How To Make The Vinegar Plant Grow, And Vinegar From It

Get a quarter of a pound of sugar, and the same of treacle; add to them three pints of water; boil all together and put in a pan; cover it over with net, and set it in a warm place for six weeks, in which time the plant will be formed from the sugar and treacle. You may then remove the plant and boil the vinegar: get a fresh supply of sugar, water, and treacle, put your plant on it, and proceed as before with a plant. The vinegar will be made in a month.

How To Detect Adulteration Of Vinegar By Minerals

Copper

If you suspect copper, dip a clean piece of iron into the vinegar; if copper be in it a rose-colour coating of copper will remain on the iron. If you suspect Lead, use bisulphuret of soda. If put in vinegar which contains lead, a white precipitate will remain - sulphuret of lead. If Iron, prussiate of potash produces a blue precipitate.

There are various modes of making vinegar with acid wines. The most simple and natural consists in placing the wine in a flat tub, and leaving it open and exposed to the air and the sun. In the summer it will require from six weeks to two months, according to the alcoholic strength of the wine, to turn it into vinegar. In the winter, when the influence of the sun is not sufficiently powerful to cause the evaporation of the alcohol in the proportion desired, the temperature must not be below 6o° Fahrenheit. To hasten the operation, it is well to use a vessel that has already held vinegar, and then to add to the wine some boiling vinegar, in the proportion of, say, ten parts of vinegar to 100 parts of the wine, leaving the liquid exposed as above stated. Another mode of completely acidulating the wine is to add five per cent, of strong acetic acid to the quantity of wine. Vinegar can thus be obtained in the space of about three weeks. If the wine be red, the vinegar will be red also. When white or slightly coloured vinegar is desired, the extra colouring matter can be taken off by means of animal charcoal. For this purpose, when the vinegar is thoroughly made, a tap is affixed to the cask or other kind of vessel.

A funnel of about six inches in diameter is taken, lined with ordinary filtering paper, and filled up with coarse-ground animal charcoal. It is then placed in a bottle or jar under the tap, and the liquid is allowed to drip very slowly through it. When the animal charcoal is so impregnated with the colouring matter of the liquid that it decolorizes it no more, then the funnel must be emptied and replenished with fresh filtering paper and animal charcoal; the vinegar will, however, look better if slightly tinted. The discoloring process can accordingly be regulated.

Store Vinegars

Camp Vinegar

Two heads of garlic, one ounce of Cayenne pepper, two tablespoonfuls of walnut ketchup, two tablespoonfuls of soy (or instead, six anchovies chopped up), vinegar one pint. Infuse for two months. Strain and bottle.

Horseradish Vinegar is made by scraping up about six ounces of the root, and putting it into three pints of vinegar. Let it stand for a fortnight or three weeks; then strain for use, and bottle.

Shallot, Onion, and Garlic Vinegar are made in the same way, by putting them into vinegar in the proportion of 1 oz. to 1 pint of vinegar, letting them stand for a fortnight; then straining and bottling.

Chilis And Capsicums

In the proportion of an ounce to a pint of vinegar. Stand a fortnight or a little longer; strain and bottle.

Tarragon Vinegar

To one pound of tarragon leaves, one gallon of white-wine vinegar. The vinegar is made according to the following receipt: - Strip off the leaves just as the plant is going into blossom, and add the vinegar in the above proportions. Put it into a stone jar to ferment for a fortnight. Then run it through a flannel bag, and to every two gallons of vinegar put one quarter of an ounce of isinglass dissolved in a little cider. Mix it well; let it stand a month; then bottle it and tie it down closely.

Cress Vinegar

Dry and pound half an ounce of cress-seed (the same that you sow with Mustard-seed), pour on it a quart of the best vinegar; let it infuse for ten days or more. Shake it every day.

Celery Vinegar

Half a pound of celery seed, one pint of vinegar, a little salt: or, ten ounces of fresh celery root cut up very small. Put the celery (or seeds) into a jar, boil the vinegar and pour it over them. Set it to cool; bottle it in wine bottles, and cork it down. Let it stand for a month, then strain it into small bottles and cork for use.

Cayenne Vinegar

One ounce of good Cayenne to one quart of best vinegar. Put the Cayenne in a jar, pour the vinegar over it cold; cover it closely, let it stand for a month. Then strain it through muslin and bottle for use.

Tomato Vinegar

Three dozen tomatoes, half a pound of salt, a little mace, cloves and nutmeg, one clove of garlic, half a pint of mustard-seed, two quarts of vinegar. Quarter the tomatoes, but leave the bottoms undivided, rub half a pound of salt over them and place them in a wide-mouthed jar in a cool oven, or by the side of the fire for two days. Add then the garlic, spices and mustard-seed, and pour over all the vinegar boiling hot. Tie a bladder over the jar, and let it stand by the fire for five or six days, shaking it well every day. Put it by in the same jar as long as convenient. When you want to bottle it, press out and strain off all the liquor; let it stand several hours to clear, then bottle it.

The sediment can be used for sauce to cutlets at once.

A Good Acid Sauce

One quart of vinegar, half a bottle of soy, half a bottle of ketchup, half ounce of Chilis and four or five shallots chopped very fine. Put all into a jar and shake every day for a week, and then bottle for use.