1740. To Make Good Cider Vinegar

1740.    To Make Good Cider Vinegar. Take 10 gallons apple juice fresh from the press, and suffer it to ferment fully, which may be in about 2 weeks, or sooner if the weather is warm; and then add 8 gallons like juice, new, for producing a second fermentation ; in 2 weeks more add another like new quantity, for producing a third fermentation. This third fermentation is material. Now stop the bunghole with an empty bottle, with the neck downward, and expose it to the sun for some time. When the vinegar is come, draw off one-half into a vinegar cask, and set it in a cool place above ground, for use when clear. With the other half in the first cask, proceed to make more vinegar in the same way. Thus one cask is to make in, the other to use from. When making the vinegar, let there be a moderate degree of heat, and free access of external air. The process is hastened by adding to the cider, when you have it, a quantity of the mother of vinegar, as it is called - a whitish, ropy coagulum, of a mucilaginous appearance, which is formed in the vinegar and acts as a ferment. The strength of vinegar depends on the amount of sugar or starchy matter to be utimately converted into acetic acid.

1741. To Make Alcohol Vinegar

1741.      To Make Alcohol Vinegar. The following is the German method of making acetic acid, and is excellent and simple : In a bell glass or tall glass case, arrange shelves a few inches apart, one above another, on which place small flat dishes of earthenware or wood; then fill these dishes with alcohol, and suspend over each, in small trays or capsules, a portion of the black powder of platina {see Platinum-Black); hang strips of porous paper in the case, with their bottom edges immersed in the spirit to promote evaporation. Set the apparatus in a light place at a temperature of from 68° to 86° Fahr., for which purpose the sunshine will be found convenient. In a short time the formation of vinegar will commence, and the condensed acid vapors will be seen trickling down the sides of the glass, and collecting at the bottom, whence it may be removed once or twice a day. We shall find that during this process, produced by the mutual action of the platina and the vapor of alcohol, there will be an increase of temperature, which will continue till all the oxygen contained in the air enclosed in the case is consumed, when the acetification will stop; the case must then be opened for a short time, to admit of a fresh supply of air, when the operation will commence again.

1742. Artus' Process for the Manufacture of Vinegar

1742.    Artus' Process for the Manufacture of Vinegar. Dr. Artus has discovered a process for making vinegar from alcohol, which he says has proved entirely satisfactory. There is a very general complaint that the oxidation of spirits of wine in the vinegar process is far from complete, and that the results are not equal either in quality or quantity to what ought to be expected from the materials employed. His plan is as fol-lows: Take 1/2 ounce dry bichloride of platinum, and dissolve it in 5 pounds alcohol; with this liquid moisten 3 pounds wood charcoal broken in pieces the size of a hazel-nut; heat these in a covered crucible, and afterwards put them in the bottom of a vinegar vat. Here the platinum in its finely divided spongy state absorbs and condenses large quantities of oxygen from the air, by which alcohol is rapidly oxidized. When the charcoal has been in use for 5 weeks it should be again heated in a covered crucible.