I make vinegar; I use my wines for the base and all of them are
sulfited to 0.8 ppm molecular. As long as you follow the normal
process there should not be an issue with normally sulfited wines. Red
or white, it's acetobacter that does the work.

You don't need to buy a mother if your friend gives you some vinegar.
Just use 1 part vinegar, two parts wine, 1 part water. That reduces
the sulfite and the alcohol content. Most store bought vinegar is dead
as an FYI.

I would not use sorbated wine, but have no idea if it's an issue or
not...

That 'clump' you see is often called the mother around here but it's
only celulose, a byproduct of the bacteria at work. The bacteria are
present in the actual vinegar, you do not need the clump.

It's pretty hard to kill a mother, they can live longer than any of
us. Some use high sulfite levels, some heat to 160 F for 5 minutes to
kill them. There is no good reason to kill them that I can think of.
Vinegar prefers warmer temps to cold when converting, but room
temperature is fine. It can take several month to convert though.

Storage at home temperatures is not an issue, mine are several years
old.

Just DO NOT make wine and vinegar in the same area, and do not mix up
equipment. If you must use it on both, use a bleach solution to kill
the acetobacter before reusing equipment on wine. It does not take a
lot of acetobacter to turn a wine to vinegar.
Regards,
Joe

wrote in message >...
> I want to turn some of my wine into wine vinegar.
>
> I have seen 'mother' available from the local wine store for reds and
> whites. Is there a real difference? A friend of mine has mother that
> works just fine on his wine and he makes a it with a blend of red and
> white grapes.
>
> Can I use kit wine that has been stopped with sulfates?
>
> Can I use kit wine that has sorbate added?
>
> What is the best way to store mother, to keep it active?
>
> Thanks
>
> Boatman