Making Vinegar

[mark500]

Anyone ever made vinegar from leftover wine that you bought?


Apparently, one can dilute it, place it in a pot, add acetobacter, and wait a month.


Where would one get the equipment?

 

[Dean]

It's usually just done in a carboy after you add some of the "mother", which is a large acetobacter colony.

 

[Bartman]

What kind of wine would make it worth the effort of sanitizing, clarifying and bottling such homemade vinegar? It seems like store-bought vinegar (white, red-wine, or any other kind) is so cheap that it can't be beat, unless you had something truly unique/spectacular. Can't imagine what that would be, though.

 

[AlFulchino]

equipment?

it is this basic...take your extra wine....we save some each year from harvest...place in a five gallon food grade bucket (for instance) place a cheese cloth or similar item over it...place far away from all your wine...i place it on a porch under cover....walk away for a couple of months...come back....you have the freshest best vinegar ( aside from balsamic ) that you could ask for

alternatively, you can purchase 'mother's' and look up recipe's on teh internet....

store bought stuff to me anyway is quite lacking in depth and flavor...but thats just my opinion

 

[mark500]

I have never had any home made vinegar. Apparently, more than a few vinegar connissuers are out there. Might make a nice gift, next to wine.

 

[AlFulchino]

indeed it would make a great gift.....and does...next yr i am going to try my hand at balsamic

 

[Dean]

I totally agree with Al. You get much better vinegars with far more complexity if you make them yourself. Yes, you can buy them, and very cheap too, but in this case, you usually end up with a better than commercial product.

Same thing for a lot of things you can make your own: Sausage, Pickles, olives, etc. Sometimes it's not about cheaper, but just home-made and better.

Al, I'd be interested to hear about your balsamic when you make it. I love some of the balsamic styles coming out of California.

 

[AlFulchino]

i am on a little bit of a kick doing some of these things...we have been purchasing what i consider the best milk in the world...jersey milk...high in butterfat and protein and flavor..also goat milk...no hormones, anti biotics..no pastuerization.....also fresh fresh fresh meat ( oh boy is it all good)...same lack of hormones etc...also w eggs..in fact 20 baby chicks are as of this moment flying in some plane headed my way...hope they all make it....gonna try my hand at raising a steer next spring as well.....i wish i had done all this earlier in my life...but maybe i appreciate it more now because i didnt do this before

bit by bit as they say

 

[Runningwolf]

i am on a little bit of a kick doing some of these things...we have been purchasing what i consider the best milk in the world...jersey milk...high in butterfat and protein and flavor....gonna try my hand at raising a steer next spring as well.....i wish i had done all this earlier in my life...but maybe i appreciate it more now because i didnt do this before

bit by bit as they say

 

[AlFulchino]

more like

 

[Dean]

I grew up that way Al. On a small farm that was cattle, chickens, pigs, turkeys, grain, etc. We were pretty much self-sufficient. The dairy was the best. We would take what we wanted and then sell the rest. It made the best cheese and butter. Coffee with fresh cream just tastes very different from what people get today.

Now, living in the City, I've been "cultivating" relationships with local farmers. I'm lucky that we have a dairy very close by called Avalon, that still provides standard un-homogenized milk. It's still pasteurized, but it does separate when it sits. The cream always rises to the top It makes excellent cheese. The cream from them is to die for! It's usually between 36 and 39% butterfat. Their whole milk is about 5%. I get my beef from a small farm about 40 miles away from the city and it's all hormone free, grass fed beef. Chickens still come from our own family farm, but that's all we produce now. I get my pork from another local farmer. It all adds up to amazing meals and is food that you know how it got to your plate. It's just healthier in my tiny opinion, but more importantly, it tastes MUCH better than anything else out there. Everyone I've ever had to dinner, I insist on honest opinions, and they all start buying from my farmers because they've all said it's the best they've ever tasted.

I think we all need to get back to our roots sometimes to learn the self-sufficient skills as our parents and grandparents did.

 

[Runningwolf]

We also got our milk from a farmer when I was younger. I still remember the wide mouth gallon jugs it would come in and we would scoop it out with a ladle. I hated the 2-3 inches of cream on top we had to skim off first but it made the very best sour cream cookies.

 

[AlFulchino]

we wine makers are as the saying goes...'birds of a feather'

 

[Wiz]

Runningwolf, here in Costa Rica we still have a couple of dairy farmers running around every morning, door to door, in their pickups with the bed filled with the old time milk cans dipping the milk out for the those people that want unpasteurized milk. You would probably get nostalgic.

 

[Runningwolf]

Runningwolf, here in Costa Rica we still have a couple of dairy farmers running around every morning, door to door, in their pickups with the bed filled with the old time milk cans dipping the milk out for the those people that want unpasteurized milk. You would probably get nostalgic.

That would be interesting to see. I would love to visit your country some day. It sounds and looks so interesting. Are you really able to find wine supplies locally or do you order everything on line.

 

[Wiz]

Everything is bought online and arrives here at about double, after customs, at what I originally paid for it.

 

[Wade E]

Im a little younger then some here but I do remember those jugs and the steel box on the door step not to mention the Charles Chip tins.

 

[wine_wizard]

Hey there,

I remember Charley Chips as a kid delivering to my family farm in NW Pa !

That is a blast from the past ...

Wish I had one of their tin cans ...

Duane

 

[Runningwolf]

Hey there,

I remember Charley Chips as a kid delivering to my family farm in NW Pa !

That is a blast from the past ...

Wish I had one of their tin cans ...

Duane

Duane, what town was your farm in? We also the bread man, fuller brush guy, and later the tin milk box outside the back door. Makes you wonder how they made money back then with all those services. Some day the next generations will be saying they remember the mailman and paperboy.

 

[grapeman]

Both sides of my parents families were from dairy backgrounds. That was the way of life around here at the turn of the 20th century and most of the 20th. My mother's father had a milk route which my Dad took over for a short while. They used a ton stake rack truck to pick up the full milk cans and later that day return the washed empty cans.


As a young teen our barn was empty so I got a Jersy/Holstein cross calf. A few years later we had our own fresh milk again. Only problem was I went out to milk her before school in the morning. I didn't mind evening milking, but as a teen hated getting up at 5 or so in the norning. The milk was great as she gave the cream of the Jersey side and the amount of a Holstein. We always had fresh butter and milk. We also had chickens and quite often they would get killed by animals. I hated having to pluck the chickens when it was time for having a fresh chicken for diner. The smell of the chickens dipped in the scalding water was bad.