Any way to make good vinegar without wine

Vinegar is made by introducing "mother of vinegar" culture" to an alcohol base where the right level of alcohol is present and the right nutrients are available. The mother converts the alcohol to acetic acid or vinegar by "acetic acid fermentation". You cannot make vinegar without making alcohol. It may be possible to do the two simultaneously such that as fast as you make alcohol the mother converts it to vinegar so you fool yourself into thinking that you are not making alcohol but you would be making it and I have never done it this way and do not know if it would work.

Ray

It's not possible, sorry. Good vinegar is made from the conversion of alcohol to acetic acid as Ray mentioned. Well made vinegar can contain no alcohol.

Joe

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

vinegar.

It's not possible, sorry. Good vinegar is made from the conversion of alcohol to acetic acid as Ray mentioned. Well made vinegar can contain no alcohol.

Joe

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote:

vinegar.

Heres a recipe for apple cider Apple Cider Vinegar

2 kg apples 3 ltrs water 1 cup sugar

Cut apples into 1 cm slices and place in crockery basin (I just used the pulp out of the juicer). Cover with cold water. Cover with cloth and stand 10 days, stirring daily. After 10 days drain apples through pillow slip and discard pulp. (Let hang above bucket until it stops dripping. Do not squeeze as it makes it go cloudy.) Stir in sugar to liquid. Pour into clean dry bottles. Stand uncorked but cover with cloth for 14 days. Keep for 3 months before use. Makes 1 and a half litres. I used the crockery bowl in the first stage but strained it into a plastic bucket and used plastic bottles to bottle it. I hope this works for you. Sorry about the measurements but in Australia everthing is metric. Fred

Thanks Fred Meyering. Can you give a rough idea of temperature at which you prepare this apple cider vinegar, for three months. Few years back I was living at a hill station and my kitchen in summer brimmed with apples, which usually rotted away. But I will try this method now, if I know about the temp at which I should keep them. Is no starter needed for this vinegar?

Vinegar likes warm temperatures, 70 to 80 F is a good range. 65 is too cold, 90 too warm.

I always use a starter, but you will know if what you are making is acetic or spoiled by smell if you don't have one.

You may be able to get live vinegar at a health food store if you can't find a starter. (You want something without preservatives that is unpastuerized.) The 'clump' of cellulose most people call the mother is not needed, live vinegar is all you need.

If you use a starter and want to expand it using wine at around 10 to

12% alcohol by volume, you use one part starter, one part water and two parts wine.

You mix the water and wine first, shake it up, then add the starter.

Joe

I think live vinegar is an easier option, though not that easy, as there are no health shops here. I shall try to find a Hakim. Hakim are the tradational/herbal medicine man in India and pakistan. Vinegar was prepared by them in olden days. Though I doubt they ever aged it. But there are anecdotes about dark colored vinegars thick as honey. Now some one inside the old city (walled city) may still be preparing the vinegar. Thanks.

In search of ancient vinegar makers, I reached the walled city with a friend. Here in an 1860 built haveli, the descendent of an eminent hakim illuminated us about his great grand father who treated Maharaja Ranjeet Singh. He also cleared it to us that hakeems offer solution to all problems from astronomy to vinegar making. Finally with his information we climbed and climbed those ancient and winding streets hardly 4 feet across. The small blind street where we finally reached really smelled of vinegar. The house and the door as old as any thing. Landlady gave us two bottles of vinegar: one of grapes another of Jaamun (a tropical fruit}. We changed one bottle because it had some waxy stuff floating on top. We checked it on our way back; poured it on hot flatbread and ate it, very delicous, fragrant and sweet. But after a while we had rather raw throats and an after taste. may be vinegar needed aging or it was too concentrated, because opening the cap it really comes at you. How much of it should I put in 2kgs of apple?

If that worked out to 2 litres of juice from the apples, add 2/3 litres of vinegar. 3 parts, juice 1 part vinegar.

Joe