My favorite use of vinegar is using white vinegar and olive oil for a salad dressing. When in restaurants I always ask for vinegar and oil as a dressing and they always give me balsamic or some other sort of vinegar saying they don't have white vinegar available. I remember as a young guy working in restaurants in the kitchen I used white vinegar for cleaning stainless steel sinks and counters. The few places that finally gave me the white vinegar were somewhat hesitant about it. I don't think they school servers in restaurants very well on a lot of stuff any longer.
Vinegar's role in 18th-19th cooking
- Thread starter Gene L
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Technically, we are both right.
Yeast needs oxygen to replicate in the begining, but produces ethanol anaerobically. Of course there are yeasts that are not oxygen dependent. These yeasts would result in an "infection" in your beer and not give you the desired results. In both closed fermentation and open fermentation the yeast expel co2 , co2 is heavier than air so it blankets the fermenting material creating an anaerobic environment. This keeps other microbes at bay.
Vinegar is great for keeping hard water spots from forming on stainless steel. I also add it to my pressure washer for a spot free rinse when car washing.
You are also right about restaurant servers not being taught much.
DANG...,
I'm a foodie and I was actually lookin' forward to a really old sauce recipe
Thanks for the other recipes though
LD
Meat/fowl/fish sauces made with eggs, oil, vinegar and spices date back to Medieval times, a tradition carried over from Ancient Roman cookery. These recipes were not called "tartar sauce" but are unmistakably similar to the sauce we know today. They were still popular in Elizabethan and later times:
"Sauce for hens or Pullets to prepare them to roast...Then for the sauce take the yolks of six hard eggs minced small, put to them white-wine, or wine vinegar, butter, and the gravy the of the hen, juyce of orange, pepper, salt, and if you please add thereto mustard."
--- Accomplist Cook, Robert May [1685] (p. 149)
Making vinegar in the home and on the farm. Author: LeFevre, Edwin; Source: Farmers' bulletin (United States. Dept. of Agriculture) ; no. 1424 1924; Year: 1924
https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/ORC00000397/PDF
https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/ORC00000397/PDF
May's cookbook has lots of recipes for making vinegar.
To make divers sorts of Vinegar.
Take good white-wine, and fill a firkin half full, or a lesser vessel, leave it unstopped, and set it in some hot place in the sun, or on the leads of a house, or gutter.
If you would desire to make vinegar in haste, put some salt, pepper, sowr leven mingled together, and a hot steel, stop it up and let the Sun come hot to it.
If more speedy, put good wine into an earthen pot or pitcher, stop the mouth with a piece of paste, and put it in a brass pan or pot, boil it half an hour, and it will grow sowr.
Or not boil it, and put into it a beet root, medlars, services, mulberries, unripe flowers, a slice of barley bread hot out of the oven, or the blossoms of services in their season, dry them in the sun in a glass vessel in the manner, of rose vinegar, fill up the glass with clear wine vinegar, white or claret wine, and set it in the sun, or in a chimney by the fire.
To make Vinegar of corrupt Wine.
Boil it, and scum it very clean, boil away one third part, then put it in a vessel, put to it some charnel, stop the vessel close, and in a short time it will prove good vinegar.
To make Vinegar otherways.
Take six gallons of strong ale of the first running, set it abroad to cool, and being cold put barm to it, and head it very thorowly; then run it up in a firkin, and lay it in the sun, then take four or five handfuls of beans, and parch them on a fire-shovel, or pan, being cut like chesnuts to roast, put them into the vinegar as hot as you can, and stop the bung-hole with clay; but first put in a handful of rye leven, then strain a good handful of salt, and put in also; let it stand in the sun from May to August, and then take it away.
Rose Vinegar.
Keep Roses dried, or dried Elder flowers, put them into several double glasses or stone bottles, write upon them, and set them in the sun, by the fire, or in a warm oven; when the vinegar is out, put in more flowers, put out the old, and fill them up with the vinegar again.
Pepper Vinegar.
Put whole pepper in a fine clothe, bind it up and put it in the vessel or bottle of vinegar the space of eight Days.
Vinegar for Digestion and Health.
Take eight drams of Sea-onions, a quart of vinegar, and as much pepper as onions, mint, and Juniper-berries.
To Make strong Wine Vinegar into Balls.
Take bramble berries when they are half ripe, dry them and make them into powder, with a little strong vinegar, make little balls, and dry them in the sun, and when you will use them, take wine and heat it, put in some of the ball or a whole one, and it will be turned very speedily into strong vinegar.
To make divers sorts of Vinegar.
Take good white-wine, and fill a firkin half full, or a lesser vessel, leave it unstopped, and set it in some hot place in the sun, or on the leads of a house, or gutter.
If you would desire to make vinegar in haste, put some salt, pepper, sowr leven mingled together, and a hot steel, stop it up and let the Sun come hot to it.
If more speedy, put good wine into an earthen pot or pitcher, stop the mouth with a piece of paste, and put it in a brass pan or pot, boil it half an hour, and it will grow sowr.
Or not boil it, and put into it a beet root, medlars, services, mulberries, unripe flowers, a slice of barley bread hot out of the oven, or the blossoms of services in their season, dry them in the sun in a glass vessel in the manner, of rose vinegar, fill up the glass with clear wine vinegar, white or claret wine, and set it in the sun, or in a chimney by the fire.
To make Vinegar of corrupt Wine.
Boil it, and scum it very clean, boil away one third part, then put it in a vessel, put to it some charnel, stop the vessel close, and in a short time it will prove good vinegar.
To make Vinegar otherways.
Take six gallons of strong ale of the first running, set it abroad to cool, and being cold put barm to it, and head it very thorowly; then run it up in a firkin, and lay it in the sun, then take four or five handfuls of beans, and parch them on a fire-shovel, or pan, being cut like chesnuts to roast, put them into the vinegar as hot as you can, and stop the bung-hole with clay; but first put in a handful of rye leven, then strain a good handful of salt, and put in also; let it stand in the sun from May to August, and then take it away.
Rose Vinegar.
Keep Roses dried, or dried Elder flowers, put them into several double glasses or stone bottles, write upon them, and set them in the sun, by the fire, or in a warm oven; when the vinegar is out, put in more flowers, put out the old, and fill them up with the vinegar again.
Pepper Vinegar.
Put whole pepper in a fine clothe, bind it up and put it in the vessel or bottle of vinegar the space of eight Days.
Vinegar for Digestion and Health.
Take eight drams of Sea-onions, a quart of vinegar, and as much pepper as onions, mint, and Juniper-berries.
To Make strong Wine Vinegar into Balls.
Take bramble berries when they are half ripe, dry them and make them into powder, with a little strong vinegar, make little balls, and dry them in the sun, and when you will use them, take wine and heat it, put in some of the ball or a whole one, and it will be turned very speedily into strong vinegar.
My uncle made some wine and liked sweet wines. He made a batch of a white wine that came out very dry.
He hated it.
However, my dad liked it. And so my uncle gave him the batch. My Dad loaded it in our trunk and drove cross country home. It was a hot drive. On arriving home all the bottles tasted of vinegar.
it made good salad dressing.
He hated it.
However, my dad liked it. And so my uncle gave him the batch. My Dad loaded it in our trunk and drove cross country home. It was a hot drive. On arriving home all the bottles tasted of vinegar.
it made good salad dressing.
Exactly why sulfur dioxide (aka sulfites) are added to wine. The antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of S02 prevent wine from turning into vinegar.
The practice of fumigating wine casks with burning sulfur goes back at least as far as the middle ages.
The practice of fumigating wine casks with burning sulfur goes back at least as far as the middle ages.
Something many home vintners never try.
Brokennock
Cannon
What kind of yeast? Container? Time frame?Here's the recipe I was looking for. (bottom of page)
Note: it specifies soft water. Very important if making vinegar.
Thanks
It's a late 19th century book, no clue what yeast would have been originally used. I would probably use a wine yeast, something that likes sugar and makes lots of alcohol. Bread yeast today is bred for C02 production not alcohol. I suspect the container would have been a wooden cask or ceramic crock. When making vinegar the vessel needs to be non-reactive to the acetic acid.
The reason I posted the recipe was because it specified soft water and was a simple recipe. The minerals like calcium in hard water will react with the vinegar. lowering your yield.
Old cookbooks are fun to read, there is a lot of history in them, but many of the recipes have to be taken with a grain of salt.
Brokennock
Cannon
Exactly the reason I'm curious, simple. And, I'm interested to find out what a brown sugar vinegar tastes like.
Would a well cleaned glass growler from beer work as a container if I mixed the ingredients in a 5 gallon bucket then poured it into the growlers?
Yes, glass will work just fine, but you could just ferment in a bucket like they do for home beer making.
3 gallons is a lot of vinegar, I'd reduce it down to a gallon or less for testing.
The ABV for that recipe 3.9% so the resultant vinegar should be on the mild side.
Personally I'd just make a growler batch to test.
The proportions for a 1/2 gallon growler would be about,
5 1/2 ounces of brown sugar and
1/2 half gallon of water.
1/4 packet of ale or wine yeast. this calculates out to a slightly higher ABV of 4 %
I recommend an air lock or blow-off for the fermentation phase. once fermentation is complete I would rack it to another growler and leave it sit loosely lidded for a couple months.
That's probably how I would do it.
Best of luck and let us know how it turns out.
This is my current Canberry Vinegar Brew. I have posted thread son making Vinegar.
Brokennock
Cannon
Thank you very much. Especially for doing the math for me, I am ashamed to say I am severely mathphobic, I get anxious and edgy just thinking about it, even if I know it is "simple" math. I can read your ECG and diagnose your complex cardiac arrhythmia, but, would grab a calculator to make change for you if I sold you something. Your post is very, very, helpful.
For yeast I would use one of these.
Lalvin EC-1118 Champagne Yeast, is fast-starting, clean, and neutral. EC 1118 has an alcohol tolerance, up to 18%.
Or,
Red Star Premier Cuvée which is the same strain by another brand.
But any beer or wine yeast should work.
Lalvin EC-1118 Champagne Yeast, is fast-starting, clean, and neutral. EC 1118 has an alcohol tolerance, up to 18%.
Or,
Red Star Premier Cuvée which is the same strain by another brand.
But any beer or wine yeast should work.
In the 1700's the mixture of water and vinegar mixed with a bit of sugar was called switchel or haymaker's punch, the original energy drink.
Non-alcoholic versions of shrub are made using vinegar instead of rum or brandy. Blackberry shrub is the version most seen as a quart of blackberry juice, a quart of vinegar and sugar to taste.
When you were well off it was. Common folk used water , vinegar and molasses, honey, or maple sugar
I drink a bit of beer and have been known to sip a good rum or brandy( to the shame of a thousand years of ancestors I think scotch was a cruel joke dreamed up by people who though wearing dresses, and tossing telephone poles was a good idea) but I would much rather drink a switchel then suffer through the very best shrub.
