182 VINEGAR, CIDER, AND FRUIT- WINES. 



by being deprived of air, and, hence, when the vinegar ferment 

 is brought to vigorous development it withdraws so much of the 

 oxygen from the air in the cask that many of them die and their 

 bodies sink to the bottom, where they sooner or later putrefy. If 

 this putrefying process takes place before a cleansing of the casks 

 is considered necessary, it progresses to such an extent that the 

 entire contents of the cask are converted into a stinking mass 

 which has to be removed as quickly as possible. The casks in 

 which such disturbances take place must of course be carefully 

 cleansed by sulphuring and washing with boiling water before 

 they are again used. 



Modern French Method of Preparing Wine- Vinegar. . 



The description of the older French methods given aboye 

 shows that they are very crude ; their improvement is, however, 

 not difficult, the principal being to place the casks in a room sub- 

 ject to but slight variations of temperature, which can be best 

 effected by providing a good self-regulating stove. The temper- 

 ature near the ceiling being higher than that immediately above 

 the floor, the formation of vinegar will take place more rapidly 

 in the casks placed in the uppermost tier than in those in the 

 lowest, and consequently the wine in them will in a shorter time 

 be converted into vinegar. 



The first thing in starting the operation according to the old 

 French method is to acidulate the casks by pouring 10 to 20 

 quarts of boiling hot vinegar into each and then adding 10 to 

 15 quarts of wine; after some time, when the wine is acidulated, 

 the cask is filled up to the previously mentioned aperture and 

 left to itself until the contents are sufficiently acetified, when a 

 portion of the vinegar is "drawn off and replaced by wine, this 

 drawing off of vinegar and refilling with wine being continued 

 until the cask on account of the accumulation of sediment has to 

 be cleansed. 



This method, which is sometimes very minutely described in 

 books, could only develop at a time when nothing was known of 

 the chemico-physiological process of the formation of vinegar or 

 only erroneous opinions in regard to it prevailed. It is full of 



