Heather's Forecast

Chapter 151 - Heather's Forecast

"Well, my friend, the main ingredient for ale would be barley and it is much cheaper to produce rather than beer. Also, ale could be drunk by children too because the ale is considered as a small beer for everyone. It doesn't cause one to have bloated belly and faces and won't really make one drunk."

"Beer had a slightly longer process where additional hops were introduced to aid the preservation of beers. Besides, beers may have an alcoholic content much higher and that's why I supplied you with just 25 kegs of beer as with 50 kegs of ale."

"The right person would be the brewster or alewives who would be helping to make this ale. There would be the steeping, germinating, kilning, milling before the barley would be boiled down to produce its own maltose."

"And of course there would be sugars added or even fruit flavours too. In towns, it is normal to see ale on almost every table rather than water because of the process of purification."

"As you know, towns may not have the right sanitation as this village, for a start so water here is considered relatively safe to drink unless one would start dumping their morning waste downriver...! " Marcel explained and soon it dawned to me that only the brewster would have the answer to it when the time comes.

"So, my Lord. How would you like to embark on this? It may require at least 4 to 8 people to run a brewery but for a small scale it would be alright to run by that family alone for the time being."

"Strongbow... Nice name to begin with for the naming of the ale and beer. Strongbow Ale and Beers from GraceHaven. Haha. I can picture that right now...!" Marcel began to visualise how the next product would be marketed but then it would just be within the consumption for the citizens of Gracehaven.

Definitely, the future had already been set forward for the Strongbow family but as what I forecasted, it would just be meant for the local consumption. It would be hellish if one does a request for the export of ale and beers throughout England.

A brewery needs that kind of magnitude to operate and it would be as big as the domain itself with at least 40 to 60 workers on all shifts...!

"No... Just the bread would make us busy. There's no need for us to market the ale and beers in the future. Hey...! What am I muttering about? I'm becoming like you now, Marcel...! Counting the eggs before the hens lay them...! I'm getting infected by you already...!" I slapped the sides of Marcel's arms and that brought him back to reality.

Indeed, when putting two great minds alike, they could work up wondrous ideas and innovations for the future. As far as I know, Marcel too was a thinker as well as a good forecaster too.

Heather giggled when she saw our antics, behaving just like blood brothers in our previous life. Maybe we are brothers after all...

"Hey, I thought you are going to leave by midday today following the bagels back with you?"

"HAH...! You are chasing me off already? Hahaha. Well, tomorrow midday as I'm following back the Golden Pillows. Those are the true royals that would need to be properly escorted. Hahaha. 2500 loaves of Golden Pillows. The bakers would be starting to bake them later on, am I right?"

"Yeah... Most probably before or after 9 o'clock tonight. If we knew, we would have made 10 ovens before. Those ovens would be ready in 2 more days and look over there, even old Jack is busy forging the metal wire rack inside the ovens first and the 6 vast iron doors."

"The base legs are ready and the top where the main oven or the furnace sits needs to be cured. A small fire would be fired up and cracks would then be covered if it shows. Once it's ready, the outer oven would then be built using the clay bricks and smoothen inside and out by using a layer of clay."

"Theoretically, it sounds so simple, but wait till you see how it's done and everything had to be done in perfection from the width of the oven, the spaces between the iron racks, the trays and also the clearance for the top furnace as well," I explained and Marcel got a bit giddy with all the information as he only knows how to handle the end process — by eating the bread, of course...!

"Hmm... Mind if I take a look at the pottage? I feel a bit hungry talking about bread and all. Maybe a bowl or two with a few slices of bread would do fine. Hate going to be in bed with a growling stomach, you know." Marcel remarked as he licked his lips and can't seem to get enough of Gracehaven graciousness in food.

"Haha... Wait up, I'd join you at the table. Wouldn't be nice for you to be sitting there all alone, would it? Too bad the bakers were taking their rest, but I think they would be able to cope on the next coming round."

"Only for tomorrow, they would suffer a bit due to the Golden Pillows though," I remarked at Marcel and went to the courtyard and helped him scoop a large bowl of pottage with 2 small bowls for both of us.

Heather had completed gathering up the paperwork and brought them upstairs. From the second-floor balcony, she had a stool and sat near the balusters where the overview of the whole village spreads out in front of her.

"Expansion of Gracehaven beyond the borders, eh? Maybe I could give Mars a pleasant surprise. This view is quite magnificent and I could record all the rows of residential plots as well as future plots for residential and farmlands too."

She went into the study where she removed a piece of paper and board to support the paper she was writing on and made detailed marking from the right to the left of the residential areas starting from the Burial ground.

She drew a top-down view of the Burial ground, which would not have any future expansion of any residential or farmlands beyond it and its considered as the border of this village.

Then she drew the six rows of houses and five columns with the latrine pit separating the lots and the Burial ground. Then she drew another six rows and five columns on the left side and drew a square to depict the latrine pit.

After that latrine pit, she drew 6 rows by 10 columns to represent the current lots that had been marked out. This makes a total of 120 residential lots.

Then she marked out three squares that represented the farmlands before the riverbank on the right-hand side of the village. And on each square, she marked the number 4 to show that it had 4 plots of plantations.

On the left-hand side, which was considered as limitless, she marked out 5 more squares and wrote 4 in them. That makes a total of 32 farmlands.

She remembered Marcel mentioning to make it a total of 40 farmlands so Heather drew another 2 more squares on the rows of 5 lots on the right.

She noticed that adding another 2 more lots would enable and expansion of 120 feet across which means three would be another 12 columns of 5 rows of residential lots.

Heather quickly drew it up and she noticed that the new 2 farmlands had expanded 60 more residential lots and that makes a total of 180...! 180 houses is equivalent to 180 families and each family would have an average of 4 family members. That means the total number of citizens may shoot up to 720...!

She then drew the bakery that now had 10 ovens. She just drew a rectangular beside another rectangular that represented the storage barn for grain and flour. She wrote 1st shift from 6 morning to 6 in the evening and 6 evening to 6 in the morning.

Jennings would be on 1st shift head bakery and Hereford would be on 2nd shift head bakery. On each shift, there would be 9 other bakers which mean there are 20 people working throughout the day.

Below the bakery, she wrote Midday delivery of bread. And she wrote the following:

1 tray 8 Golden Pillows ½ hour

1 tray 12 Half Pounder Loaf ⅓ hour

1 tray 36 Bagle /Pretzel / Breadstick ¼ hour

1 tray 16 Plaid Breads ¼ hour

—10 Double Layered Ovens on 1 hour—

320 Golden Pillows

720 half-pounder loaf

2880 bagels, pretzels, breadstick

1280 plaid loaves of bread

— 10 hours —

(I) 3200 Golden Pillows

(ii) 7200 half-pounder loaf

(iii) 28,800 bagels

(iv) 28,800 pretzels, breadstick

(v) 12,800 plaid loaves of bread

—consumption of flour per day—

(I) 2400 pounds

(ii) 3600 pounds

(iii) 3600 pounds

(iv) 3600 pounds

(v) 2134 pounds

—consumption every 5 days—

15,334 pounds (based on the highest)

—flour deliveries every 5 days—

2500 × 5 days = 12,500 pounds

Heather looked at the calculations and realised that the supply was lesser than the consumption and an additional 1000 pounds of flour per day would be sufficient to cover the weekly consumption.

She looked at the storage barn and made a calculation based on the lowest weight of flour in a vat and came up with 600 pounds per vat at 20 vats. Even she knew 60 pounds would fit into a cubic foot and each vat could make up approximately 12 cubic feet of storage, she decided to make it the lowest to gain the highest in the end.

20 vats could store only 12,200 pounds of flour as opposed to the actual 14,400 pounds. In order to counter the deficit, the men have to produce another 10 more of those vats to store the unhulled grains and corn as well as the barn to be extended to another 6' by 8' to accommodate the needed space.

She finally put down the quill and paper as she thought that without her drawing up these simple diagram, she wouldn't have known the actual need for the flour and this had to be reported to Mars and Marcel as well.

She took the paper and the writing material along with the sales order as she descended the staircase to meet the duo at the dining table.

"Please excuse me for barging in during a mealtime. But I have some findings that need to be announced and be rectified by tomorrow or else our flour would be emptied out in no time." Heather pushed the paper she had drawn the diagram and I looked at it and was astounded at her findings.

When my eyes scanned to the courtyard where she drew the bakery, I find that she had a knack to define her deployment for the future and suddenly it dawned to me that the supply was lesser than the consumption based on her forecast.

I checked the order list against her projected amount of bread that would be rolled out in 10 hours by 10 ovens and found that we only require 2500 golden pillows, 5,000 pretzels, 5,000 breadsticks, 2500 half-pounder with stuffing, 10,000 plaid bread with toppings and 10,000 bagels with toppings on top of 250 serfs' loaves daily for Corral.

"Well, in that's the case, we will follow up with my wife's projection since this would bring about the future production and distribution of Gracehaven's bread. What do you think?" I asked Marcel as he pondered on with the supply to meet its consumption.

"Hmm, I could spare you with 3,000 pounds daily for the moment, which I think would be enough since the bagels, pretzels and breadsticks would only be like a third of the projected figure."

"I only have 150,000 pounds of grains and flour quota per month, so it would be a good idea for me to reserve some for my town too. 100,000 pounds for the first 3 months and you would be able to grow your own grains from then on. What do you say, buddy? I could increase the rate tomorrow to 3,000 pounds and the balance would be by the end of the month."

"What do you say, buddy?" Marcel raised his eyebrows as he extended his hand towards me and I instantly grabbed it and shook with Heather grinning beside me.

That's settled then. 100,000 pounds of flour for Gracehaven's monthly consumption.