So, we often have a bit of a bottle of wine leftover, and I’d like to make it into vinegar. I guess it’ll turn to vinegar eventually, but I heard a “Splendid Table” in which the host suggested a wide brim crock and vinegar mother. I found a bottle of Bragg’s apple cider vinegar “with the mother.” Should I use that? And how do I seperate it from the vinegar?
The book “Wild Fermentation” by Sandor Katz is a rather free form but indispensable guide for people wanting to begin food fermentation projects.
So the basic idea of vinegar is that there are organisms (yeasts?) that eat the sugar in your liquid, and then convert it into something else.
The vinegar organisms come from the air and thrive on it, so you will have a better result if you have as much of the liquid exposed to air as possible- hence a wide vessel (covered with cheesecloth to keep the flies out), ideally with some air flow over it (try a fan). Vinegar mother is just the organisms that turn food into vinegar, so if you add a small amount of the vinegar hopefully they will start to reproduce. However I’m not convinced a vinegar mother can stay alive in vinegar (it will eventually run out of sugars to eat.) and you run the risk of your vinegar tasting just like the one you started with. So you may want to experiment with “catching” your own organisms from the air.
Other than that, you’ll want to keep it warmish, give it a stir now and then, skim off any scum that forms on the surface, and enjoy your new vinegar. Good luck!