🍷Red Wine Vinegar

Crock with left over wine 

On the odd occasion, a few glasses of red wine may be consumed! Sometimes theres leftovers in the glass or in the bottle. They get poured into a crock with a cork lid.

I make wine on top of the fridge.

I got this from a second hand shop, but try  trademe. I find these are fabulous for all kinds of long term ferments.

In my red wine vinegar crock (cos I kept it growing for 6 or so years,) a mother of vinegar has grown. Its a colony of bacteria. Google it. Its what turns the sugars into acetic acid. This then preserves itself & food.

Mother of Vinegar: Red Wine Vinegar

Most store bought vinegars kill this living fermentation process & people buy the taste but not the benefits. I think its heat treated pasteurised. However I do know there is one for cider vinegar which you can buy with the mother still alive in it. See pic.

homemade wine 

relish

Only a piece of Mother is needed in some cases not even that, in cider vinegar it can be just stringy threads in the vinegar- the vinegars natural fermentation process is to form like a seal- to stop oxygen I think, so if I take off the mother, another will grow. If you send me a small courier bag- I can send you a piece of Mother to make your own- message me.

I need vinegar later in the season when the garden gets pumping &amp & I'm making relishes.  My household and extended whanau love this relish.

Cider Vinegar you can buy

Cider vinegar is just topped up with apple juice. I would highly recommend the book "Wild Fermentation" by Sandor Katz. Also "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon has research into all traditional peoples having fermented foods in their diets.

Mother of Vinegar creating its own seal.