Making paste

1. Washing.   Make a soft dough from wheat flour and cover it with towel for a while to let it cure. Add clean water to the dough basin. Grasp and fold the dough repeatedly to wash the starch out. Avoid tear the dough apart. Filter the starch into a pail through a fine sieve. Continue the washing until only gluten left behind. Add a little cooking alum into the pail and wait for about two days to let the starch settle hard.
   
   
   
   
2. Cooking.   Train the unwanted water and scoop up the starch into a clean container. Add little warm water and stir it into thick porridge by a wooden stick. Pour boiling water AT ONE GO on the starch and stir it HARD immediately. The finished paste should appear milky. Soak the paste chunk in clean water for few days to reduce its stickiness.
   
   
3. Preparing thin and semi-thin paste.   Paste in different thickness is required in different stages of scroll mounting. For thin paste, break the paste chunk by hand in cool and clean water, then filter it through a fine sieve. To test its thickness, brush it on a strip of rice paper. If your finger can feel some stickiness, the paste is ready. Semi-thin paste is prepared in the same way but with less water.