Vinegar is made from a Acetobacter bacteria (Acetobacter aceti). Acetobacter aceti is aerobic. It produces Acetic acid. Just like Lacto produces Lactic AcidJdl973 wrote:Has anyone used bugs to make a "mother" to convert wine into quality vinegar? What bug/bugs are in a mother culture?
As IF I need ANOTHER hobby...
Jason
The basic process is to ferment wort, grapes, rice, corn, fruit... to alcohol. Then allow the fermented liquid to stand open to the air covered with a fine cloth or screen to keep out the insects but to allow oxygen to mix with the surface of the fermented liquid. Eventually a Acetobacter bacteria will find a new home but this can take a long time and results are not guaranteed, mold and other things might start growing.
A surer way is to get a Vinegar Mother from someone that is producing vinegar (me
).So let's make a Barley Malt Vinegar since this is beer forum.
Take 3 quarts of starter wort and place in a gallon jug and pitch your favorite yeast. Let the beer ferment out completely. You can use left over beer that tastes good for this also. Rack off the beer from the yeast into a clean container.
Clean the gallon jug and put the beer back into the jug. Shake the jug real good to get some oxygen mixed into the beer and the CO2 out. Pitch the Vinegar Mother. Put the jug into a corner out of the way for about 3 months with a cloth covering held down over the top with a rubber band or string (you need oxygen to contact the surface of the beer)
During the 3 month period, the Vinegar Mother will form a glossy coating on top of the beer (The Vinegar Mother), and convert the alcohol to vinegar. The Mother uses the oxygen at the surface of during conversion.
If you knock the Mother down it will come back to the top, but it will take awhile so be careful. This is called the jug or one-shot method since you dump your finished vinegar through a filter to remove the Mother which you can save for another batch if desired.
You can take the jug method farther by placing a racking tube cut at an angle to gently penetrate the Mother and rack off the vinegar below. To fill the jug back, attach a hose to a funnel and gently penetrate the Mother and fill the jug from the bottom up and let the process continue.
The same thing could be done in a small wooden barrel with the bungs covered with cloth or screen and draw the finished vinegar off from the spigot on the bottom. If one can find one, there is also a vinegar crock with a spigot on the bottom for vinegar production. My Grandmother used such a crock for this purpose and also made her own sour cabbage (Lacto) in other crocks.
Would you like an active Vinegar Mother
I produce an excellent Barley Malt vinegar. If you want to concentrate the flavor even more, you can boil the vinegar for 1/3 to 1/2 reduction. This will drive any remaining alcohol.