Vinegar question

[2dream]

I have never made vinegar on purpose. However, I did end up with some really nice pear vinegar when DH decided to use my expensive and old, (not to mention prized possession), unglazed on the inside, milk churn to make pear wine.

After a bit of research after in turned to vinegar, I discovered that pear vinegar is very expensive to purchase. So I put it in jars and saved it. Thus far I have not used it.

So to answer your question. Yes lots of fruits can be turned into vinegar.

Do an internet search for any flavor vinegar and see what you find. I think you might be surprised at how expensive some of the more unusual vinegars are.

And NO I can not get the smell out of my churn. Even baking soda did not remove it all. *Sigh*

 

[Ldychef2k]

What do you have that you might want to make into vinegar. because I sure am not going to sit here and list all I have made and try to describe the flavor to someone

I am starting to get curious about making vinegar. Are there other fruits which can be used instead of, or in addition to, apples? For example, peaches, pears, berries, citrus?

I have never thought about any of this before, so am eager to learn.

Peaches, pears, berries and citrus. I am not asking about the flavor. I was saying that I have no idea what can be made into wine or beer, as I have no experience with them on any level.

Can citrus be fermented into vinegar? You see, we are a citrus belt here. So, that interests me. We have thousands of acres of stone fruit as well, so it is readily available and not too spendy.

So let's get really basic. For example, let's say I have 20 pounds of peaches. Is the process for making peach vinegar different in any substantive way from making ACV. That is all I am asking.

 

[Ldychef2k]

I have never made vinegar on purpose. However, I did end up with some really nice pear vinegar when DH decided to use my expensive and old, (not to mention prized possession), unglazed on the inside, milk churn to make pear wine.

After a bit of research after in turned to vinegar, I discovered that pear vinegar is very expensive to purchase. So I put it in jars and saved it. Thus far I have not used it.

So to answer your question. Yes lots of fruits can be turned into vinegar.

Do an internet search for any flavor vinegar and see what you find. I think you might be surprised at how expensive some of the more unusual vinegars are.

And NO I can not get the smell out of my churn. Even baking soda did not remove it all. *Sigh*

YUCK ! So I am thinking a dedicated vessel is best!!!!

When my mom was a kid, her parents made vinegar in a kettle on the stove. She will not even sit next to someone in a restaurant who has vinegar in their meal. She hates the smell so much. So, being raised that vinegar was evil, I have never tried it.

I actually did a bit of looking around on the internet before I posted the question, but I ended up with more questions than i started with, so decided to talk to my mentors here so I could ask questions without feeling stupid.

 

[Lady Henevere]

This thread made me curious, so I did a little search and came up with this article. It discusses the difference between real fruit vinegar and fruit-flavored vinegar. Here's part of it:

The old-fashioned way to make fruit vinegar is to press fresh fruit juice and ferment it into wine. Next, the wine is made into vinegar by adding what is known as a mother. This ghostlike mass includes a special kind of bacteria, called acetobacters, that convert the alcohol into acetic acid. What's left is the essence of the fruit brightened by a tangy bite. The process takes from six months to three years.
Grapes traditionally are used for vinegar. But just about any fruit -- and some vegetables -- can be made into vinegar, as Erwin Gegenbauer has proved. At his craft vinegar brewery in Vienna, Austria, he makes about 40 kinds of fruit vinegars including apricot, blueberry, elderberry, sour cherry and tomato. Much as a jam maker preserves the flavors of summer, Gegenbauer told me he wants to "preserve the flavor of the fruit by turning it into vinegar."
* * *
When it comes to making fruit vinegar, a common adage might apply: Don't try it at home. The process is long and laborious, and there are very few recipes or books for aspiring do-it-yourselfers....

"Don't try it at home"? Ha! Words not intended for this crowd....

Unfortunately it's not much of a how-to article, but perhaps it will assist in your search for answers.

 

[~gd]

I have never made vinegar on purpose. However, I did end up with some really nice pear vinegar when DH decided to use my expensive and old, (not to mention prized possession), unglazed on the inside, milk churn to make pear wine.

After a bit of research after in turned to vinegar, I discovered that pear vinegar is very expensive to purchase. So I put it in jars and saved it. Thus far I have not used it.

So to answer your question. Yes lots of fruits can be turned into vinegar.

Do an internet search for any flavor vinegar and see what you find. I think you might be surprised at how expensive some of the more unusual vinegars are.

And NO I can not get the smell out of my churn. Even baking soda did not remove it all. *Sigh*

Didn't your churn have a dairy smell before the wine disaster? If not it was probably "made for show, not for go" ie a fake that was never intended to make butter in. if you wish to get a real dairy smell add some milk and a container of live culture yougart (I'm not a speller) once it has started to work rotate the churn to cover the entire surface at least once a day untill it starts to thicken at which point I would dump it, If you like yougart smell it and taste it, it might be great with a hint of pear.
If you want to go for odorless try some hydrogen peroxide from the drug store 3% is the strongest I think, again wet the entire interior with it (carefull it tends to bleach) let it sit to soak into the ungrazed pottery. you may have to repeat several times as the peroxide breaks down to water as it attacks the smell and the culture which produces the smell. You might try chlorine laundry bleach but that leaves a chlorine smell which takes months to dispell. when you finish deodoring be sure that the churn is completely dry- days in the hot sun if fade proof. You don't want to leave moisture or it will mold, The lacto-bacteria left from the vinegar has probably protected it up to now. I have used these methods on large crocks that I use for initial fermentation of my wines and they have worked.
BTW did you taste your pear vinegar? if it tastes winey or not tart enough it might have not finished lacto-fermertation and will need air exposure to finish up. Good Luck!

 

[freemotion]

I have not yet made vinegar but am in the process....by making wine. My plan is to put some of the wine into a widemouth glass jar with a cloth on top and add a mother-of-vinegar that I found in a bottle of organic raw vinegar that sat on my shelf for a loooooong time. Wine is made with an airlock or balloon on the bottle to keep air out, or it turns to vinegar. To purposely make vinegar, you want as much of the surface of the wine exposed to air, so I plan on using a widemouth container. Maybe even a glass bowl. The cloth will keep bugs and cat hair out.

You don't need a mother to make it, but it will speed the process up if you have one.

So research winemaking (I used Wild Fermentation, which is really simple in all its instructions.) You can use some champagne yeast, or use unwashed organic fruit....just put some in with the juice, like grapes, plums, wild elderberries, etc. The whitish haze you see on those fruits is yeast. Don't wash it off or heat it or you will kill the yeast. Strain the fruit out after a few days and proceed with the winemaking part of the process until the bubbles slow or stop. Most of the process is about waiting.....

I have never heard of citris wine and the thought of the vinegar doesn't appeal to me....but what do I know? I plan on making vinegar from my grape wine and it looks like a bumper crop of elderberries so that will be tried as well.

I made some jams from mixed fruit juices last winter that were very good. All of the mixtures would make interesting vinegars. My favorite was elderberry/pomegranate/cherry/grape.

 

[Ldychef2k]

Wonderful stuff ! Thank you ladies so much. I appreciate the personal experiences greatly.

 

[~gd]

This thread made me curious, so I did a little search and came up with this article. It discusses the difference between real fruit vinegar and fruit-flavored vinegar. Here's part of it:

The old-fashioned way to make fruit vinegar is to press fresh fruit juice and ferment it into wine. Next, the wine is made into vinegar by adding what is known as a mother. This ghostlike mass includes a special kind of bacteria, called acetobacters, that convert the alcohol into acetic acid. What's left is the essence of the fruit brightened by a tangy bite. The process takes from six months to three years.
Grapes traditionally are used for vinegar. But just about any fruit -- and some vegetables -- can be made into vinegar, as Erwin Gegenbauer has proved. At his craft vinegar brewery in Vienna, Austria, he makes about 40 kinds of fruit vinegars including apricot, blueberry, elderberry, sour cherry and tomato. Much as a jam maker preserves the flavors of summer, Gegenbauer told me he wants to "preserve the flavor of the fruit by turning it into vinegar."
* * *
When it comes to making fruit vinegar, a common adage might apply: Don't try it at home. The process is long and laborious, and there are very few recipes or books for aspiring do-it-yourselfers....

"Don't try it at home"? Ha! Words not intended for this crowd....

Unfortunately it's not much of a how-to article, but perhaps it will assist in your search for answers.

IMHO the hard part is making the fruit (or other) wines, if too much sugar is there the yeast will die,killed by the alcohol it produced leaving a sweet taste. The lacto-bacteria feeds on the alcohol converting it to acetic acid but it is hard to get a starter going in a high alcohol product I have been told that the real masters get the yeast fermentation started and then add the lacto-bacteria so both fermentations are going on at the same time. The method appears to be a closely held secret. I have tried many times and always failed!
what I do is get a small batch of apple cider and add the mother to that as the L- fermentation goes on I feed the mother with the wine slowly at first and add more and more wine as the volume of the vinegar increases. you can draw off the vinegar a little at a time and finish it seperate from the main batch. if the main batch is too apple to suit you start feeding the saample with wine. Warning this can take over your whole wine celler and keep you buying containers! You have to decide for yourself when enough is enough. There are tons of wine making sites on the internet and most will sell you a DIY kit.
WARNING most commercial wines contain preservatives to prevent them from turning to vinegar. I would not use them. good luck and I will answer what I can~gd

 

[2dream]

Didn't your churn have a dairy smell before the wine disaster? If not it was probably "made for show, not for go" ie a fake that was never intended to make butter in. if you wish to get a real dairy smell add some milk and a container of live culture yougart (I'm not a speller) once it has started to work rotate the churn to cover the entire surface at least once a day untill it starts to thicken at which point I would dump it, If you like yougart smell it and taste it, it might be great with a hint of pear.
If you want to go for odorless try some hydrogen peroxide from the drug store 3% is the strongest I think, again wet the entire interior with it (carefull it tends to bleach) let it sit to soak into the ungrazed pottery. you may have to repeat several times as the peroxide breaks down to water as it attacks the smell and the culture which produces the smell. You might try chlorine laundry bleach but that leaves a chlorine smell which takes months to dispell. when you finish deodoring be sure that the churn is completely dry- days in the hot sun if fade proof. You don't want to leave moisture or it will mold, The lacto-bacteria left from the vinegar has probably protected it up to now. I have used these methods on large crocks that I use for initial fermentation of my wines and they have worked.
BTW did you taste your pear vinegar? if it tastes winey or not tart enough it might have not finished lacto-fermertation and will need air exposure to finish up. Good Luck!

Not really what I would call a dairy smell. The churn was old and in storage for a very long time. I was very fortunate to stumble across it. It had a very musty oder to it. It is actually a very old, milk churn.

I did taste the vinegar and there was no wine taste at all. It tasted like vinegar. Funny, without even trying we apparently did something that sounds rather difficult and time consuming. I will probably never be able to duplicate the process.

 

[Mackay]

I have a liter bottle of Gallo Merlot that magically changed into vinegar!

anyone have a recipe for wine vinegar salad dressing? I think we will be having that for a while