Potato Vinegar - UPDATE and question

[tortoise]

LOL. I have no idea, but the stuff is still bubbling like crazy.

I feel pretty good about using SS to be frugal. But I like to daydream about true SHTF.

What about when we can't GET the ingredients we use in our frugal projects? What if I can't get apples or apple juice in winter? I CAN grow potatoes and they store well so they would be available in winter.

So I REALLY hope this works!

 

[miss_thenorth]

Potato vodka:

http://www.ehow.com/how_4900350_make-potato-vodka.html

 

[tortoise]

I think I have vinegar!!

The last minute sugar + bean floor one seemed to work faster and smells more vinegary.

Both mothers are larger. Both had thick globby skins on top. At first I thought it was more mother? Except it was more clear - the mother was almost rust colored.

Can anyone who has tried vinegar-making tell me about the "skin" on top?

I have some past-its-prime juice in the fridge I plan to feed to my vinegars - after I figure out a larger container, OR decide my vinegar is finished and put the mother in with the juice?

What would you do?

 

[~gd]

I think I have vinegar!!

The last minute sugar + bean floor one seemed to work faster and smells more vinegary.

Both mothers are larger. Both had thick globby skins on top. At first I thought it was more mother? Except it was more clear - the mother was almost rust colored.

Can anyone who has tried vinegar-making tell me about the "skin" on top?

I have some past-its-prime juice in the fridge I plan to feed to my vinegars - after I figure out a larger container, OR decide my vinegar is finished and put the mother in with the juice?

What would you do?

I can tell you about the mother, You are getting a large amount because your yeast fermentation isn't working very well, probably because your potatoes were not cooked long enough to convert the starch from the potatoes into sugars that could be fermentated by the yeast. when you make vinegar from raw products there are actually two fermentations going on. The yeast is converting the sugars to alcohol and a second fermentation by acetic acid (vinegar) bacteria converts the alcohol to vinegar, Usually the first fermentation retards the second because it produces CO2 gas which is heavier than air which covers the surface of the liquid. the acetic bacteria require oxygen to convert alcohol to vinegar. The mother consists of cellulose (a type of starch) and the bacteria. Since you have a large amount of starch the cellulose tends to form a "skin" on the mother. If you perform a good two step fermentation which is usually the case with cider or wine vinegar very little mother is produced because the sugar to starch ratio is much higher even in sour fruit.
What would I do? Take the juice you have and put it in a container with lots of head space, sprinkle it with bakers yeast and let it run wild while the yeast converts the sugars to alcohol. Once that ferment had run its fast course and died down THEN I would take part of the mother and add it to your juice wine. Since the bacteria require air to make vinegar, I would leave it open to the air and shake it to allow more air to get into the liquid since the more air that gets to the bacteria, the faster it turns to venegar

 

[tortoise]

My fiance and I have been talking about this. He is questioning whether the particular mother I have contains yeast or acetic acid bacteria or something else.

IF it contains yeast, I don't have to do the 2-step process. But because of the way mine has worked, we think my mother already has yeast in it.

IF it does not contain yeast, I'll do the yeast 2-step process. From there on out, my mother would contain yeast and I wouldn't have to do the 2-step process.

I did 2 test batches if you remember right. The potato one I boiled the heck out of the potatoes. That one also had a slight alcohol smell to it for the first week or so. I thought I had ruined it.

The bean one, I dumped in uncooked bean flour as a last-minute thought. This one never had the alcohol smell, but it has a strong vinegar smell now.

 

[tortoise]

Forgot to add:

I have a (medical grade) microscope. I made slides of both batches today. My fiance will take them to work tomorrow to stain them with a gram stain and bring them home for us to look at.

I'm excited to see what we have growing in there!

 

[~gd]

My fiance and I have been talking about this. He is questioning whether the particular mother I have contains yeast or acetic acid bacteria or something else.I'm Sorry, I did not mean to imply that Your mother contained only Acetobacter and cellulose, that is what the usual mother of vinegar would contain. Yours could easily contain yeast and/or even other classes of bacteria that can transform sugar to acid without going through the alcohol step such as the lactic acid producers that produce the 'tang' in Salami, Kraut, or Yogurt. Acetobacter require ethyl alcohol to convert to acetic acid. Lactic acid does not have the same taste as acetic acid. ot is more mellow in the mouth

IF it contains yeast, I don't have to do the 2-step process. But because of the way mine has worked, we think my mother already has yeast in it.I explained above why even a seed that contains both yeast and an acid producer is likely to go through a natural two step process, the yeast will produce CO2 blanking the surface so the oxygen needed by the bacteria can not reach the bacteria, this can be overcome by agitation or direct air injection near the bottom of the container. See your next post for additional comments~gd

IF it does not contain yeast, I'll do the yeast 2-step process. From there on out, my mother would contain yeast and I wouldn't have to do the 2-step process.

I did 2 test batches if you remember right. The potato one I boiled the heck out of the potatoes. That one also had a slight alcohol smell to it for the first week or so. I thought I had ruined it.

The bean one, I dumped in uncooked bean flour as a last-minute thought. This one never had the alcohol smell, but it has a strong vinegar smell now.

 

[~gd]

Forgot to add:

I have a (medical grade) microscope. I made slides of both batches today. My fiance will take them to work tomorrow to stain them with a gram stain and bring them home for us to look at.Well it has been a while, but lacto bacteria is gram possitive, acetic acid bacteria is gram negative and I don't know how yeast will react to gram staining. BTW the old test for acetic bacteria was to grow them on plates with about 7% ethanol and enough calcium carbonate(lime) in the medium to make it opaque, as the colony grows a clear ring will be produced by the acetic acid because of disloving the lime. Now DNA testing is done instead of the old methods

I'm excited to see what we have growing in there!

By the way if your concern is growing your own Vinegar, grains store much better long term than potatoes! ~gd

 

[freemotion]

 

[tortoise]

Forgot to add:

I have a (medical grade) microscope. I made slides of both batches today. My fiance will take them to work tomorrow to stain them with a gram stain and bring them home for us to look at.Well it has been a while, but lacto bacteria is gram possitive, acetic acid bacteria is gram negative and I don't know how yeast will react to gram staining. BTW the old test for acetic bacteria was to grow them on plates with about 7% ethanol and enough calcium carbonate(lime) in the medium to make it opaque, as the colony grows a clear ring will be produced by the acetic acid because of disloving the lime. Now DNA testing is done instead of the old methods

I'm excited to see what we have growing in there!

By the way if your concern is growing your own Vinegar, grains store much better long term than potatoes! ~gd

Ooo! TY! My fiance knows how to do the stains to look for yeasties and acetic acid bacteria. (He's a veterinarian). I don't claim to have the same knowledge, lol.

Thanks for the old test for acetic bacteria. I want to try that too, because there are lots of gram-negative, aerobic, rod-shaped beasties and some are not so nice.