382453 Sun Mar 18 19:53:06 -0700 2007 8 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 2398505 i just made potato salad, and even though i don't normally use vinegar, i know a lot of recipes do, so i threw a splash (less than a tablespoon) in at the last minute. it was a previosly unopened bottle of honey wine vinegar that i got as a gift, i'm not sure when. i put it in while the potatoes were still hot, right before putting it in the fridge, but now it smells VERY strongly of the vinegar. it it just because it's still hot? or could the vinegar have gone bad? thanks! Sun Mar 18 19:53:06 -0700 2007 39382 Nalega 1 2398516 I've never had unopened vinegar go bad on me but I have had opened vinegar go cloudy and obviuosly spoiled I think it will be better when it has cooled all the way - the flavor mellows as it soaks in..... Plus warm vinegar is not very apealing.. chilled ... much more so. Sun Mar 18 19:56:24 -0700 2007 2398505 78681 coastie 1 2398763 No vinegar does not realy go bad. Sometimes if you are lucky it produces "mother" which is a cloudy sort of glatinous substance you can use to make new vinegar from leftver wine, apple cider etc. Wnen adding vinegar to potatoes to potat salad it is better to add it to the potatoes when they are stilll hot or warm.It hlps them to absorb the flavor and the strong aroma will dissapate as the potatoes cool. Sun Mar 18 21:47:27 -0700 2007 2398505 10285 Candy 2 2398781 What is " mother" is it alive?? How does it make vinegar. ty for info Sun Mar 18 21:53:47 -0700 2007 2398763 78681 coastie 3 2398852 Yes, it's alive. It's the cellulose left behind by the bacterial culture that produces acetic acid. It eats sugar and excretes acetic acid, similar to the way that yeast eats sugar and excretes carbon dioxide. That cloudy, semi-gelatinous stuff at the bottom of the vinegar doesn't mean spoiled, it means that it's still alive. Sun Mar 18 22:28:28 -0700 2007 2398781 21339 GVDub 4 2398932 When I had what resembled a "floating jellyfish" in my white balsamic vinegar, I decided that it should find a new home in the sea. I don't care that it's the mother to new vinegar... Raw fish is one thing, but living vinegar... that just turns my stomach the wrong way :-( Sun Mar 18 23:25:03 -0700 2007 2398852 15572 Emme 1 2398891 It's probably because it's hot. Vinegar doesn't get stronger as it sits in the bottle - the acid content basically shouldn't change much, but the flavor and "other" aromas will definitely deteriorate over time, if it's something other than plain, distilled white vinegar. Only unpasteurized vinegar forms a mother, and it's obvious once you've seen it - it's a fairly solid "clump" that wouldn't be especially easy to break up by shaking, not a lot of swirly sediment that happens to have settled to the bottom. Sun Mar 18 22:48:17 -0700 2007 2398505 11980 MikeG 1 2398896 If you are lucky to get a mother in one of your vinegar bottle, transfer it into a thick pottery jar that has a lid, and you can add daily, weekly or monthly your leftover bottle of wine to produce your own vinegar. It is quite fun, and depending on the wine you use, you will produce a fine and softer vinegar that most of the stuff you buy in the store. Sun Mar 18 22:51:51 -0700 2007 2398505 84000 el chilateo 1 2398954 The short answer: what you smelled probably wasn't b/c your vinegar went "bad" - you probably smelled it b/c it was warm. And so long as your vinegar has maintained its acidity [more on this below...], it's really too harsh an environment for much bad to happen... However if you have a non-pasteurized vinegar, that is one with the live acetobacter culture in it [which is responsible for forming the 'mother'], it will eventually "go bad" in the sense that you will end up with the acetic acid converted into carbon dioxide and water. That is why when you make your own vinegar after the acetobacter has done it's job converting the alcohol into acetic acid, it is important to either pasteurize it or to exclude all oxygen by bottling it to the brim of a capped bottle. This will eventually kill the acetoacter as they are aerobic, and thus needs oxygen. I'm by no means an expert in this, but when I became interested in making my own vinegar, which is very easy, by the way, I ran into the so-called Krebs cycle, of which a part of which is the conversion of sugars into alcohol, and alcohol into acetic acid, and acetic acid into carbon dioxide and water... (When I make red wine vinegar at home the sugar to alcohol step is overseen for me by the vitner, the part between alcohol to acetic acid [vinegar] is overseen by me, and hopefully I will have prevented the conversion of acetic acid to carbon dioxide and water by bottling the finished vinegar when the desired acidity has been reached...) (Here's just a few pictures depicting how I got started in this simple process... http://www.flickr.com/photos/akatayama/sets/1385335/ ) Sun Mar 18 23:47:05 -0700 2007 2398505 20300 cgfan