All good points. My thinking is that, starting off with a vinegar mother
should develop the pickling medium as quickly as a souring mother develops a
brined souring medium. Will is work? I don't know. I thought I'd ask if anyone
else had tried it first. Part of my interest is in answering the question, when
did pickling become a matter of storing food in pre-fermented vinegar rather
than starting it in a brine and letting it sour?

One of the disadvantages of fermentation as opposed to straight pickling is
the uncertainty of the process (not that pickling is 100%). But some of the
advantages are the reduction of energy use, self-adjusting media, and potential
health benefits from intestinal flora compatible microbes.

Thanks for the reply.

Geoffrey Tolle

Sean wrote:

> Would you not have to produce the vinegar, and then from that pickle the
> vegetables? Otherwise the vegetables would spoil in the time the solution
> came up to acid strength. Especially as, from what I understand of the
> topic, you need oxygen to create vinegar. I really don't think you could
> leave the vegetables in an alcoholic mix at room temperature exposed to the
> air in the hope that the formation of vinegar would preserve them. IMHO it
> would be far safer to use your 5% vinegar to pickle the vegetables,
> refrigerating if in contact with the air, otherwise you would find you were
> fermenting the vegetables as much as anything else. Generally the idea
> behind food preservation is to _prevent_ them from fermenting. ;-)
>
> That's just my guess though, there might well be a safe method that could be
> employed to preserve the vegetables in a fermenting liquid without the whole
> thing going sour on you. I think it would be difficult though, and hard to
> get safe results for the home preserver.
>
> All the Best,
>
> Sean
>
> "Geoffrey Tolle" > wrote in message
> ...
> > Folks,
> >
> > I just found this group so please forgive me if this topic has been
> > discussed before.
> >
> > I have been researching various forms of food preservation and
> > transformation by fermentation and I can find a lot of information on
> > lactic acid fermentation and acetic acid pickling but I've been unable
> > to find any information on using acetic acid bacteria to ferment and
> > pickle vegetables. One advantage of acetic acid fermentation over basic
> > vinegar pickling would be that it would reach its own equilibrium
> > acidity level, one wouldn't have to fuss as much about making sure that
> > the vinegar levels are correct. On the other hand, it might be far more
> > susceptable to mold (though vinegar production itself is fairly
> > straighforward).
> >
> > Does anyone have any information on this topic?
> >
> > Geoffrey Tolle
> >