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VINEGAR, MADE WITH A VINEGAR PLANT (another way)
The vinegar plant may be thus produced. Take a solution of a quarter of a pound of sugar and half a pound of treacle in three quarts of water, simmer it, then pour it into a jar, cover it up, and keep it in a warm place for six weeks. The liquid will become vinegar, and on the top will form a scum-like fungus, which is the vinegar plant. By adding a piece of this to a similar solution, the process of conversion into vinegar will now take place in much less time. During the process the plant thickens by the formation of a new layer on its under surface, and by peeling off this layer and using it in a fresh operation, the plant may be propagated indefinitely. The vinegar plant is a fungus somewhat resembling those known by the name of mould. "It forms a flocculent mass or web, which is tough and crust-like, or leathery. It is found on decaying bodies, and in fluids undergoing the acetous fermentation, which it greatly promotes, and which, indeed, it very readily occasions--a small piece placed in sugar and water soon changing the liquid into vinegar."
This is a method for raising a vinegar mother from scratch rather than a dish, and it works on the same principles a modern fermenter would use. Two things matter most: air, and patience.
- Cover, but do not sealAcetic acid bacteria are aerobic and need air exchange, so "cover it up" is best read as a cloth or muslin tied over the mouth of the jar rather than a tight lid or stopper. In a sealed jar fermentation tends to stop at the alcoholic stage.
- TreacleTreacle here means a dark cane syrup; unsulphured molasses is the closest supermarket equivalent. Blackstrap is lower in fermentable sugar and is generally avoided for fermentation.
- The measuresA quarter pound of sugar is about half a cup, half a pound of treacle about two-thirds of a cup. Three Imperial quarts is about 3.4 litres, or roughly 3.6 US quarts — a large jar, and it is worth leaving air space above the liquid.
- Simmer, then coolThe simmering dissolves the sugars and knocks back competing organisms. Let the liquid come down to blood heat before it goes into the jar; poured hot, it will kill any culture you add.
- "A warm place"Around 75-85F (24-29C), out of direct light. Below about 65F the conversion slows considerably, so the six weeks quoted will depend heavily on how warm the spot actually is.
- Two fermentations, not oneThe book skips a step that explains the long wait. Wild yeasts must first turn the sugar to alcohol, and only then can acetic acid bacteria turn the alcohol to acetic acid. The recipe's faster second batch relies on adding a piece of the established plant to a fresh solution of the same kind.
- Mother versus mouldThe "vinegar plant" is a smooth, translucent, rubbery raft of bacterial cellulose. Fuzzy growth in green, black, blue or pink is ordinary mould: discard the batch rather than trying to skim it. A cloudy suspension and a few pale strands in the liquid are normal.
- No metalUse glass, glazed stoneware or food-grade plastic, and wooden or plastic utensils. Developing vinegar attacks aluminium, copper, cast iron and unlined tinware, and picks up metallic off-flavours.
- Strength is unknownHomemade vinegar from this method typically lands somewhere between two and five per cent acetic acid, and there is no way to know from the recipe. Use it for dressings and cooking, but not for preserving or water-bath pickling, where a tested five per cent commercial vinegar is required.
The "vinegar plant" was a fixture of Victorian kitchens in the same way the ginger beer plant was: a living culture kept on a shelf and fed with sugar and water. What the entry describes as a fungus resembling mould is in fact a pellicle of bacterial cellulose built up by acetic acid bacteria — the same thing sold today as a vinegar mother, and a close cousin of the kombucha SCOBY. The confusion is of its moment: Pasteur's work in the 1860s established that acetic fermentation was the work of living organisms rather than spontaneous decay, but the distinction between yeasts, bacteria and true moulds took decades to filter into domestic manuals, and this entry still files the whole business under mould found "on decaying bodies".