Back to the Past to Become a Fishing King-Chapter 61: The Crazy Secret Brown Sugar Paste

Seeing the words "black sugar," many ordinary people might first think of traditional black sugar or associated terms like ginger brown sugar.

After all, it’s a common household item used for women’s health and postpartum recovery, easily found in supermarkets and the like.

The black sugar used for fishing bait is different from supermarket black sugar but also notably connected.

Black sugar and brown sugar are essentially different stages in the coarse processing of cane juice.

When added to bait, its role is to increase the sugar content in the bait.

Grains and cereals that fish love to eat mainly consist of plant protein and polysaccharide cellulose.

These are broken down into sugars, amino acids, and vitamins by protease and internal microbial flora, with sugars being the most common energy provider.

Based on this principle, adding sugar components to bait can effectively improve its palatability and promote feeding.

With the principle explained, let’s move on to the preparation method.

Since you want to use it as a minor additive, it naturally requires certain packaging and processing to ensure stability and ease of use! This requires a bit of technique.

And Zhang Yang is proficient in the preparation and processing of this black sugar syrup!

Having made up his mind, that afternoon, Zhang Yang went to the town’s small supermarket to buy several packs of original brown sugar, along with jujubes and hawthorn slices.

Once everything was ready, he went home in the evening, had dinner, and started boiling it in an iron pot in the kitchen.

He added clear water to the jujubes and hawthorn, boiled them until mushy, filtered the juice, added the brown sugar to dissolve it, then switched from high to low heat, stirring the liquid constantly until it turned into a uniformly dark red liquid and let it cool.

The production method sounds simple but has tricks, with the main point being controlling the heat.

If the heat is too low, the product will have too much moisture, and the bottled black sugar syrup will spoil due to fermentation.

If the heat is too high, it will burn, altering the flavor, and the liquid will precipitate undissolvable sugars, affecting usage.

Properly heated black sugar syrup has a warm, slightly reddish color, is slightly thick, and exudes a faint composite aroma of sugar, hawthorn, and jujube.

A full pot of brown sugar water was boiled down to a small half-pot of product, and Zhang Yang monitored it until after 11 p.m. before turning off the heat to let it cool.

The next morning, he got up an hour early, used prepared 100ml scale bottles to decant the black sugar syrup, took it to the store, and labeled it with pre-printed secret black sugar syrup stickers. His homemade fishing additive was complete!

Once everything was settled, Zhang Yang took out his phone and called Old Zhao and Wang Jun, "The special stuff you’re waiting for is ready. Come and get it when you have time."

After receiving the call, Old Zhao and Wang Jun drove to Zhang Yang’s store in less than an hour.

"Did you get the stuff? Where is it?" Old Zhao was the most excited, asking about it as soon as he entered.

Zhang Yang grinned, "On the shelf, take a look yourself!"

Old Zhao found the bottled product, sniffed and inspected it for a long time, and frowned, "This isn’t that Sweet Wilderness you talked about, is it? Are you sure it works? The taste is completely different!"

Zhang Yang grinned, "I never said it was Sweet Wilderness; see, it has a label on it?"

"Secret Black Sugar Syrup? Are you sure this stuff is good for fishing? My wife uses black sugar for making ginger tea!" Zhao Bingguang doubted, curling his lips.

"When have I ever lied to you? I guarantee it works!" Yue Feng responded.

Next to him, Wang Jun was also studying a bottle of black sugar syrup, seemingly making a big decision, and dipped his fingertip to taste it.

Zhang Yang saw this but didn’t stop him, as it’s pure and natural, without any chemical additives, and entirely edible.

"Sweet? And it seems to have a hint of hawthorn and jujube!" Wang Jun said, smacking his lips confidently after tasting.

Zhang Yang nodded, "Yes, your taste buds are sharp! This is the black sugar syrup I processed yesterday, with added jujube and hawthorn for flavoring.

However, you can taste the black sugar, but don’t try other additives with your mouth, as they’re chemically synthesized and not good for you!"

"You processed this?"

Hearing this, Old Zhao got even more excited. It was surprising that Zhang Yang could process this stuff himself.

Zhang Yang decided not to tease them any longer and directly took out two Ice Dew water bottles filled with black sugar syrup from behind the counter, placing them on the tea table.

"Each of you gets a bottle. Add five to eight milliliters to a pound of bait, more won’t hurt."

"So much? How much does it cost?" Wang Jun was a bit bewildered seeing a whole big bottle for each, which amounted to five times the bottles on the shelf.

"Internal version, you two are responsible for testing and promoting, no charge!" Zhang Yang waved his hand, dismissing the idea of payment.

"Are you sure this stuff works with our bait formula?"

"Sure! It’s good for both pond fishing and wild fishing. Carp-like fish love sweet things!"

"Come on, Jun, let’s sneak out and see how it works!" Old Zhao said enthusiastically.

Anglers who trust in bait additives fantasize a lot about them. Even Old Zhao, who hangs out with Zhang Yang, wasn’t immune.

"Let’s go, if it works well, we’ll advertise for Zhang Yang! Oh, and we need more hooks; let’s grab a set and sneak out!"

Watching the enthusiastic guys come in and go out excitedly after a short while, Zhang Yang felt a bit helpless yet was secretly anticipating their fishing reports.

In the previous round of proper fishing, it went well, and they’d sneaked about two dozen fish yesterday already. This day at Oil House Fishing Ground, there weren’t many anglers, it wasn’t too hot, so Old Zhao and Wang Jun arrived before 7 a.m.

They went there and advertised for Zhang Yang again.

The two brothers took over a spot heavily baited by a friend the previous night, and since there were not many people, Diao Changhe didn’t care. They directly used 6.3-meter long rods and started early, catching several in quick succession, drawing a crowd of four or five fellow anglers.

The two brothers fished with one rod from 7:30 until noon, netting 15 large carp, all big, old, slippery fish left from previous fishing rounds, weighing over 50 pounds in total.

At midday, Zhang Yang casually went to the corner to buy some cold noodles and buns as a makeshift lunch.

Just as he sat on a small stool eating, Old Zhao returned with four or five fellow anglers to the store.

"The secret black sugar syrup we used today was bought from Zhang Yang here! You all saw the results!

The large bottles are more expensive, but if you’re interested, you can try a small bottle first. The fish were biting well this morning, with this additive, we caught those big, old fish at the bottom of the pond!" Old Zhao promoted the black sugar syrup as soon as he entered, pointing to it on the shelf.

"Master Zhang, how much is this black sugar syrup? Give me a bottle!"

"I want one too!"

"Count me in! I was drooling this morning watching Old Zhao and Wang Jun catch fish in succession!"

"I want one bottle too, and grab two packs of bait’s formula! The bait works great; I caught eight last time I sneaked out!"

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