295885 Mon Jan 26 10:54:07 -0800 2004 16 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1627888 The last big party I had left me with ends of many bottles of red wine. Waste-not, want-not. I bought some raw vinegar, boiled a jar, filled it with the raw vinegar and the ends of the wine, covered with cheesecloth and waited. After a while, I had what taste like a nice fruity mild vinegar. I poured off a bit for immediate use, then added some more wine. It's been about six months now, and the vinegar tastes quite nice. So, here's the thing. I was considering investing in a vinegar-sized oak barrel, to age this stuff and get some really nice vinegar out of it. But when I went o-line to research, I found an overwhelming number of instructions for making vinegar - don't just use regular wine, because the sulfites will keep it from vinegaring! Don't use store-bought raw vinegar, because the mother will be dead! Evrything you're doing is wrong, wrong, wrong! Well, is it? I won't invest in a barrel (which are quite expensive) until I feel sure of what I'm doing with vinegar, but I can't help but be a bit suspicious of all the rules. Are the vinegar people being like the bread people who insist you can't make bread without knowing the exact rising temperature, etc.? Or is vinegar making fussier than I realized, and I've just been lucky so far? Does anyone make their own vinegar? Mon Jan 26 10:54:07 -0800 2004 0 curiousbaker 1 1627891 Vinegar making is easy. Easy, easy, easy! It's very forgiving... it just takes time. That is where being careful comes in... to keep the time at a minimum. it is supposedly a lot slower with white wines than with reds due to more sulfites. I have noticed this but find the difference not that great once you build up a bulk of white wine vinegar. I like to keep white and red wines in separate containers and not mix. I also have desert wine and sparkling wine vinegar's, many types of beer, mead, and cider vinegar's. Even breaking down my reds to burgundy, merlot/shiraz, etc. Don't waste all that money on a vinegar keg. So expensive and very large and hard to move around. I use gallon size sun tea jars. You can get them in thrift shops, hardware stores, or real cheap at the link at the bottom of the page. I keep them covered with clean old bandanas or cheese cloth held on with rubber bands. I keep 5-6 sun tea jars in a milk crate and pile the milk crates in the back of my work shop. I have over 20 types of different vinegar's working right now. Half of which are made from beers, mead's, wines, ciders, fermented fruit concoctions I have made and half from store bought wines. Don't keep the vinegar jars anywhere near your wine cellar since there have been cases where sealed wine bottles have turned to vinegar from being close to the mother. I thought this impossible but saw it happen to a friend who lost several dozen bottles of wine this way. You don't need a mother to start a culture... the actual chunk of mother is dead. Once it sinks it drowns and dies. Only the floating mother is alive. It is the unformed mother particles suspended in the raw vinegar solution that start the culture. I have tested this by trying to start vinegar with a chunk of mother that was floating, one that was at the bottom of the jar and just some fresh vinegar poured off from the jar and the liquid started the new batch within a week or two. The sunk mother took about 2 months, the floating mother was only a week or so faster than the sunk mother. When adding new wine to the culture don't add more than about half as much wine as you have active growing vinegar at a time and don't add more often than about once a week. But do add some wine at least once a month. This keeps the mother active and lively. Adding too much wine overwhelms the mother and slows it down massively. You can keep odds and ends of wine in a jar in your fridge if you have too much wine to add at any one time. It will keep this way for months. Any other questions just ask. Link: http://shop.store.yahoo.com/flyyourflag/sunteajars.html Mon Jan 26 11:20:20 -0800 2004 1627888 0 The Rogue 2 1627913 2 questions: 1. do you have an actual recipe you follow (proportions, etc.)? 2. what the heck is a "mother"? Mon Jan 26 14:03:03 -0800 2004 1627891 0 rebs 3 1627950 Mother of vinegar is the name for the bacterial culture that turns alcohol to vinegar. It grows on and floats on top of the vinegar. If the vinegar conatiner is moved or jostled the slightest bit it will sink and drown. It looks partly like firm clear jello on white wine and sort of like placenta (afterbirth) on red wine. It has a sort of rubbery texture. Recipe / proportions are never add more than equal amounts of wine to live vinegar / mother culture and the vinegar. Otherwise the mother takes forever to start working. Any alcohol added to the culture should be watered down to 6-10% alcohol before adding for best results. This means that you may want to add one part of water to two parts of wine then add this to the culuture. I don't bother doing this unless the wine or beer is over 13% alcohol. Most wines are less than that. Desert wines may be higher alcohol as well as fortified wines like port and sherry. The percentage of alcohol ends up being the same percentage of acidity in the finished vinegar. A 7% alcohol Belgian ale will end up a 7% acid belgian ale vinegar. Most store bought vinegar is apx. 5% acidity. It takes several weeks to months for the wine to turn into vinegar. Once it is going strong, lets say after a few months.. I take out about half the vinegar every month and add back the same amount of wine. The stuff I take out I sterilize and bottle and let sit for 1-3 months to mellow. Mon Jan 26 18:10:05 -0800 2004 1627913 0 The Rogue 4 1628002 Thanks for the great info. A couple more questions: 1. For a Beligan beer (or other beer) vinegar, what type of raw vinegar do you use (the only raw types I see in the stores are red wine and apple cider)? Seems like the vinegar should be of the same type you are trying to make, but there's no getting raw beer vinegar. 2. Can any harmful (healthwise) bacteria grow when you're making vinegar? Tue Jan 27 10:19:52 -0800 2004 1627950 0 Spade 5 1628086 You can use any type of mother to start any type of vinegar. It just takes a few months some times to adapt and kick into full gear. Malt vinegar is beer vinegar. You don't have to worry about any harmful bacteria. The starting vinegar is acidic enough to kill anything, as well as the added alcohol. If after a few months the vinegar doesnt taste good then the mother isnt adapting well and you should chuck it and start over. remember you want a jelly like stuff growing on top, but not mold. For beer vinegar... the beer has to be totally flat... the CO2 will kill or slow down the mother. Then you should oxygenate the beer by shaking to add air before adding it to the mother. The mother needs air or it will die. That's why it forms on the top of the culture and dies when it goes under. Tue Jan 27 17:43:05 -0800 2004 1628002 0 The Rogue 6 1628099 I forgot about malt vinegar. Duh... I don't think I've ever seen a raw one for sale, though. Tue Jan 27 20:04:47 -0800 2004 1628086 0 Spade 7 1628152 To tell ya the truth I'm not sure that I have, but it really doesn't matter that much. Any good mother will adapt and hopefully produce good vinegar with time. Wed Jan 28 11:29:22 -0800 2004 1628099 0 The Rogue 4 1628044 I wondered what mother was too. I thought either you were deleting expletives or possibly had some type of Oedipal issues.... ;) Tue Jan 27 14:15:06 -0800 2004 1627950 0 Kevin 4 1628657 what live vinegars are there? Sun Feb 01 18:06:35 -0800 2004 1627950 0 robin 2 1627917 I thought the oak barrel might improve the flavor, but I'm sure you're right - it's probably not worth it. Do you keep the vinegar in the dark while it's aging? Also, will heating it briefly kill the vinegar-making particles? I have friends who make wine, and, perhaps superstitiously, won't have raw vinegar in the house. but I would like to give them some of my nice vinegar. Can I heat it, then bottle? Thanks. Mon Jan 26 14:18:49 -0800 2004 1627891 0 curiousbaker 3 1627949 Yes keep it in the dark. I just cover my milk crates with thick dark old towels. To kill off the bacteria heat the vinegar in a sauce pan to 190 degrees then bottle, don't let it get higher or accidentally boil this will destroy much of the flavor. That will kill off the culture and anything else. Let it sit for 1-3 months after bottling to mellow out and remove the sharp bite. I make wine, beer, mead, cider, etc. and have had not problems with cross cultures. I do sterilize everything real well which has to be done anyway. I also culture the vinegar in a different room than where I ferment my wine and beer. Mon Jan 26 17:59:54 -0800 2004 1627917 0 The Rogue 2 1627982 I agree with "The Rogue" at least 98%. Most importantly, it is easy, and if you fail, the downside is almost zero cost because it's leftovers. I age the vinegar in used 1/2 gallon apple juice jars (clear glass) because that's what was available at the time. I do have oak chips in there, but don't taste the effect. I even have one white with American Oak (medium toast) and one white with French Oak (same) and I can't taste a difference. They live in a cardboard box in my dining room because I don't want them near the wine cellar. The white has been more fragile than the red (the whites got dumped once, but the red has been going without problem for 8 years or so). Oh, maybe I should say that the dining room never gets outside 58 - 80 degrees. Also, I have an 'in use' bottle so that if I dump new wine into the jug it can sit for a while before I need to use it as vinegar. Tue Jan 27 00:31:21 -0800 2004 1627891 0 SteveT 3 1628087 What 2% don't you agree with. I'd like to hear your input and any different ways you do things. Some things work for some folks and some for others. I have read tons of stuff about this, but when it came time to do it on my own I found that some of the things that worked for others didn't for me and vice versa. Tue Jan 27 17:45:55 -0800 2004 1627982 0 The Rogue 4 1631003 i want to make wine vinegar;but have heard you cant make it with store bought wine be cause of sulfites.can you tell me anything about this? Thu May 26 18:50:43 -0700 2005 1628087 0 barbie 5 1631004 No problem using store bought wine. hite wine vinegar takes a lot longer and a tiny bit of trial and error. Red wine vinegar... easy as pie. Thu May 26 22:20:31 -0700 2005 1631003 0 The Rogue 2 1630998 Loved your article. My grandfather who came to San Francisco from Lucca, Italy always made his own wine so he had several mothers for vinegar. When he died all the bottles were discarded. I would love to know where I can obtain a mother. Thanks. Dianne Janney Thu Jan 06 19:08:05 -0800 2005 1627891 0 Dianne Janney