# vinegar



## Ben Brewcat (Oct 27, 2004)

No problem. Vinegar, especially store-bought in quantity, is usually pasteurized, but even so it takes a different route to make more out of your mead . An alcoholic solution like mead (or wine) needs to 

1) be inoculated with _acetobacter_ (either deliberately using a mother of vinegar, or more typically by fruit flies landing on the must with their pestilential little filthy feet), AND

2) be exposed to oxygen to allow the _acetobacter_ to aerobically convert the ETOH into acetic acid. 

Just spreading vinegar around wouldn't pose a risk for either of these factors (though I suppose it might attract fruit flies). Keep your mead under an airlock; it will keep the bugs AND the oxygen out, and your mead will be fine!


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## danno (Dec 17, 2007)

my wife has taken all this to the next step, making vinegar. The only problem I have ever had was her stealing my wines and mead, uncorking them and adding the mother


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## Grant (Jun 12, 2004)

Okay, what exactly is "mother?"

I bought some Bragg's organic apple cider vinegar that is unfiltered and "with the mother." Is it that gunky stuff that settles on the bottom?

Grant
Jackson, MO http://maxhoney.homestead.com


.


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## Fl_Beak (May 9, 2010)

Grant said:


> Okay, what exactly is "mother?"
> 
> Is it that gunky stuff that settles on the bottom?
> 
> ...


yes


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## Ben Brewcat (Oct 27, 2004)

Should be. Here are some pictures... it's kind of a snotty-looking, off-white gelatinous formation. In cultivation (making more vinegar), just add the whole mother batch. It'll get the mother plus lower the pH of the batch to give the _acetobacter_ a head start. This is probably a better (more representative) picture.

P.S. looks a lot like a Kombucha scoby... I'm making 5 gallons today!


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## Scrapfe (Jul 25, 2008)

Fl_Beak said:


> My wife has gone on an organic kick... using vinegar as her main cleaning agent...


Do't sweat it, your mead will be fine, and vinegar cleans well, but if you get tired of it show her how vinegar is made.


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