There are a few threads about this same subject. Suggest you do a search for them.

Here are some ideas:

Herb Vinegars
Fill pretty bottles with wine vinegar or cider vinegar, add a large sprig of herb, seal and leave on a sunny windowsill for about 2 weeks. Remove the herb and replace it with a fresh sprig. Use the vinegar as desired in cooking or for hair rinses etc. To make vinaigrette, add oil. Try some of the following combinations:

Coriander leaf, garlic, and rice vinegar
Borage, dill, shallots, and white wine vinegar
Sage, parsley, shallots, and red wine vinegar
Mint, honey, cardamom seed, and white vinegar
Rosemary, raisins, orange peel, garlic, and white wine vinegar
Chillies or capsicum, garlic, oregano, and cider vinegar
Savory, chive blossom, and cider vinegar
Dill, nasturtiums, garlic, and cider vinegar
Fennel leaf, garlic, parsley, and white wine vinegar
Rose petals, violet petals, and rice vinegar
Tarragon and white wine vinegar
Tarragon, rose petals and white wine vinegar
Thyme and white wine vinegar
Raspberry leaves and white wine vinegar

Christi,

You are on the right track. Vinegar is fermented from alcohol by a bacterium in the presence of oxygen. So the starting point is alcohol from wine, beer or similar items. Fruit, fermented by yeast in an absence of oxygen produces wine.

Making vinegar not be complicated. Vintners and brewers work hard to prevent it. I'll let you research the details.

Hmm... Perhaps we do need a fermentation forum.

Jim

The vinegar starts off with a 'mother', which you can buy at wine making suppliers. Its kind of like a dried yeast, only in liquid form.

"Its kind of like a dried yeast, only in liquid form."

Except it's not yeast, it's bacteria.

Jim

Here is a link that might be useful: How to Make Vinegar

I think yeast is also a form of bacteria too. I know its airborne and can settle on anything. Or maybe its a spore then... I plan to buy afew small bottles of white balsamic vinegar. They sell a crystal clear version at Trader Joes. I will add some dill weed sprigs to one, and tarragon to another, maybe rosemary branches in a third and thyme in a forth bottle.

No. Yeast is not bacteria. Biology classifies them as different kinds of organisms.

Jim

Yeast is a fungi and is what turns fruit into wine and makes bread. I guess yeast would be closer to a mushroom than a bacteria since mushrooms are fungi. Acetic acid bacteria is what turns wine into vinear.

I have done a fair amount of research and understand the process (I think). I was just wondering for a specific vinegar (peach chardonnay vinegar) if it would have to be a 2 step process (i.e. make the vinegar than add the peaches), or if I could streamline the process by chunking up the peaches and putting it in the wine at the same time as the mother.

I did try searching the forum but didn't come up with the info I was looking for.

I said assume ignorance just because while I do like to research stuff, sometimes I miss the glaringly obvious (like the difference between freezer jam and regular is the lack of cooking the freezer jam.) Also it seems like alot of stuff is written for people who have some familiarity with the subject and the stuff that "everybody knows" is skipped over. I didn't grow up with any of this, I don't think my mom ever canned and both my grandmother and great-grandmother never did any of it around me (I don't really remember ever eating any canned food that wasn't bought at the store.)

Christi

There are many fine fruity wines made with plain fruit - and that is something I hope to learn as soon as my wine grapes mature a bit more. They were planted about 3 years ago, and this year they have 5 or 6 nice bunches, but, hopefully, by next year or 2, they will produce to make the effort worthwhile.

Anyway, for the purpose of inviting meaningful thought here - I offer the following:

Some nice vinegars can be made at home very simply. I take the left overs from different bottled wines - add a "mother of vinegar" culture, and let time do the rest. It usually takes about 3 or 4 months for the wine to "turn" and it apparently will become stronger with longer.

I purchased this vinegar culture on-line, and still have the remnant in a saved jar for further use - hopefully, still viable. It needs feeding from time to time - add more wine.

From my thinking, I would take some chardonnay, add the culture and when finished, bring the vinegar just to a boil (to stop ferment) then pour this over some fully ripe peaches in a bottle, and allowed to mature. When it is finished to your taste, strain out the peaches and use on your favorite recipe.

The vinegar should preserve quite well.

Note for Linda Lou - do you think the finished product needs further finishing/processing for safety?

Just my 2 c's.

Bejay

i have grape vines in my back yard and would like to make vinegar with them. i have never tried to make vinegar before so i have no idea of what to do. any information would be great. thankyou

I have noticed on many occasions that if you leave an opened bottle of wine sit around, even when attempting to reseal it, it gets vinegar-y tasting. (I don't like wine much, hence the tendency for it to go sour after being opened for a social event.) We have many times used wine-gone-bad as vinegar without attempting to convert it in any way, it just works pretty much the same.

For example, there was some terrible raspberry champagne someone gave us which must have been quite old when we received it. We opened it within a few months but it was dreadful, flat, and already gone sour/vinegar-y. But it was excellent in salads combined with olive oil.

We do make fruit vinegars just by pouring heated plain white vinegar over black raspberry pulp or pineapple, etc. and letting it sit for a few weeks, then straining. So my very unofficial advice, if you want to do it the easy way, is just open a bottle of Chardonnay, let it sit a few weeks, then heat and pour over cut up peaches. Strain a few weeks later and it should be close to what you are looking for. I don't think you should try the going vinegary via oxygen and flavoring with peaches at the same time or the fermenting might go a different direction than you intended.

Marcia

Jim, a fermentation forum could be fun. I've wanted to try my hand at making vinegar for years. With the popularity of micro breweries and homemade beer and wine now, it could be an interesting and helpful forum.

Michelle