History processing of vinegar

Vinegar is the world's oldest cooking ingredient and food preservation method. It is as old as civilization itself: traces of it have been found in Egyptian urns from around 3000 B.C., and Babylonian scrolls recording the use of vinegar date even earlier, to around 5000 B.C. Babylonians used the fruit and sap of the date palm as raw material to produce alcoholic beverages. They were transformed naturally into vinegar in contact with air. The Babylonians used it as a food and as a preserving or pickling agent.

Known as “poor man’s wine” (posca) in ancient times, vinegar was often carried by Roman legionnaires; the Bible notes that Roman soldiers offered vinegar to Christ at the Crucifixion.

The wide variety of vinegars available today is nothing new. Until the six century BC, the Babylonians were making and selling vinegars flavored with fruit, honey, malt, etc. to gourmets of the time. In addition, the Old Testament and Hippocrates recorded the use of vinegar for medicinal purposes. Hippocrates recommended cider vinegar mixed with honey to treat coughs and colds. All through the ages, diluted vinegar has been used as a vitalizing and energizing tonic.

The word vinegar comes etymologically from the French word “vinaigre” which means “sour wine”. There are other historical reports about vinegar. Albucases in 1100 made the statement that colorless vinegar must be distilled over a low fire. Basilius Venlentinus, a monk, in the fifteenth century found that by distilling weak vinegar, a stronger product could be obtained.

The slow method of acetifying wine which had been used in France since 1670 is known as the French or Orleans process. The Orleans process was the only method to make pure wine vinegar and was reported to be the best process to produce fine quality table vinegar. In this process, wood barrels were used and filled with alcohol fermenting liquid to approximately ¾ full, which was provided with holes at the end of the barrel just a few inches above the liquid surface.

Hermann Boerhaave (1668-1738) invented a continuous process (the precursor for automation of acetification) which was very modern in those days, as was the understanding for the necessity of air. Boerhaave , a Dutch doctor, showed the importance of the “vegetal substance” or “flower” (mother of vinegar).

The Geber in the seventeenth century discovered increasing the strength of wine vinegar by distillation. Chemist Stahl in the first half of eighteenth century discovered the sour principle of vinegar was acetic acid. In 1790, Loewitz, reported that running weak acetic acid over charcoal would strengthen it.

Durande in 1778 made a more concentrated product and called it glacial acetic acid. The first complete analysis of acetic acid was made by Berzelios in 1814. Dobereiner proved that alcohol was oxidized at the expense of oxygen and produced acetic acid and water.

Döbereiner, a German chemist (Fig. 3A), was taught by his mother how to produce 16 different types of vinegar (Döbereiner 1819). Culinary art and chemistry led him to write in 1822 the now well known equation: C2H5OH + O2= CH3COOH + H2O (alcohol + oxygen are transformed in acetic acid and water).

In 1823 Schutzenbach introduced the quick process of manufacturing vinegar based on Dobereiner’s theory of formation of acetic acid from alcohol. In this process, the bacteria were grown and formed a thick slime coating around a non- compacting material like beech wood shavings, charcoal or coke.

For most of human history, acetic acid has been made from fermented liquids by acetic acid bacteria of the genus acetobacter. However, their function was not understood until Louis Pasteur discussed the microbiological basis of vinegar in his 1858 work Etudes sur le Vinaigre.

In 1955 Joslyn reported that Hromatka developed a new method of making vinegar called submerged acetification.
History processing of vinegar