[Sca-cooks] Mother of Vinegar

[Stefan li Rous]

On 11/20/2014 4:12 AM, I (Stefan li Rous) wrote:
<<< Also, I can?t tell if you just get one batch for each bottle of mother, or not. If so, that would make it a lot more expensive than buying ?live? vinegar. >>>

To which Aruvgan replied with an interesting story, that I’d heard before, but had forgotten until this rendition. Including:
<<< So in answer to your question, the little mother will keep on turning
fresh liquid into vinegar as long as you keep feeding it. I would
recommend getting one o those 2 gallon clear jugs with the little tap in
the bottom, place it in view proudly and keep putting apple juice or a
specific color and type of wine in, and tap it off a couple cups at a
time all year long. Keep your 'use' vinegar in a lovely cut crystal
cruet and enjoy. >>>

A wonderful suggestion. I think the idea of hiding the mother away in another container is also good. Otherwise some well-meaning person, like my wife, is likely to throw it out.

But I did know that the mother should replicate. However the directions in the commercial mothers are very specific about adding it to ‘x’ amount of wine or apple juice. I expect that using only part of the mother would simple increase the time needed to get the vinegar going. But is there some other reason you shouldn’t do this?

Also, with this in mind, it seems like buying a bottle of ‘live’ vinegar might work as well as buying a culture, and be a lot less expensive. Although, I guess that only works if you want apple cider vinegar, as I didn’t see any ‘live’ wine vinegar and as Bear mentioned, the vinegar cultures may be optimized to make certain types of vinegar.

From previous discussions, I seem to remember comments about the vinegar getting better, the more generations it went through. Or maybe that was just balsamic vinegar.

Aruvgan, that also sounds like a wonderful gift if I can find some suitable 1 or 2 gallon jugs with taps. I think I remember seeing some sun tea jugs that might work, although I don’t remember if they are glass or plastic.

Stefan
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THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
   Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas          StefanliRous at gmail.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/marksharris
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