Beers and Beards: A Cozy Dwarf Tale
Book 4: Chapter 42: Saccharification

Balin and Annie were naive, but Joseph for sure wasn’t. I was pretty positive he was born after the printing press and knew exactly how dangerous writing was.

So I guess he did want to see his fellow Earther’s succeed? Or he didn’t really understand the true power of the romance genre when unleashed upon the unsuspecting innocents of this world.

Either way, I didn’t really care. If Mirelda won, it wasn’t a big issue.

But don’t get me wrong, there was a big issue.

“A romance between Balin and Elijah!?” I ground out. The book had been passed back a while ago, and Aqua had brought Mirelda’s drink and a plate of crisps before disappearing back to wherever she was spying on us.

“I asked first. And besides, same sex relationships aren’t as taboo on Erd, what with no historical religious backdrop.”

“Sure, but they’re still not as common because babies work the same.” I sighed. “I’m not complaining about the genders. I’m complaining that it’s my brother and a good friend.”

Mirelda sipped from her glass and then made an *ahhh* of appreciation. “Gods, Pete. Thank you so much for these ciders. They’ve been marvelous as the weather gets warmer, and while I don’t understand why, I appreciate you using the proper name for crisps instead of that ridiculous chips nonsense.”

“You’re avoiding the question,” I accused.

Mirelda snorted. “Of course I’m avoiding the question. I was inspired while watching Elijah and Balin defend the castle. I asked for their permission, and the characters are completely different from their real world inspirations. Pardon my bluntness, but where do you even enter the equation here?”

“I’m protecting my brother and his friend? They don’t really understand what they’re getting into?” I hedged.

Mirelda tutted. “You don’t even believe that yourself, Pete.”

“No. I don’t.” I sighed, and slumped back into my seat. “I just need time to get used to the idea of my brother starring in the world’s first gay romance novel.”

“BL,” Mirelda said, before taking another sip of her cider. “The term is BL, not gay.”

“Oh there’s definitely a massive L,” I grumped. “Along with the GB. And probably a capital D, and a bunch of other letters. Well, fine, you’re right, I should be happy for you. Congratulations on finally getting over your writer's block. I hope you sell a billion copies and go on to make a billion gold selling stories starring various Goldstones in fictional romances with all and sundry.”

Mirelda’s face brightened up like the sun. I mentally kicked myself. Idiot! She was here because she wanted praise, and recognition that she’d partially gotten over her trauma. Not for a dunderhead to get angry about the subject matter.

“I could start with Bando and a goblin if it would make you feel better?” She asked, gesturing over at our hardworking ‘young’ (in quotes) server. He was head down with one of Ironbellow’s daughters, and my eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“No, save the goblin for Johnsson. Give Bando a princess or something,” I remarked.

“If you say so.” Mirelda smirked. “What about you?”

“Dinosaur,” I instantly declared.

“Oh, screw you.” Mirelda batted at me with an open palm and we shared a laugh.

“But seriously, what’s next?” I asked.

“I want to try my hand at some horror.” Mirelda muttered. “This world has its horrors, but not horror, if you know what I mean. I think a little Cthulhu mythos with some elder gods could be interesting in a world with actual gods. Maybe play on that a bit, with the death of a God.”

I shivered. “Maybe make sure that they aren’t real, first, and that mentioning them doesn’t summon them.”

“Like Hastur? Yeah, that might be a bad idea. I’ll check first.” Mirelda shivered. “Oooh, I really don’t like that thought.”

“Whoster?” I asked, wrinkling my nose. “Why does that sound familiar? I was thinking of Beetlejuice, or Candyman, or Bloody Mary.”

“Hastur is one of the big Lovecraftian bads. His whole scthick is based on an older book called The King in Yellow, where the eponymous play causes your mind to connect to an eldritch horror. He has a symbol called the Yellow Sign that similarly causes madness. It’s a play on memetic horror, where just seeing one or the other causes you to start spreading the idea, drawing the symbol everywhere and talking about the play. Speaking his name is enough to summon him – Hastur, the eldritch abomination of entropy.”

I considered it. “So if I say his name three times at a pajama sleepover, he’ll appear and dissolve everyone’s skin?”

“Pretty much. And yes, I’ll make a thorough check before I start writing about eldritch beings.” Mirelda chewed on her lips.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Try Richter. He’d know.”

“You sure?” Mirelda scanned the Inn for the big guy, but he wasn’t around today.

“Eh, if not, try the temple.” I shrugged.

“I will. Honestly, it’s such a weight off. I was so stuck and it – it hurt you know?” Mirelda clutched at her heart. “Like I was a clogged pipe, and the pressure kept building, and building. But now it’s finally out.” She sighed deeply, and her shoulders dropped as she released unseen tension.

“Well, now you’re free. Congrats! Maybe I’ll make you some champagne to celebrate! Well, not champagne, it’ll just be ‘sparkling joy.”

Mirelda gave me some side-eye. “Speaking of which. We’ve only been talking about me. What about you? What is the vaunted Forefather of Brewing going to do next? More cider?”

“Mmm…. I’m kinda cidered out, y’know? It just doesn’t have the same feeling as wine or beer. There’s a reason you find a thousand varieties of beer in the liquor store, but only a few ciders. They just don’t have the same feeling.”

“More beer then?”

“I was thinkin’ of wine. There’s the Cascadian grapes, but I don’t really want ta try grape wine until I’ve seen ‘The Winery’. What I’m lookin’ at right now is rice.”

“Rice?” Mirelda scratched her chin, where a beard wasn’t. “Like sake?”

“Aye. Got it in one. According ta Kirk, distilled rice alcohol is a thing, like Soju, but rice wine just isn’t as popular. I think it’s because I’ve only been able ta find one variety, and it’s rough.”

“Is it like sake? I was never really a fan myself.”

“Eh, no. When Kirk said the human kingdoms had rice wine I assumed it was sake, but it wasn’t. It’s less like Japanese sake and more like Korean takju or or Chinese huangijiu. I’d like ta start there, then move on ta sake.”

Mirelda looked at her wrist. “Is this where you winesplain at me, and I pretend that I’m interested?”

I sniffled. “I mean, if you’re not…”

She *giggled*. “Hee! No, please go on; I love esoteric knowledge. Watching experts gush about their expertise was always my favourite part of research. Youtube was great for it before the influencers took over and ruined everything.”

I groaned. “I remember that. Back in the age when it was easy ta find professional content on Youtube, and shock content was the worst you had ta deal with. But I learned most of me craft the old fashioned way. Do ya remember when everybody had ta learn things off *gasp* paper? There were these things called books –”

Mirelda swatted me on the arm. “Don’t you go booksplaining at me too! I was there when the deep magic was written!”

“Aye. Well, if yer askin’ fer it. To start, do ya know how fermentation works?”

Mirelda’s eyes crinkled in a facial tick I was beginning to recognize as ‘deep thought’. “Yeast eats sugar to make alcohol?”

“Correct! But milled rice doesn’t have sugar in it! It’s pure starch.”

Mirelda’s brow furrowed. “Okay, now I am curious. How can you ferment something with no sugar?”

“The trick is that starches are sugars; just complex sugars. They’re made of multiple sugar molecules chained together. It’s why too many carbs are bad for you – they’re just more sugar. The term for breaking those starches into their component sugars is saccharification.”

Mirelda pushed the plate of crisps away from her, rubbing her hand on her stomach as she did so. “So saccharify the rice, then ferment it? How?”

“Ah, now there’s the million yen question. Because saccharification is the method that defines what kind of rice wine you end up with. But they all come back to the same place – mould.”

“Mould.” Mirelda’s tone was flat.

I nodded. “Mould.”

“Mould.”

“Aye.”

“You’re telling me that rice wine is mouldywine??” She looked sick to her stomach at the thought.

“I mean, no more than beer is rotten barley, or red wine is old grapes. Tha mould just provides the enzymes necessary fer saccharification to start. More specifically, Aspergillus mould, which the Japanese call koji.”

Mirelda took a big gulp of her cider, then put her hand to her lips and put her glass down. “Sorry, I’m still stuck on the mouldy sake part.”

“Oh, it’s worse than that. Koji is also in most soya sauces and miso soup.”

Mirelda retched. “But… I love miso soup. Oh, Gods, now I’m going to be thinking of it as mouldy soup.”

“You’d have to find miso soup first, sorry, I haven’t seen any. And you’ll have ta live with it, since no mould means no saccharification. Because as the mould propagates through the rice, it produces amylase and protease enzymes as byproducts. Those enzymes weaken the bonds in the complex starches, causing them to break into their component sugars.”

Mirelda moaned. “Okay. Fine. Mould. How do they get it in there in the first place? Just… leave the rice fermenting on the kitchen counter for a few days next to a mouldy apple?”

“Now we come full circle, because the big difference between Asian rice wines is how they get their mould. The easiest, and by far the roughest, is the Korean method to make takju, or makgeolli, which literally translates to ‘cloudy alcohol’.”

“Huh. I don’t think I’ve ever had that…”

“No, it doesn’t really show up much outside of Korea. Sake is much more popular, maybe because Takju has a cloudy appearance. Western customers are weird about unfiltered alcohols.”

“Okay. So what makes the Korean version so different?”

“Ah, for that, I’ll have to teach you in the deep ways of nuruk.” I stood and gestured away from the table. “Come into my dungeon and I shall entertain you with my mould collection.”

Mirelda stood and took my proffered hand. “Oh, so romantic. It’s just like being led down the grand stair of a royal spring ball.”

I grinned. “I try.”