Month: March 2022

Ok. Some of you have asked for it so here it is.

History of Vinegar

You can also find it in my class notes are from the main page.

A few notes though. It is a pretty short paper, all things considered. The reason being that serious research on what vinegar is, how it can be made, and how to optimize the process doesn’t happen until after 1600. The bulk of it doesn’t happen until it is understood that it is a bacteria making the vinegar. So in period, vinegar is important but much like today, it is not exciting. Everyone knows you can just leave wine or ale out and vinegar will form. So it is not worth spending a lot of time writing about it.

While I have spend some time doing academic research on vinegar, it is not my focus. If I had a lot more time, then yes, I could deep dive into academic journals and cross-reference across a variety of sources to dig up all that Classical and Medieval people knew about vinegar. But that still wouldn’t be my focus. My focus is making vinegar and making it in a close to medieval way so we can have a more authentic experience. It turns out that surface methods are what most people used to make vinegar. So rather than having our feast stewards and brewers buy mass produced vinegar on a tight budget, I can provide a better product and cheaper (because it is free). That is my focus.

So enjoy!

As the weather warms, and events open, I find myself thinking, what is next?

I have to write a paper to pull my research and experiments into one place. I need to make some new clothes. But after that, I think it is time to try to make oriental vinegars.

I have pretty much succeeded in making European vinegars. I have made a wide variety of wine vinegars. I have made malt vinegars. I have made mead vinegars. I have made cider vinegars. I have made aged vinegars. I have made vinegar from coconut water. I have mostly made balsamic vinegar (or at least as close as I can get without rare woods and the caves of Modena).

Oriental vinegars don’t start directly with sugar. They start with starch. Rice, barley, pea, and millet.

The next step is then to make sake. I have made vinegar from commercial sake and rice wines but time to make my own. Then apply that process to converting the starches in oriental grains to make something like Chinese Black vinegar. Just as balsamic was the end goal for European vinegars, Chinese Black vinegar is the goal on the oriental side of things. This might take several more years as my drive and time allow.