's the worst kind of coarse salt. Because it's mixed with broken seashells and other things, it tastes terrible."

"Each iron pot can hold one-fifth of a quarter of brine, and depending on the brine's salinity, each pot yields about four to six pounds of salt; if there are ten or more consecutive sunny days, it's possible to yield ten pounds of salt per pot. However, recently there have been occasional cloudy days, so the brine yield hasn't been very high."

Roger observed along the way and found that the craftsmanship here was not much different from that of small workshops in later generations, except that the equipment was more rudimentary and crude. Even the sea salt added to the beer during the boiling process had a pale yellow color.

He picked up a pinch, put it in his mouth and licked it. It was salty enough, but bitter and astringent, with a fishy taste in it.

"After the fine salt in these baskets is completely dried and then ground a little, it becomes refined salt for the nobles to enjoy at banquets. Actually, we don't know what real refined salt looks like, but we just sell it as refined salt." The skinny steward pointed to the round barrels piled up in the stone house.

"How much salt can you boil each day now?" Roger asked.

"If the weather is good enough and the fire is big enough, three iron pots can produce up to 300 pounds of coarse salt a day. But then the salt workers would have to work from dawn till dusk, and their bodies probably couldn't take it."

Roger nodded slightly, then turned to the sour-faced butler beside him, "What's the price of salt now?"

After a moment's thought, the man with the bitter face said, "The price of salt varies greatly from place to place."

"I've heard that in the French Kingdom on the mainland, coarse salt produced in the Bay of Bourneau costs less than two shillings per quarter, fine salt around ten shillings, and the refined salt served on the tables of the nobility is hard to price, probably more than a pound." (Note)

"In southern England and Ireland, far from the salt-producing areas, coarse salt costs about four and a half shillings per quarter, fine salt is close to one pound, and refined salt is at least two pounds or more."

"As for the harsh northern lands, the price of salt is incalculable. The year before last, the English suddenly restricted the salt trade, and the price of coarse salt in Glasgow rose to a staggering one pound and three shillings per quarter."

"We had already sold the salt we boiled on the sea salt flats that time, and as a result, we missed a great opportunity to make money. By the time we sent people to the island to boil some coarse salt from seawater, the price of salt had already dropped to ten shillings per quarter." The bitter-faced man said with a regretful expression.

"What is the usual price of salt in northern China?"

"Well, it depends on the location. For example, on Aalen Island, Islay Island, and some coastal areas, coarse salt is generally around six shillings per quarter, while in places further out to sea it can be around eight shillings."

"Fine salt is very expensive and is only used by a few noble families. It costs at least two pounds."

After saying this, the man with the bitter face looked up at Roger with admiration, "If it were that bag of special refined salt you brought back from here last time, it could sell for at least three pounds per quarter, maybe more."

Roger mentally calculated that, based on the current salt production rate and quality of the salt flats, even at a daily output of 250 pounds, the salt-boiling season would yield over 7,500 pounds, equivalent to about 16 quarters.

Based on the average salt price of seven shillings per quarter in the North, one could earn a gross income of five or six pounds a month from boiling salt.

If the saltworks were tripled in size, that would be nearly twenty pounds a month in income;

If the salt-making process were extended to three months, or even all year round, earning a hundred pounds a year would not be impossible.

If I were to further improve the process using the technology I had recently tried, and refine the coarse salt, wouldn't my annual income be three to five hundred pounds?

Roger finally managed a smile, even though he hadn't yet considered the many limiting factors such as weather, raw materials, fuel, labor and transportation costs, and the sales market.

The overall strategy of making a fortune through salt production was not fundamentally flawed.

As for factors such as salt trade authorization, high taxes, and maritime restrictions, these are not too difficult for Roger now, since he was engaged in smuggling trade in his previous life.

"Master? Master!"

A sour face woke Roger from his deep thought, "What are you thinking about?"

"It's nothing. How have we sold our salt in previous years?"

"Apart from the five hundred pounds of coarse salt and fifty pounds of fine salt that are paid to the Baron’s manor each year, the rest are mainly sold to the various lords and gentry on the island. Any salt that is not used on the island is secretly transported to County Ayr or Glasgow and sold to a few familiar shops. A small amount of fine salt is also shipped south and sold in your uncle’s private port."

"price?"

"The salt sold to the islands was five shillings per quarter, while the salt sold abroad was seven or eight shillings per quarter. The fine salt transported to the south was sold by the pound, at half a penny per pound."

Roger nodded, looked at the sour-faced man, and instructed, "Start expanding the salt flats now. We don't have time to add facilities and equipment, so we'll increase the number of salt workers first."

"Go back to the manor later and select ten more reliable serfs to work as salt workers on the sea salt flats. Take advantage of the good weather and have them work in shifts to boil salt."

"Shift work?" The man with the bitter face didn't understand the strange term Roger had used.

"The salt workers were divided into three teams: one team boiled salt, one team dug peat, and the other team rested. The three teams took turns working. People could rest, but the salt-making process could not stop."

"During the off-season, we provide food and lodging and even give a bag of coarse salt as a reward, so recruiting salt workers is very easy. However, increasing the number of salt workers requires spending a lot more money and food, and if the salt stoves are kept burning, we have to dig out more peat."

The salt workers at the sea salt flats were all farmers or serfs of the Milk House Estate. Although they did not receive wages, they were still provided with meals every day during the salt-making season, and they would take away ten pounds of coarse salt as a reward after the salt-making was completed.

"Never mind that, just send more men as I said," Roger said with a wave of his hand, making the decision.

"Master, the manor's grain will be harvested in about ten days. If we bring all the able-bodied serfs here, who will harvest the grain?"

"There isn't much arable land on the island, but there's a lot of idle labor. We can hire people to harvest the crops for a small fee."

His bitter face furrowed again, thinking to himself, "Well, this is just a waste of money."

But he still advised, "Sir, the current salt production is enough for the island's needs; boiling too much will leave us with nothing to sell."

"These days, the salt supply in Scotland is controlled by the English and local lords. Small quantities can be sold secretly to familiar salt merchants, but no one dares to take on large quantities; being caught means execution!"

"Besides, our salt is boiled using peat, which makes it more expensive than English salt. If the English hadn't been arbitrarily raising salt prices in recent years, who would buy our salt?"

Roger's words weren't entirely without merit. Although Roger's knowledge was limited, he roughly knew that Scotland would soon completely break with the English, which would definitely impact the Northland salt market. As a necessity, salt would certainly have no trouble selling.

"I've considered everything you've said. The current production here isn't large. Even if we double the number of salt workers, the amount of salt produced won't be much. Even if we can't sell it all right away, we can gradually use it up."

What kind of talk is this? The man with the bitter face was increasingly confused about Roger's thoughts.

Roger looked at the bitter face with his brows furrowed into an inverted V shape, and decided to explain, "You can't understand it for now, but everything I do now and in the future is for the sake of making Milk House Manor more prosperous."

Seeing that the other party's expression did not relax, Roger simply ordered, "If you still consider me your master, then do as I say."

With a gloomy expression, he nodded in agreement, then silently turned and left to carry out Roger's nonsensical mission.

Roger's overall plan was to expand the scale of the salt-making workshops on the sea salt flats, improve the process, extend the industrial chain, and thus increase the value of sea salt.

However, there is clearly not enough time now. After the salt-boiling season ends this year, he must take the wool and other goods he has accumulated and go south to trade.

Moreover, he had to first investigate the market and verify the feasibility of the salt production business, so he only had a rough idea in his mind.