[Sca-cooks] vinegar

Mon Nov 29 22:23:28 PST 2010

I will forward the recipes to the list when I get a chance. 
Eduardo

________________________________________________________

Food is life. May the plenty that graces your table truly be a VAST REPAST. 

David Walddon
david at vastrepast.com
www.vastrepast.net

On Nov 29, 2010, at 10:13 PM, Stefan li Rous wrote:

> David Walddon said:
> <<< I am basing it on the 16th century vinegar recipes I have collected from this list and others. >>>
> 
> But I don't seem to have them. :-( Maybe they are in the 6 months of digests from 2008 or 2009 I still need to find time to go through.
> 
> <<< Where are you getting the information on ships and jostling and vinegar?
> You also need it to not be air tight and to have some vinegar bacteria hanging around. >>>
> 
> It's in the vinegar-msg file in the FOOD section of the Florilegium. Perhaps not with as much in the way of footnotes as I would like to have, but perhaps of value for someone who can do some searching.  I'm going to go ahead and give the entire message since I think it has some info on wine and vinegar chemistry that might be of interest to some here.
> 
> I've added arrows (===>>>> ===<<<) around the portion about using ships to keep the wine/vinegar aerated.
> 
> ==============
> 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
> 
> 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  vinegar 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 plrntiful 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/
> ========
> 
> <<< I am sure some of the wine turned to vinegar that way but surely there would be an accounting of this and the sources would indicated this is where they got their inegar from but so far all the recipes say to take wine and then talk about the process of making it (using old vinegar, using hot sticks, flavoring it, etc.).>>>
> 
> I want to see those recipes. This is the kind of stuff I have no definite details on and would like better info on than just suppositions.
> 
> Stefan
> 
> 
> --------
> THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
>   Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
> **** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
> 
> 
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