A Science Project Under My Kitchen Sink

John's Dregs being filtered of sediment

For the last couple of years I have been interested in putting bacteria to work for me.  Now I’m getting deeper and deeper into Fermentation.  I thought I’d start with something simple like red wine vinegar.  I read up and got a bottle of Apple Cider Vinegar “With The Mother”.  That means not Pasteurized to kill the beneficial bacteria.  I put some in the bottom of one of those sun tea jars from Goodwill and then added a little bit of leftover red wine.  Whenever I did not particularly like a wine I would feed my jar with a slosh.  Mediocore wine can produce fine vinegar so don’t worry.  I’m not wasting any of the good stuff.

I forgot about this for about a year.  I keep it under the sink in a little used compartment.  I drape a paper towel over the lid but do not seal it up.

I’m only guessing but I think that every time I added a new batch of wine to my vinegar jar a new “Mother” would form on the top.  When I got ready to harvest my vinegar there were several layers of Mother.  Each looked like a pancake but the texture was like a huge disk of gristle.  It was gross, amazing, tactile, visual, and a lot more.  I reached into the jar and extracted about 7 layers of Mother.

Layer after layer of The Mother prior to composting all but one.

Each one sort of reminded me of a ham steak.  I saved one for my next batch and tossed the others into the compost pile.

Here’s another shot of what my scientific workbench looked like.

A Handful of The Mother. The Mother is Always a Handful.

After filtering out the sediment with a funnel and paper towel I had about one liter of John’s Dregs Fine  Wine Vinegar.  I tried a coffee filter but that was too slow.  I filtered it into the Goofy jar and then decanted it into a lot of smaller bottles.  Now I use it and give it away.  Just ask.  No deliveries.

One last shot

One last shot of all that mother.  That was a hard working mother.  Wine was turned into fine vinegar.

My next step was to learn how to make a vinegrette.  That’s one of the basic recipes in cooking.  As I understand it it is about 1 part vinegar with some salt and pepper and Djon mustard and maybe some shallots chopped or other things.  Then you drizzle in 4 parts extra virgin olive oil as you whisk, whisk, whisk.  That emulsifies the mess.  You can shake it too but that lacks purity.  Your soul will suffer in the long run.