Culinary Chemistry / The Scientific Principles of Cookery, with Concise Instructions for Preparing Good and Wholesome Pickles, Vinegar, Conserves, Fruit Jellies, Marmalades, and Various Other Alimentary Substances Employed in Domestic Economy, with Observations on the Chemical Constitution and Nutritive Qualities of Different Kinds of Food.

by Friedrich Christian Accum

Vinegar.

Vinegar may be made in the small way from grapes, gooseberries, or other sub-acid fruits, with the addition of a portion of Muscovado sugar, honey, or malt wort.

In this country vinegar is prepared from a wort obtained by the infusion of malted grain; the fermentation being excited by yeast. This vinegar is inferior in strength and purity to that from wine, and is more liable to become mouldy, or suffer the putrefactive fermentation. And this appears to be owing to the presence of a large portion of glutinous matter.

To make vinegar for domestic use, fit for keeping, it is essential that the fluid employed for that purpose should contain in every gallon at least three pounds of sugar; to allow some access of air to the vessel in which it is kept, and to keep it in a temperature rather higher than that of the atmosphere in this climate, that is about 75° to 80° Fahr. It is also essential, where a liquor already fermented is employed, to add a portion of yeast; for though any fermented liquor, if kept in a moderate temperature in an open vessel, will spontaneously run sour, or become changed to vinegar, this change is too gradual to produce this acid in perfection, and the first acetified portion turns mouldy before the last has become sour: but where the substance employed has not yet undergone fermentation, the whole process of the vinous and subsequent acetous fermentation will go on uninterruptedly with the same ferment which at first set it in action, which happens, for example, in the making vinegar from malt, or from fruit, sugar, and water.