sca-cooks Re[2]: Atholbrose.

[Chuck Graves]

Allison asks:

>Have any of you tried naturally fermented cider vinegar as verjuice?  Do
>we have any sources that say regular apples were
>always/occasionally/never used?  I can think of some areas of Europe
>where grapes didn't grow well, but apples did.  Of course, the cook could
>easily put some leftover wine--perhaps some left in the pouring ewers,
>aside for the vinegar.

Apparently vinegar was produced and sold commercially in at least the late 
Middle Ages. I have pasted to the end of this message, a recent message
that is now in my vinegar-msg file (the only one so far :-( ).

I'm afraid it is long but it also touches on another thread here in
this list on food transport. As you can see people were just as likely
to turn disadvantage to advantage then as now if they could.

Stefan li Rous
markh at risc.sps.mot.com
=============================

From: rhayes at powerup.com.au (Robin Hayes)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Vinegar - was Yeasts was: 14th Century Bread
Date: 3 Mar 1997 03:34:29 GMT
Organization: Power Up

Father Gregory of apospirit at sprintmail.com says...
>MamaMoose1 wrote:
>> 
>> I've never heard of a yeast (wild or tame) that produced vinegar. That's
>> usually produced by another organism contaminating the product.
>> 
>>                   - A'isha al-Aneed
>
>I came in at the end of this thread so I risk looking like a bigger 
>idiot than I am normally.  It is my understanding that vinegar is a by 
>product from the oxidation of alcohol.  I will try to research this 
>further.  Since yeast decoposes suagr in to alcohol and carbon dioxide, 
>in an indirect way; you could claim that yeast is responsible. 

Previous discussion in this thread has covered the fermentation process of 
sugars to alcohol.

generalised equation for fermentation.
C6H12O6 + yeast -> 2 C2H5-OH + Co2
sugar   to    alcohol and carbon dioxide

The yeast acts to obtain energy for its own growth by the reaction, the 
alcohol being a waste product as far as the organism is concerned. Hence 
the joke that a fermented product is "dead bugs in bug poo juice"... :-)

If you obtain a good quality "organic" style apple cider vinegar (or any 
other vinegar such as malt or wine) you often get the "mother of vinegar" 
for the vinegar in the product. Indeed this is considered a bonus, as it 
proves the  viinegar to still be "alive".

Wine fanciers often have a container covered with a clean cloth into which 
they pour the dregs of even their quality wines, which then ferment into 
great vinegar.

I have misplaced some of my reference books at the moment, but vinegar 
used to be a more common product for sale in England during period than 
wine, in types of style of vinegar offered vs wine.

Vinegar merchants were more plentiful than wine merchants.

Wine kept in casks, tends to go to vinegar fairly quickly. Wine imported 
from Europe to england was sloshed around in the barrels, promoting the 
mixing of air, which speeds the vinegar generation process.

Basically
CH2CHOH + O2 + Bacteria -> CH3CO-OH + H2O
alcohol + oxygen + Bacteria -> Acetic acid + water

The bacterium is an "acetobacter", and acts to obtain energy for its own 
growth by the reaction, thus "dead bugs in sour bug poo juice" I 
suppose... :-)

Prior to 1800, the best known commercial vinegar producing method was 
called the Orleans method, which took 3-4 months to process a barrel of 
about 50 galls, but this was in still conditions on land. As the process 
normally takes place only at the air/liquid surface (because of need to 
get sufficient air into the liquid), thrashing the contents of the cask 
around while bringing it over from France, or further by ship, speeds up 
the process enormously. Bouncing it around on the back of a cart or pack 
animals would help too. Later out of period processes also sped things up 
by enabling more air to be put into the liquid easily.

Indeed the problem with wine in period was to stop it going off (note 
Biblical references to new wine/old wine), which was not easily 
accomplished without bottling, or special sealed storage jars, and the 
sealant was a problem before cork was used late in period. Keeping it in 
barrels is risky, especially since the science (or is that art:-) of the 
time didn't understand things the way we do now.

Robin
- -- 
rhayes at powerup.com.au  http://www.powerup.com.au/~rhayes/

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