Vinegar has been around and in use for considerably longer
than would be suggested if one only goes as far back as the
introduction of the methods of production put forth in the next
section. The use and production of vinegar probably goes back to
a time not much more recent than that of the making of mead and
wine, possibly by no more than a few months. Vinegar is mentioned
in the Bible -- in the Book of Ruth and in Proverbs. It is also
specifically called for in the making of haroseth in Pesachim, a
section of the Talmud. Vinegar was known to the Egyptians and it
was drunk by Caesar's armies. Hippocrates prescribed the drinking
of vinegar for his patients in ancient Greece. It would appear
that in all the places that we have seen the production of wine or
beer in the ancient world, we also find the production of vinegar.
As mentioned above, the making of vinegar, in theory, is very
simple. Make beer or weak wine and leave it out for the vinegar
bacteria to attack it. In practice, this is not the best of
methodologies, although the realities of a vinegar generator are
not much more complex than this.
Note that I have said in the foregoing to leave the wine, or
beer out for the bacteria to take hold. This is the first
necessity. The acetobacter reaction, unlike that of yeast on sugar
to make alcohol, is an aerobic reaction. It requires the presence
of oxygen. The more oxygen, the better. Most of the improvements
in vinegar production over the millenia during which it has been
made and used by man have been in the form of finding better ways
to get greater amounts of oxygen to the bacteria in a shorter
period of time. The next necessity is to keep insects away from
the acetifying must while allowing for the air flow. Put these two
items together in a workable fashion and you have a vinegar
generator.
One of the oldest actual methods for the production of vinegar
is what has come to be known as the Orleans method. The vinegar
generator used in this method is a large, wooden barrel laid on its
side with the bung hole up. In each end of the barrel a hole, or
holes, is drilled so that when the liquid in the barrel is just
below these holes, the barrel will be about three-quarters full.
The barrel is then filled to this point with beer or dilute wine
and a starter of vinegar which has been untreated and still
contains active mother of vinegar (another name for the vinegar
bacteria). The holes in the ends are covered with a fine screen-
ing, or loose cloth, to prevent the entrance of insects, and the
generator is allowed to sit for several months. The optimum
temperature for this conversion is about 85øF, or 29øC. After this
resting time the alcohol has been almost entirely converted to
vinegar and it is drawn off through a spiggot placed near the
bottom of the barrel on one end, leaving about 15% behind to charge
the next batch. The next batch would be added through the bung
hole using a long funnel which would reach below the surface level
of the charging vinegar. The reason for this is that a scum will
form on the surface of the mash as it is converted to vinegar.
This is a very active layer of acetobacter and forms on the
surface, where there is the most oxygen (from contact with the
air). While succeeding batches of vinegar will procede even if
this layer is broken up, they will get off to a much better start
if this layer is left undisturbed.
More modern methods of production, as stated earlier, are
designed to allow more oxygen to reach the acteobacter. The first
of these methods was to use a larger generator and loosly pack it
with a porous material, such as pommace (grape pulp, after
pressing), or beachwood shavings. The mash was allowed to slowly
trickle down onto these materials, thus greatly increasing the
amount of surface area for the volume of mash. This allowed for
much more rapid production of vinegar with better controls.
Further improvements came with the addition of more holes in the
generator, allowing for freer passage of air through the generator
and the oxygen which it brought.
Vinegar generators grew in size, thus increasing the distance
which the mash would travel over the porous materials and thereby
increase the oxygen reaching the mash as well. The last of the
advances which has been made only in much more recent times (circa
1952) is the use of submerged fermentation which consists of
aerating the entire mash with tiny bubbles, much as an aquarium
aerator would produce when attached to a pummace tip and placed at
the bottom of the generator. This method introduces oxygen to the
entire volume of the mash at all times and can reduce the time
necessary for conversion from several months, to several days.
This is, however, quite out of the period of our study and if you
wish to maintain period techniques you will be advised to adhere to
the Orleans method and its early variations.
Vinegar has been used, both as a food, and also as a preserva-
tive of food. It has been prescribed, mixed with sugar or honey,
as a gargle to be used as a remedy for sore throats. It can also
be used as a cleaning agent, or furniture polish. It is not,
however, to be recommended for the use of cleaning polished marble,
as some suggest, as its acidity will eat away at the surface and
leave it lightly pocked, causing it to lose its luster.
The following is a recipe not for the actual making of
vinegar, but for its subsequent distillation to purify it. This
recipe was found in Delightes for Ladies.142
How to distill wine vinegar or good Aligar that it may be both cleare and sharpe
I Know it is an usuall manner among the Novic-
es of our time to put a quart or two of good
vinegar into an ordinay leaden stil, and so to
distill it as they doe all other waters. But
this way I do utterly dislike, both for that
heere is no separation made at all, and also
because I feare that the Vinegar doth carry an
ill touch with it, either fro the leaden botto
or the pewter head or both. And therefore I
could wish rather that the same were distilled
in a large bodie of glasse with a head or
receiver, the same beeing placed in sand or
ashes. Note that the best part of the vinegar
is the middle part that ariseth, for the first
is fainte and phlegmatick, and the last will
taste of adustion, because it groweth heavie
toward the latter end, and must be urged up
with a great fire, and therefore you must now
and then taste of that which commeth both in
the beginning & towardes the latter end, that
you may receive the best by it selfe.
