Vinegar's role in 18th-19th cooking

[Carbon 6]

Apple molasses ?

 

[The Crisco Kid]

It works to relieve heart burn and leg cramps. I use the apple cider vinegar with "the mother", whatever that is.

 

[Grenadier1758]

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.

If you had the lemon shrub offered at the April Trade Faire at Fort de Chartres, I'd agree with you. If you have some of the best lemon shrub, then you might have a different opinion. Now I'll have to go to the November Encampment and bring some shrub.

 

[Tom Duclos]

Up here in New York State on the Vermont border, we still drink it. We use apple cider vinegar, water, and honey...

 

[Zonie]

It works to relieve heart burn and leg cramps. I use the apple cider vinegar with "the mother", whatever that is.

Quoting Wikipedia,

"Mother of vinegar is a substance composed of a form of cellulose and acetic acid bacteria that develops on fermenting alcoholic liquids, which turns alcohol into acetic acid with the help of oxygen from the air. It is added to wine, cider, or other alcoholic liquids to produce vinegar."

It's kind of a semi-transparent white blob of "stuff" seen floating near the bottom of the bottle of vinegar if the vinegar was made the old fashioned way. With factory made "distilled" vinegar is used, you won't see the "mother".

 

[Zonie]

It works to relieve heart burn and leg cramps. I use the apple cider vinegar with "the mother", whatever that is.

Quoting Wikipedia,

"Mother of vinegar is a substance composed of a form of cellulose and acetic acid bacteria that develops on fermenting alcoholic liquids, which turns alcohol into acetic acid with the help of oxygen from the air. It is added to wine, cider, or other alcoholic liquids to produce vinegar."

It's kind of a semi-transparent white blob of "stuff" seen floating near the bottom of the bottle of vinegar if the vinegar was made the old fashioned way. With factory made "distilled" vinegar is used, you won't see it in the bottle.

 

[GregLaRoche]

Since man first started making wine, I’m sure they sometimes ended up with vinegar. After all that work, you don’t just want to throw it away. Hence new dishes were discovered.

Today we learn that small amounts of natural acids are good for your health as well as making food taste more interesting.

 

[Nyckname]

It works to relieve heart burn and leg cramps. I use the apple cider vinegar with "the mother", whatever that is.

I don't go to great lengths to filter my hard cider. I already pay a lot of money for brewer's yeast as a nutritional supplement, so I figure getting some yeast from the cider can't be anything but good.

 

[Nyckname]

Since man first started making wine, I’m sure they sometimes ended up with vinegar. After all that work, you don’t just want to throw it away. Hence new

It's assumed that cheese and/or yogurt and/or butter were discovered when some long dead horsemen took bladders of milk on trips, and it sloshing around turned it into something else that was good.

 

[GregLaRoche]

I’ve tried to make wine vinegar by adding a mother of vinegar to the ends of bottles of wine. It never turned out great. I think it’s because there are already too many preservatives added to wine today. I even tried organic wine once. No difference.

 

[NeilMacleod]

It works to relieve heart burn and leg cramps. I use the apple cider vinegar with "the mother", whatever that is.

Mother ...... source.

 

[NeilMacleod]

I’ve tried to make wine vinegar by adding a mother of vinegar to the ends of bottles of wine. It never turned out great. I think it’s because there are already too many preservatives added to wine today. I even tried organic wine once. No difference.

My first mistake when starting was putting a top on, it needs oxygen so gauze or fine cotton on it would be enough.
Second you cant go higher then 6% Alcohol, will kill the culture. So water down.
Yes the commercial stuff can be full of chemical crap.

 

[Carbon 6]

Second you cant go higher then 6% Alcohol, will kill the culture. So water down.

It is documented that Acetobacter and other acetic acid bacteria are able to grow in wine above 10% ABV, although is is not likely that acetic acid bacteria can grow in wines that are 15% ABV or above. It is considered that no strains of acetic acid bacteria can grow in 15.5% ABV or above .

Molecular Wine Microbiology. Chapter 9 - Acetic Acid Bacteria. 2011, Pages 227-255. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-375021-1.10009-8.

 

[NeilMacleod]

My experience my batches failed when they were around 9%. I know they have stronger ones, question is are they naturally getting that high. The cheap commercial ones are peculated to speed up the process and are harsh.
https://supremevinegar.com/2017/12/27/vinegar-acidities-levels-usage/

 

[Carbon 6]

I remember reading patents that described air(oxygen) being continually pumped into a fermenting vat of "vinegar". Perhaps your's just exceeded the available oxygen and the bacteria stop working.

 

[Carbon 6]

I met Alton once, had a brief conversation with him.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

I read that vinegar was added to water in a canteen for a couple of reasons. Whether the benefits or basis for them were exactly known or fully realized is another story. It added minerals and some vitamins to the diet, helped suppress thirst and appetite, worked to replace some nutrients lost while on the March, made some foul water more palatable and also served slightly as a purifier by killing off some of the micro-organisms in water sources. There was a long discussion about the addition to water on this forum a few years ago. I found and cited a Civil War Surgeon General's book that recommended the use of vinegar added to suspect water for the troops. Perhaps someone can run a search and find that thread.

 

[Carbon 6]

. It added minerals and some vitamins to the diet,

Vitamins weren't discovered until 1912, so we can probably cross that one off the list.

Vinegar will not disinfect water. It needs to be used full strength to kill pathogens and it's efficacy depends on the strength of the acid, the type of pathogen and the amount of contact time.

 

[Nyckname]

Vitamins weren't discovered until 1912, so we can probably cross that one off the list.

They didn't need to know about the existence of vitamins to realize that certain things in the diet were beneficial.

See: Limes onboard ships.

 

[Carbon 6]

Limes being more acidic than vinegar would probably work better than vinegar at disinfecting water.