As I wrote my reply to Tadaki on his comment on the Louisiana Hot Sauce post, I realized there was a fermented product I use quite often, but had never considered fermenting: vinegar.
The next day my wife mentioned that she did not want to keep these non-alcoholic beers she had bought (they turned out to be malt beverages, not non-alcoholic beer), and didn’t know what to do with them. Bingo. Throw some extra yeast in them to make alcohol (no hop bitterness or anti-bacterial action). For the Acetobacter inoculum mix in some of the white wine vinegar that’s a bit cloudy at the bottom, and the dregs of some old balsamic vinegar also getting cloudy…and hope for the best!
So, in an old pickle jar, I mixed together the malt beverage, the dregs of a home-brew for yeast, and the vinegars for the Acetobacter. See what happens over the next month. Some of the websites describing home made vinegar say that some sort of bacterial mat should form over the surface of fermenting vinegar, so I’ll take that and the acetic acid smell to be my indicators of success.
Will keep you posted.
Anything I'm Fermenting 
A mother should form given the conditions are suitable (enough nuetrient medium ,warm temp at 20-25c range and not too much alcohol up to 6-7% when doing your first build up).
Later you will need to learn how to feed it and grow it optimally without killing it. I suggest a book named vinegars of the world by springer.
Comment by tomer — April 5, 2012 @ 8:03 pm |