Saddle quern
grinds seeds and nuts to meal
AWhat it needs
Needs 2 other products.
- 02.23 Saddle quernFood Year 1 needs 2 products
- 01.02 HammerstoneMaking Year 1 raw materials only
- 02.04 Sandstone grinding slabMaking Year 1 needs 1 product
Open a box to see what it needs. A dashed box is a product already drawn in full: click it to jump there. In the org chart, drag to move around.
BWhy
Wild grain, nuts and dry seeds are food that keeps for months, but whole they are hard to eat and hard to digest. Ground to meal they become porridge, flat bread and thickening for stews. The quern is two stones: a long bed and a hand stone pushed across it.
CYou need
- A slab of hard gritty stone that does not crumble, such as granite, basalt or a hard gritstone: as long as the forearm and hand, a hand-span and a half wide, a hand thick
- A loaf-shaped cobble of the same stone, as long as the slab is wide
- A pointed hammerstone (01.02) and the grinding slab with sand (02.04)
- A mat or hide to catch the meal
DSteps
- Choose the stone with care. Soft sandstone sheds grit into the meal, and that grit wears teeth down to the gum. Rub two pieces together hard: if sand pours off, do not use it.
- Peck the top of the slab with the hammerstone until it is slightly hollow along its length, like a saddle, and rough all over.
- Peck one face of the cobble flat along its length, and a little curved across, so it sits in the hollow.
- Rub the two stones together with wet sand until they fit. Wash off every trace of sand.
- Set the slab on the mat, with the end nearest you raised on a stone so it slopes away.
- Dry the grain by the fire first. Dry grain shatters; damp grain smears.
- Kneel at the high end. Put a small handful of grain on the slab. Grip the hand stone in both hands, push it away with the weight of the body, and draw it back lightly.
- Sweep the meal that gathers at the far end onto the mat. Shake it in a fine basket: what passes through is meal, what stays is ground again.
- When the surfaces wear smooth and slippery, peck them rough again.
EIt worked if
- The meal feels like coarse flour between the fingers, with no whole grains.
- There is no grit between the teeth when it is eaten.
FWhat goes wrong
- Gritty meal. The stone is too soft, or sand was left on it. Change the stone; wash it well.
- Grain rolls off unground. The surfaces are polished. Peck them.
- Sore back and knees. Raise the near end more and kneel on a folded hide. Share the work; it is an hour a day for every six people fed.
- Mouldy meal. Grind only what will be eaten in two days. Store grain whole.
GIn the story
Sofia has been cooking for 24 on roots, fish and whatever Ulani says is safe. She asks Luca for something to crush seed, and he gives her a quern that fits her reach exactly, because he measured her arms when she was not looking. The first flat bread is burnt on one side and raw on the other, and people fight over it.