How to make red wine vinegar???
I have a good bottle of red wine on which the cork failed. The wine is no longer drinkable but I think it could be a good vinegar. Does anyone know if I have to do anything to make the wine into vinegar or just cork it up and let it sit several more weeks?
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7 Comments:
you need to add 'mother.'
it is like a starter culture that will turn the sugars into acid. i'm not sure where to get it retail. maybe online or in a homebrew store. bragg brand apple cider vinegar is sold with the mother still in the bottle. you could try shaking it up and adding a little to the wine.
actually this is all speculation, i would google it.
coolname at 9:15PM on 12/05/08
As far as I know, you need a wine "mother" to get it started. That's the yeast/bacteria/whatever that turns wine into vinegar. If the wine is corked (it smells kind of like wet socks, and it's not good for drinking) then chances are that it's going to also be a funky vinegar.
With a mother, it's going to take a bit of time to get it to turn into a usable vinegar. Without one, I suppose it's possible you might capture a wild yeast, but it's probably going to take a lot longer.
Once you've acquired a mother, you should put it and the wine into a large-mouthed container and cover the top with cheesecloth so it can breathe. Alternatively, I've seen instructions that say you can simply remove the top for an hour or more each day to get the oxygen in there. If you keep it sealed completely, it's probably not going to do anything at all except get less drinkable.
Be warned that the brewing vinegar tends to attract small annoying flies. Which is why you need the cheesecloth. You can't just leave it open, or you'll be scooping drowned bugs out of it.
You can allegedly buy vinegar mothers, or you can try to find one in a batch of organic, natural, or unpasturized vinegar. It took me over a year to find any, and it was from an imported bottle that I bought at a discount store. I never had any luck with any of the organic cider vinegar that everyone recommends for finding mothers.
The mother isn't the grainy sediment that you sometimes see in vinegar. Theat's just sediment. The mother is a jellyfish-like gooey blob. Sometimes it floats on top, sometimes it sinks into the middle or bottom.
Anyway, now that I've acquired a mother, I'm in the process of seeing if I can get vinegar to happen. So I can't help much beyond this. Some of the instructions I've read suggest that you just pour off and bottle the vinegar that you want to use, and keep feeding the mother. Other instructions say that you should heat the poured-off vinegar to stop the reaction. I haven't gotten that far yet, so I don't know which is better.
Good luck.
dbcurrie at 9:28PM on 12/05/08
Vinegar making is actually pretty easy ... it kinda makes itself once you get it going. Google "making vinegar" and you'll turn up hundreds of sites. You can usually buy a mother (basically a starter) at a home brewing supply shop. Look in the yellow pages under HOME BREWING SUPPLIES or BEER BREWING SUPPLIES. The same store will likely have a book about it.
I once bought a lovely vinegar crock at Sur Le Table. It has a spigot at the bottom for drawing off the finished vinegar for bottling and leaving the mother undisturbed. You just keep adding bits of wine to it.
kjgibson at 10:21PM on 12/05/08
Every single bottle of white balsamic vinegar I buy from Trader Joes ends up getting a vinegar mother in it. I have one that has probably multiplied by 5000 and is now as large as 1/3 of the bottle. I just noticed that my newer bottle is starting to get a mother in it as well.
ChelleyD01 at 12:30AM on 12/06/08
@currie~ you are my hero!
carolrsfMISSESTEXAS at 1:18AM on 12/06/08
@carol, if by "hero" you mean font of mostly useless knowlege, I'm your gal. I answer questions like this out in the real world, and people get this odd look and say, "why do you even know that?"
I dunno. Mind like a steel, um, something...trap. Now, where the heck are my keys?
dbcurrie at 4:29PM on 12/06/08
I am taking apple cider vinegar with mother daily.
http://www.bobbys-healthy-shop.co.uk/shop/page/7?
I buy it from here
kellymorris at 5:53AM on 01/26/09