161 replies to this topic

[dano1]

You need a vinegar "mother". You can find them at your local winemaking and homebrewing supply store. Runs about 5bucks for either a red or a white mother. You mentioned a winemaker's store so he should have it. Sounds like he was talking about adding a homemade vinegar to your wine also-all commercial stuff is pasteurized, killing anything that may be in it. You can order online from various suppliers too but shipping's gonna run you more than the product probably.

Let me know if you want some online suppliers but i'd hit the yellow pages.

hth, danny

[Brad Ballinger]

What was wrong with the wine? If it was flawed in some way -- particularly afflicted with TCA, brettanomyces, or disulfides -- you aren't going to like the vinegar either. IF it was just oxidized, you are probably okay.

[BeJam]

Thanks for the replies. I didn't think about commercial vinegar being pasteurized. The guy at the wine store may have been talking about adding vinegar he'd already made. This makes sense and would explain why my first batch didn't grow. There are several sources for mother in the area but I like the idea of being self-sufficient or at least trying to be at first. Growing up with parents who left opened bottles of wine in the liquor cabinet for months (there are bottles of liquor almost as old as I am still in there, I know there are spices around given to them as wedding presents) and thinking it tasted a lot like vinegar when I snuck some had me thinking I could replicate it pretty easily.


The bottle I opened yesterday was simply oxidized I think. It tasted as if I'd opened it last week. I could drink it, I just didn't enjoy it very much even after two glasses. It is a bottle I've usually like. I also don't know enough to really determine if there are other problems with it.

[ianeccleston]

A while ago I more or less was able to make vinegar from wine by simply soaking bread in the wine, leaving it for awhile and straining. I went to make it again, having most of a bottle of sparkling wine, but I couldn't find the recipe! No amount of googling was able to find what I was looking for. (I didn't want to buy a mother either). I Hope someone on egullet knows something about starting it with bread...

(I too have heard that unpasteurized vinegar is a good enough starter for wine... )

[melkor]

What was wrong with the wine?  If it was flawed in some way -- particularly afflicted with TCA, brettanomyces, or disulfides -- you aren't going to like the vinegar either.  IF it was just oxidized, you are probably okay.

Apparently TCA isn't an issue in vinegar - rather than test this myself I've been returning the corked wines I open to where they were purchased. One of these days I'll open an older bottle that is corked and I'll see if that's the case, but I've been fairly lucky in that regard recently.

[little ms foodie]

there was another thread on making vinegar and I'm having a hard time finding it. Can anyone help? Thanks!

[sladeums]

there was another thread on making vinegar and I'm having a hard time finding it. Can anyone help? Thanks!

click here for 'DIY Red Wine Vinegar, why isn't mine working?' thread

[little ms foodie]

there was another thread on making vinegar and I'm having a hard time finding it. Can anyone help? Thanks!

click here for 'DIY Red Wine Vinegar, why isn't mine working?' thread

You rock!!!

Thank you!

[Toliver]

Here is another discussion on vinegar that segued into making it yourself:
"Nasty Stuff in Red Wine Vinegar, What's that?"

[JohnStewart]

The chef at one of the places I work makes his own red wine vinegar, but he does it at home and won't share the art. Anybody on here have experience with it? I'd love to make my own.
The other place I work has white balsamic, any recipes for that one?

[rooftop1000]

You need to purchase a vinegar Mother, in NJ you can get it at Corrados ( Clifton NJ) wine making supply store so perhaps somewhere else that has those supplies or Google Vinegar Mother.

it lookes like slime in a jar


white balsamic shouldnt exsist....it turns brown by being aged in different types of wooden barrels over the course of min 12 yrs....but fake Balsamic is a whole other story line

[ludja]

Paul Bertolli also has a nice detailed description on making wine vinegar in "Chez Panisse Cooking".

Also some other info on egullet here

Edited by ludja, 25 January 2005 - 08:14 PM.

[chopjwu12]

its funny you say white balsamic is fake because i had a really good one a couple months ago. I swear to you it tasted exactly like a good young regular balsamic.

[derricks]

The Art of Eating (issue 68) has a nice piece about making your own red wine vinegar. It's written by Ed Behr, so it's very thorough, and he's honest about the fact that sometimes it doesn't work. Curiously, he says you don't actually need to acquire a mother, though he points out that the wine->vinegar reaction might take a while (months) if you don't have one. He also talks about barrel aging.

The article's entitled "The Best Red Wine Vinegar You'll Taste is the One You Make Yourself" or something like that.

I'm thinking of trying it.

[Abra]

I've been making my own red wine vinegar for several years. I show the whole process in (perhaps too vivid) detail here in Abra's blog.

[ludja]

Thanks Abra!

I thought there was an egullet course in vinegar making and couldn't find it. I must have been thinking of your blog!

[Toliver]

There is some general information on vinegar & Mothers in this discussion:
"Nasty Stuff in Red Wine Vinegar, What's that?"

[andiesenji]

You can go to any health food store and find vinegar that is unfiltered and containing the mother.

All you have to do is shake it up, to break up the mother somewhat and pour some of it into a larger (dark) bottle, add your wine loosely cover it, so there can be some air exchange but stuff can't fall into the bottle (I use a 6 inch square of cloth and a rubberband) and put it in a dark, cool place. Leave it alone for a couple of months, then begin tasting a bit from time to time.
When it has the taste you like, carefully decant some into another bottle for use, being careful to keep the mother in the orignal bottle and add more wine to it so the process continues.
I have several going at the same time. Red and rosé as well as white. I have even had fair success with sherry although it takes much, much longer and you need a high concentration of vinegar and mother to start with and add only a little sherry at a time, otherwise the mother will cease working.

I happen not to drink but have a lot of friends that do and they save me their "leftovers" - wines that have been opened and left out too long, champagne that has lost its fizz and etc.
Some have begun to turn on their own but are still perfectly fine to add to the vinegar pot.
I mostly use magnum size bottles and have one jereboam.

Edited by andiesenji, 26 January 2005 - 11:00 AM.

[derricks]

I happen not to drink but have a lot of friends that do and they save me their "leftovers" - wines that have been opened and left out too long, champagne that has lost its fizz and etc. 

Both a wine writer I know and the aforementioned AoE article mention using the spit bucket from tastings. It seemed icky at first, but then I realized that the vinegar's going to pretty much kill anything from people's mouths. I've only accepted that on a rational level, not a visceral one.

[andiesenji]

No thanks! And I am pretty sure that my friends would never think of drinking from a bottle. They are the types that have to have a special glass for every type of wine. God forbid they should every have to drink a red wine from a glass designed for white! Bottle drinking would be totally anathema. These are some good wines too, nothing cheap. In the last box they brought was a third of a bottle of 2001 Cotes du Rhone Rubis - they bought a case at a charity auction. They killed two bottles at a dinner party and couldn't quite finish the third so it came to me. The aroma was wonderful, wish I could taste.

[JohnStewart]

So armed with my new knowledge of vinegar making I asked the chef about it again. And he's bringing me part of his mother tomorrow. woohoo, time to talk to him about salami making.

[Abra]

John, you'll find that being owned by a vinegar mother is like having that Amish Friendship Cake batter in your fridge. The chef is probably overjoyed to have found a new home for a part of his mother. That stuff grows like weeds, and soon you too will be palming it off on all of your friends.

[Kim D]

You can go to any health food store and find vinegar that is unfiltered and containing the mother.

Exactly what I thought. I went to Sherwyn's (big health food store here in Chicago) looking for a mother. I found Apple Cider Vinegar with the mother and that was it. They may have had two kinds of red wine vinegar but neither of them had any sign of a mother.

I did end up buying red wine vinegar from Fox & Obel (what an expensive place!) and Whole Foods. Both had some kind of something in the bottom. Could be sediment but I'm hoping for more than that.

Sur La Table had a "Vinegar Barrel with Stand" on sale so I picked it up.

I'm ready to get started on making my own Red Wine Vinegar. I'm not in any hurry whatsoever as I don't use a lot of red wine vinegar. So, why am I making it? Because the pictures Abra had of a mother looked cool. And I figure if I have good quality red wine vinegar, I'll find some recipes and start using it.

- kim

[Kim D]

I have been reading about people trying to turn their red wine vinegar mother into a white wine vinegar mother and that got me thinking...

Can I turn an Apple Cider Vinegar Mother (which I can find) into a Red Wine Vinegar Mother?

- kim

[andiesenji]

This might be of interest.

Melinda Lee, Food New host on KNX 1070
My Webpage
which you can listen to online.

Is going to be explaining how to make vinegar during the next hour this morning.
It is now just before 9 a.m. here.

Melinda is very good at explaining how things work without visual props.

[BonfireCuisine]

Vinegar,

I tried making vinegar from mother of vinegar that I bought at a wine store and followed the instructions on the label (hey it must be right – right? ). It says fill a jar half way with wine, add the vinegar and leave the top off covered with cheese cloth. After 6 months close it up and it’s ready to go. Well it smells like vinegar, sort of tastes like vinegar but kind of “weak”. So I thought let it rest for 6 more months but this time the top was closed. That was 4 years ago and it’s still there, every once ina while I open the lid and smell, add some fresh wine and taste it. Still tastes like vinegar, smells like vinegar but not as strong as vinegar.

So my questions are:
1. How can I raise the acidity in it?
2. Can it die and how do I know if its dead?
3. On a related note - once you’ve made a flavored vinegar – does it ever go bad?

Thanks,

Jason

[Abra]

If the mother's not growing, visibly and rapidly, it's probably dead. My vinegar, by contrast, needs dilution for some applications, so I think of homemade vinegar as stronger, rather than weaker, than commercial stuff. Since you're not too far from me, I'll be happy to give you some mother if we ever manage to get ourselves to the same place at the same time.

[gwilson]

Okay, so how do I get a mother? I think that's my main question. Is it possible to just set some wine outside and let it 'catch' some bacteria or does it have to be a certain kind? (I actually think it does, but I'm not sure.)

Also, I have some raspberries that aren't so good anymore. But they smell incredible!! I started to throw them out, but I then I though that maybe I could use them to make vinegar. Can I do that? (I actually really want to use them. So if there's some procedure that I need to follow instead of using the ones I already have, I'd be willing to do that.)

Thanks for the help.


-Greg

[torakris]

I haven't made vinegar before but I highly recommend you check out Leeners, they have vinegar making kits.
I purchase my cheese and sausage making stuff from them and they are great, next year I plan to expand to vinegar and hot sauce.

[Gifted Gourmet]

There is some interesting information right here on the vinegar mother , Greg. See if it helps you with your ideas.