With any luck, Lake Sharp’s widely popular and totally informative vimeo has all you Hot Knives devotees bottling your own pro-biotic elixirs and feeling rad. For those of you that did, you probably have huge, intimidating fungi festering in cabinets verging on frightfully successful sizes; we have another project for you.
After a somewhat passive attempt to grow a vinegar mother from a prodigious looking organ at the bottom of a favorite bottle of acid failed miserably, we asked Lake for a snippet of her Kombucha mother. While we were all a little skeptical that the mother would take to wine, after approximately five weeks we struck liquid gold: home made pro-biotic vinegar. This stuff has all the awesome powers that a bottle of Braggs boasts, with the added bonus of deep and savory wine vinegar flavor. As authentic vinegar geeks, we must declare that we’ve never tasted anything quite like the Oedipal fruits of this shot in the dark d.i.y. Endeavor. While tart enough to evoke all that is needed from store bought acidified wine, this liquid has a low-end that has n’aer to for been experienced. Sherry vinegars mixed with 50-year-old vintages don’t have this kind of bottom line: sweetness of the original liquor is balanced by the almost meaty bi-product of the living organisims feeding on the leftover sugars from the decanted wine. Umami city. All you need is a strong starter mother, ~13 bucks to spend on wine, and 5 weeks worth of patience.
We aren’t stopping here and neither should you. In February we’ll be reporting on Prosecco, Tripel and Stout experiments of the same nature.
Ingredients
A piece of healthy Kombucha Mother
3 bottles of red wine
Equipment
The largest glass jar you can find
A kitchen towel
Twine
1. With clean hands, give the Kombucha mother a nice rinse, and place in your giant jar.
2. Gently add the wine one bottle at a time. When it comes to selecting wines, make sure it something you like to drink. We set a cap at $4.99 per bottle, which usually will find you some decent appellations at the old Trader Joes.
3. When all of the wine has been integrated, give the jar a soft stir with a wooden or plastic spoon. REMEMBER: METAL KILLS MOTHERS, so don’t use any instruments made of metal.
4. Top the jar with a kitchen rag, and tie a piece of twine around the lid. Place the jar in a dark corner of a cupboard that doesn’t experience temperature or moisture variation. Under your sink? Not the best idea. You want to have a stable hospitable environment for your mother to flourish, without encouraging other types of mold to grow.
5. Wait for five weeks.
6. Thirty-five days later, taste your vinegar, using a wooden or plastic spoon. IF it has a pleasant acidic sting, then it’s ready. If not give it another week and try again.
If you take this plunge with us, keep us posted on your progress, and your problems. We’re on our third batch and can answer any questions you have. Take five weeks and never buy vinegar again!
Soundtrack: Five weeks of Ethiopiques
Beverage: Avery’s Old Jubilation
passing this off to my mother – longtime kombucha brewer. much to my dismay as a child, i was subjected to many of her kombucha experiments.
just curious if your tripel, stout or prosecco experiements yielded anything good yet