Subject: BS: I am making vinegar From: jimmyt Date: 27 Dec 05 - 09:55 PM I have just begun my quest to make my own vinegar from leftover wine. ANyone have any info? I just got it started tonight with a mother of vinegar and a couple glasses of Mediocre pinot noir in a crock. Hopefully I will be able to retire on the proceeds of the delightful acid. jimmyt |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: Peace Date: 27 Dec 05 - 10:03 PM As a youth we took old bottles of alcohol--including wine--and placed the contents in a pot on the stove. We heated the contents. Turned the lid over and floated a bowl in the pot. We placed ice cubes in the overturned lid. As the alcohol boiled off it condensed and dripped down into the bowl. We drank the contents of the bowl. There were three of us and we all got inebriated--shitfaced is more like it--threw up and went to sleep. We were all very sick the next day. It may have been the pinot noir that caused us to be ill. Be very careful jimmyt. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: Peace Date: 27 Dec 05 - 10:05 PM Site jus' for you, jimmy. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: Once Famous Date: 27 Dec 05 - 10:10 PM Somethings I kind of wonder about. Why make vinegar when there are about 200 types available on the shelf? Why make wine when there are probably 10 times that amount. Just curious, jimmyt. No harm intended. Now, BBQ sauce is something else worth experimenting with. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: Peace Date: 27 Dec 05 - 10:11 PM Martin, we gotta trade recipes. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: GUEST,Jacques Le Vendreau Date: 27 Dec 05 - 10:13 PM Ah! There you are, Martin. Quickly, my friend! Come to the Brokeback Mountain thread. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: mack/misophist Date: 27 Dec 05 - 11:37 PM This time I side with Martin. With so many good things that can be done with bad wine, why turn it into vinegar? Vinegar is so cheap that the project's a dead loss of money. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: John O'L Date: 28 Dec 05 - 12:04 AM White wine vinegar's good for cleaning the red wine stains off the carpet... |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: MBSLynne Date: 28 Dec 05 - 06:09 AM Yes, but the fun of DOING it is part of it. What else can be done with bad wine? We need to clear out our wine cellar and vinegar seemed better than throwing stuff away, but if there are other things to do with it..... BTW, I love that site Bruce...I'll go back and look at it more closely in a min Love Lynne |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: gnu Date: 28 Dec 05 - 06:28 AM Lynne asked, "What else can be done with bad wine?" Serve it when you have guests you don't like. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: GUEST,Mr (ex wine making) Red Date: 28 Dec 05 - 06:46 AM Make wine and leave a gap for the vinegar fly to get in. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: JohnInKansas Date: 28 Dec 05 - 06:55 AM The link provided by Peace rather confirms my own observation that making vinegar from wine is a zero-skill operation. Open a bottle of wine Drink less than all of it* Return in two days Find vinegar in the bottle. *may require restraint John |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: sapper82 Date: 28 Dec 05 - 07:02 AM I made some cider several years back and the last gallon went "off" and turned to vinegar. I was still using the stuff for cooking 6y later!! |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: GUEST,Blame that vinegar fly Date: 28 Dec 05 - 07:36 AM they are very small and fairly rotund |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: mack/misophist Date: 28 Dec 05 - 09:12 AM Use bad wine for cooking. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: Stilly River Sage Date: 28 Dec 05 - 09:42 AM Then you have bad wine in your food. You can get away with inexpensive wine in your food. We also have it on the table. :) (That's because if you choose carefully Inexpensive doesn't translate to Bad.) |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: jimmyt Date: 28 Dec 05 - 09:50 AM Well, actually the point is that using bad wine for cooking is I guess OK, but if I wouldn't drink it I also won't cook with it. The real issue is that an open bottle of wine to cook with is gonna be crap in about a week and should be thrown out. Vinegar, however, is another possibility of what you can do with leftover wine. Scenario: you have a container of vinegar in the process. It requires no effort, just a place to put the jar or crock with a piece of cloth over the top to keep the bugs out. You have a partial bottle of leftover wine that you have been using in the kitchen to cook with for a few days, maybe a week. You can now pour the remains in the vinegar crock instead of throwing it out. You open a bottle of wine that turns out to be plonk. It is not corked( effected with a contaminated cork that makes it taste like wet cardboard) it is just a mediocre or poor wine or just something that doesn't suit your fancy, you can pour it in the crock also. Leftover wine after a party that normally gets poured down the drain, in the crock instead. Supposedly you can make a better red wine vinegar at home than most of what you purchase. Mind you, I am brand new at this and very possibly this will turn out to be an idea that looks good on paper but is not too practical. I agree, Martin, that trying to make wine is beyond my scope. I will have to let you know how it progresses. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: GUEST, Topsie Date: 28 Dec 05 - 09:51 AM Surely, the better the wine, the better the vinegar will be. To remove limescale it doesn't matter what it tastes like, but in salad dressing flavour is important. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 28 Dec 05 - 10:06 AM Maybe I'm not holding my face right (as we used to say when I was a kid), but I've been unsuccessful in making wine vinegar. I've gone with the "just leave it out and it will turn" approach, and also with the mother method, and in neither case did I get vinegar. Now, the mother, I suppose, may have been something else in the preexisting vinegar I had rather than real mother. But it sure seemed to answer to the description I'd read. Oh, well. Dave Oesterreich |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: MBSLynne Date: 28 Dec 05 - 10:55 AM I don't often use wine in cooking cos my daughter doesn't like food with alcohol in generally. We don't tend to have left over wine unless it isn't particualrly nice to drink. I do, however, use vinegar for cleaning, so 'bad' wine should be fine for that. I intend to give it a go anyway....I'll be interested to hear how you get on with it Jimmykins Love Lynne |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: jimmyt Date: 28 Dec 05 - 10:55 AM topsie, not necessarily the truth. Much sweetish young wine makes significantly better tasting vinegar than good older vintage with a higher alcohol content |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: GUEST, Topsie Date: 28 Dec 05 - 11:17 AM Perhaps your "good older vintage" would be oaked wine - and I don't think I would like that as vinegar. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: jimmyt Date: 28 Dec 05 - 11:20 AM DaveO, from what I have been able to find out from some research, the mother that forms will take on an appearance that looks like a bloodclot, dark red and coagulated. I gray film comes to the top of the vinegar that is working and ultimately gets rather thick skinned. Over time, the addition of wine will cause the skin to be oxygen deprived from the alcohol and it will sort of die and sink to the bottom. It is then removed and discarded. This process, once it is up and running,is a continuous one where you draw off vinegar to give away to friends or use yourself while you are adding wine to make more product. Anyway I found a really great informative site but I am so dumb I can't make a blue clicky. I will try to send the websiter addy in a post soon. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: jimmyt Date: 28 Dec 05 - 11:26 AM Topsie, Oaky wine is normally young wine. If wine is barrelled in New Oak instead of already used barrels it picks up MUCH oak flavor which I don't like either. It tende to be a California tendancy to use lots of New Oak to make their wine and it is not a taste that everyone really cares for. Other countries tend to use less oak (or at least new oak) in their winemaking. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: jimmyt Date: 28 Dec 05 - 11:30 AM Do a google search for So, you wanna make vinegar, eh? It is a good, informative website about the production of vinegar. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: Liz the Squeak Date: 28 Dec 05 - 04:35 PM I've got a gallon of sloe vinegar here.... it makes really weird pickles. It started off as sloe wine but it 'turned'.... LTS |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: Peace Date: 28 Dec 05 - 04:41 PM So, you wanna make vinegar, eh? |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: open mike Date: 28 Dec 05 - 05:06 PM i am in the process of making a bottle of herb vinegar.. by adding springs of fresh herbs form the garden. rosemary, garlic, and a few red peppers. the recipe calls for white vinegar, but i think red wine would be much more pretty. how do you make balsamic vinegar? does it have balsam in it? |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: Mr Red Date: 28 Dec 05 - 05:07 PM vinegar is a result of the wrong fermentation - the flies are the quickest to start it but maybe not the best tasting. I would guess sweet wines give the fermentation something to ferment with and hide the off flavours. I never heard of a vinegar yeast so surmise it is in the realms of malo-lactic fermentations - secondary to the sugar-alcohol one. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: jimmyt Date: 28 Dec 05 - 05:16 PM Liz, you need to share the pickles Brucie, thanks for the blue clickie! you da man Open Mike, Balsamic vinegae (the real stuff, not most of the chemical manufactured kind) is a very difficult process. Google it and you will be amazed at how darn difficult it is. Mr. Red, I believe you are exactly right. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: JohnInKansas Date: 28 Dec 05 - 08:36 PM Actually, the "leave it open and it will turn" method isn't all that fast. A bottle of wine left open, or left half full of air, generally will take a "sour" edge in a few days, but to get it to turn to something like normal vinegar strength will take quite a bit longer unless you "kick it" with a bit of fresh/active yeast. There normally is enough in the way of "fungal stuff" floating around to eventually get vinegar from anything that's liquid and contains sugar or other carbohydrate, the same way you "start" a sourdough mix by the traditional method. Just leave it out until something happens. (But toss it if something pink happens to your sourdough.) The same yeasts that produce alcohol in the absence of air generally will produce acid when you let air in, although the best "wine" yeasts aren't necessarily the best "vinegar" yeasts. Ordinary bread yeast will make either wine (alcohol) or vinegar (acetic acid) depending on whether they grow without air (anaerobic) or with air (aerobic); but it dies out or goes dormant at a lower alcohol content than a good wine culture, and at a lower acidity than one of the better vinegar kinds. For a homemade vinegar I doubt that the slightly lowered acidity would be too much of a problem - unless you're inviting a group of chemists to lunch. A step omitted by a couple of John |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: Fullerton Date: 28 Dec 05 - 09:58 PM I've been making vinegars for a few years and I didn't know anybody else did it! I have a secret ingredient for my vinegars. OK so I'll tell you as long as you don't tell anyone else. GLACIAL ACETIC ACID. Concentrated Burn-holes-in-your-floor-stuff. Lots of Industrial type warnings on the bottle.. and the box...... and the outer box. YUMMY!! I use it, very very carefully, to increase the acidity (and preserving qualities) of my pickling spice. Do wine vinegars reach the safe acidity limits for pickling? |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: jimmyt Date: 28 Dec 05 - 10:52 PM Glacial Acetic acid, H C2 H3 O2 is pretty much the chemical formula for vinegar although the vinegars obviously have a dilution from the full concentrated formula of Glacial Acetic acid. I can see where this would be a good method to increase the acidity to the point you want it to be. Some white vinegars for sale in the market are simply chemical in that they are not created from any fruit at all, but just diluted Acetic acid. They sure wash windows well, but lack a bit in the depth of taste. A bit like pure Ethyl alcohol. It will get you pretty drunk, but not in the style of a delightful fermented beverage. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: Peace Date: 28 Dec 05 - 11:17 PM "A bit like pure Ethyl alcohol. It will get you pretty drunk, but not in the style of a delightful fermented beverage." Had some of that once. NO hangover. It's the stuff in the alcohol wot causes the hangover. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: dianavan Date: 29 Dec 05 - 04:38 AM wine vinegars are great for salads. They vary in acidity. I guess that depends on the "mother". I'm not really sure because my vinegar was the result of a vinegar fly getting into the wine. The only problem I've ever had with vinegar was quality control. Every wine vinegar has been different. I'd like to know how to increase the acidity because I'd like to try white, wine vinegar pickles. It might also work for sushi. I think you should taste it from time to time. When it tastes good, stop adding to it. Interesting topic. Why would you make vinegar? Its a byproduct. Why should you buy something you already have? |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: John on the Sunset Coast Date: 29 Dec 05 - 08:44 PM I made red vinegar about 35 years ago. It wasn't good vinegar. It wasn't even supposed to be vinegar; it came from a kit, complete with cask, liner, yeast and grape mash. You were to have a potable libation in a couple or three weeks I guess. I just got vinegar (did I say that?) It wasn't good vinegar, but it cleaned out the plumbing...well, behind every cloud, etc.--Happy 2006, John |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: JohnInKansas Date: 30 Dec 05 - 12:58 AM White vinegar sold commercially here is labelled consistently as "5 percent acidity" and that seems to be some sort of a standard. Commercial white vinegar is nothing but water and acetic acid. White "Cider Vinegar" can be made, and may have some remnant fruity taste, but the more common cider vinegars, made from apples, are red ones. I'm told you can get rid of the red color with filtering, but I suspect that commercial white cider vinegar is all pure chemicals. The degree of acidity necessary to preserve something is a freqently debated topic. The "domestic science" consultants have been saying for a few decades that anything you wish to preserve must be pasteurized and hermitically sealed. The old-fashioned wax seals used on some foods 50 years ago send the "experts" into convulsions, and just mentioning that method makes them run around screaming "you're all gonna DIE!!!!." A somewhat contrary opinion came from a recent Ag Board (Kansas) advisory on the care of picnic foods - sometime last summer - in which they stated that leaving the 'tater salad out on the picnic table for a few hours isn't really all that dangerous because it's "usually sufficiently acid to inhibit rapid growth" of bacteria and food toxins. I'd be inclined not to rely on acidity alone for preservation, so I'd go for whatever tastes right - and proper "canning" and/or other sanitary processing to take care of the preservation. John |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: dianavan Date: 30 Dec 05 - 01:12 AM John - Pickle barrels have been around for a long time and I never heard of anyone dying from eating a pickle. I have done alot of canning and always pressure seal low-acid foods (beans, fish, etc.) but have no fear of giving tomatoes, blackberries and pickles a quick water bath to seal the jars. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: JohnInKansas Date: 30 Dec 05 - 08:19 AM I think we'd have to agree that sometimes the "experts" ignore reality. The later advice about the picnic lunch seemed to me to be a bit of a look back at the fact that lots of people have lived through horrible things "they say" you shouldn't do. The end-point acidity of a homemade vinegar will depend on what yeast varieties get into the mix. If it's a concern, there probably are some pretty good tests described in some of the old cooking/canning books, but I don't have granny's library at hand to check it out. John |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: GUEST, Jos Date: 01 Jan 06 - 10:17 AM Some years ago I bought a bottle of white vinegar in a small chemist's near Bristol. I t came with a hand-written label saying 'WHITE VINIGAL'. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: Peace Date: 01 Jan 06 - 04:23 PM If it ain't muscatel, it ain't wine. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: Kaleea Date: 01 Jan 06 - 05:59 PM Don't forget to look up all the household projects you can do with vinegar, such as cleaning your windows, using it as a laundry detergent booster, and rinsing you hair with it for a shiny mane. Oh, yeah, you can also sprinkle it on salads & veggies for extra pucker power. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: JohnInKansas Date: 01 Jan 06 - 11:38 PM Kaleea - But remember that most of those household uses work best with white vinegar. The color in natural cider vinegar may be because of some remnant "fruit stuff," and may leave a slight residue. Commercial red/brown vinegar may just be white vinegar with coloring, but homemade from wine it may be a bit sticky. Test it first, perhaps just by leaving a spoonfull in a saucer to see if it's "clean" after the vinegar evaporates. John |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: jimmyt Date: 11 Jan 06 - 10:47 PM Well, all you naysayers, I can only tell you that it has been 2 weeks and I have a wonderful bacterial colony (mother) on my rich ruby red product, and I tasted it tonight and damned if it isn't...you guessed it! Vinegar! Woo Hoo! I am in the money now. Let me see, i need saled, distrubution, tech, PR advertising, preparation for the IPO............ a name, a slogan, "hey man, this is some folkin' good vinegar ya got here." Actually I have a ways to go yet, but it is really quite delightful to have this happen so soon. I should have starters to give away soon for anyone inclined to follow in these acidic footsteps, jimmyt |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 12 Jan 06 - 04:30 AM In Samuel Pepys time, there were more varieties of vinegar available than wine. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: TheBigPinkLad Date: 12 Jan 06 - 12:17 PM jimmy, congrats on the success. I hope you're only kidding about selling it though. Some of the advice in this thread, though doubtless well-intended, is bollox. You CAN get botulism from pickles made in vinegar of less than 7%; The strength of the vinegar has NOTHING to do with yeast -- you can make perfectly good vinegar from wine that has been subjected to sodium metabisulphite, for instance. A wine (beer, cider, etc) of 8% will yield a vinegar of 7%, if it successfully transmogrifies. If you are making pickles, use a commercial pickling vinegar. Or roll the dice, you might not be unlucky. Bread is cheap. Why would anyone make it at home? ;o) |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: Peace Date: 12 Jan 06 - 02:40 PM Unless you made it with muscatel, I ain't helpin' with sales. Wouldn't want to be associated with second-rate vinegar. Sorry jimmy, but it had to be said. |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 12 Jan 06 - 10:10 PM In the hope of redeeming some sort of benefit from a spoiled lot of mash....I confess to distilling.
If the mash is bad....the distillation is also bad....there is "No Balm in Gilead" to redeem a mash gone bad.
Throw the batch onto the roses.... there the acid and B-vitamins may produce a visual pleasure.
Sincerely,
As all athletic coaches exclaim...you cannot produce "chicken-salid" out of "chicken-shit." |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: jimmyt Date: 12 Jan 06 - 10:56 PM Gargoyle, I think you are confusing bad wine with "three day old, good wine, darn I wish I had drunk that before it got a little past its prime" wine. I am not talking of using rotgut wine, or wasting wine that is perfectly drinkable, but sometimes a half bottle ends up being allocated to cooking wine because it just got a little past its prime before finished. THe fact is, after about a week it is not really good enough to cook with, off to the vinegar crock. After a party, the little remains that were not consumed, off to the vinegar crock. Anyway, so far it is producing absolutely wonderful deep red wine vinegar and it is essentially on autopilot from here. Brucie, I will arrange some special muscatel vinegar for you. As soon as I find a plastic bag and a suitable cardboard container. Big Pink Lad...you really got me thinking about the botulism thing. I found a site that suggests you heat the vinegar to almost boiling prior to bottling to prevent this nasty bug from being in the vinegar. I guess I still have a lot to learn about this and , no, I have no visions of providing this commercially. As mentioned before, though If anyone is interested in a starter, I will be able to send one soon I think as this progresses. jimmyt |
Subject: RE: BS: I am making vinegar From: GUEST Date: 13 Jan 06 - 06:06 AM I thought the botulism bug would be in the substance to be pickled - in this case, onions - rather than in the vinegar. I would risk eating old pickled onions, but NOT old pickled herrings. |