North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Bob and Winnie <natvwine@cut.net>]

Your description of how vinegar is made is accurate but might leave the
impression that a fruit fly is neccesary. In fact, wine can be
inoculated by simple exposure to air because the bacterium are floating
around all over the place. They are also found in most peoples mouths
and saliva.
Yeast and Acetobacter can and do live together and indeed this is how
most sourdough is made.
bob Z4, Utah

Lucky wrote:

> They may be doing it differently on an industrial scale now, but
> traditionally, vinegar has been made by allowing the fermentation
> of  carbohydrates - the sugars/starches in fruits, grains, etc. to produce
> ethanol.  So long as this process is kept under anaerobic conditions, when
> the alcohol level reaches the point that it kills off the yeasts, you end
> up with a stable alcohol product.  But, if anaerobic conditions are lost
> and  Acetobacter bacteria, which are ubiquitous in nature, are introduced(
> like on that fruit fly) the Acetobacter organisms can then convert the
> ethanol to acetic acid(vinegar).
>
>
>