How is vinegar made?

Vinegar brewing steps: firstly, the raw materials are crushed, then the raw materials are moistened, steamed, cooled, cooled, added with koji, mixed with Daqu, fermented with acetic acid, smoked with vinegar, and finally the finished product is identified, thus processing into vinegar.

Vinegar is a traditional condiment in major cuisines in China. According to the literature, the brewing history of vinegar is more than 3000 years, which can be generally divided into two categories: solid fermented black vinegar, liquid fermented red vinegar and white vinegar. Vinegar is mainly fermented from glutinous rice, wheat and sorghum. It contains amino acids, lactic acid, organic acids and other components. Famous vinegars in China include Zhenjiang balsamic vinegar, Shaanxi mature vinegar, Sichuan Baoning vinegar and Tianjin Liu Du mature vinegar.

First, keep the proportion of raw materials:

Sorghum 100 kg, Daqu 40 kg, chaff 40 kg, bran 50 kg, salt 9- 10 kg, pepper 1.5 kg (pepper, aniseed, galangal, cinnamon, etc. ), vinegar residue 80- 100 kg, cinnamon, etc.

Second, seriously implement the ten working procedures.

1. Crushing raw materials: both sorghum and Daqu should be crushed, Daqu powder should be qu, sorghum powder should be coarse powder, and less flour should be brought.

2. Dredging: firstly, 25-30% of chaff and 80- 100% of new vinegar residue are evenly sprinkled with sorghum powder in the open air, then 100% of water is added, turned over and stirred evenly, and then stacked. It can be thicker in winter, and it is best to use warm water to make it.

3. Steaming: first spread the cage cloth, sprinkle a thin layer of bran, then stir the wet seasoning evenly without bumps, put it in the retort, and sprinkle it with air layer by layer to avoid compaction. After filling with air, steam for two to two and a half hours. Sorghum needs to be steamed. It's completely steamed. There is no heart in it.

4. Drying and cooling: after the sorghum grits are steamed, they should be dried immediately to disperse the gas stratification in the clinker, and then add 160 kg-180 kg of slurry water to make the raw and auxiliary materials absorb a lot of slurry water, so as to promote and improve the oxidation of alcohol in the first fermentation.

5. Cooling and koji adding: add koji to the clinker, spread it on the airing yard, turn it over at any time, speed up cooling and reduce the chance of infection by miscellaneous bacteria.

6. Mixing Daqu: The clinker is cooled to 18-22℃, and Daqu is mixed in winter at 22-24℃ in summer. The curved surface is drawn as evenly as possible, and a part of rice bran is added and mixed evenly. It is put into an alcohol fermentor (urn), stamped with feet, covered tightly with plastic sheets, and subjected to solid-state fermentation and saccharification to become alcohol, with 7-8 days in summer and 9-9 days in winter. The fermentation room temperature 10-20℃, alcohol 5-7℃ and acidity 1℃ are required.

7. Acetic acid fermentation process: making vinegar is to make wine first and then make vinegar. The first step is saccharification and fermentation into alcohol, and the second step is alcohol fermentation into acetic acid. After alcohol fermentation, rice bran and wheat bran were mixed into vinegar blank and put into a small jar. Generally, the alcohol content of fermented vinegar blank is about 6 degrees, and the acidity is below 65438 0 degrees. When bran is mixed with vinegar for fermentation, high temperature time should be avoided to avoid the influence of high temperature on vinegar production. It is required to mix bran evenly, and the moisture in acetic acid should be strictly controlled. Its alcohol content is 38-42 degrees. Too high or too low alcohol content is not conducive to the growth and reproduction of acetic acid bacteria. The greening rate reaches 500-550%.

8. Vinegar blank: Pour 40% of the vinegar blank into the fumigation tank, cover it (ceramic cover), turn it once a day in sequence, and fumigate for 4-5 days. Require black and red, pay attention to the fire time, 2-3 times a day. To master the temperature, the time of adding fire is fixed. The function of fumigation is to increase the color and fragrance of vinegar. This technology is unique to Yiyuan Love Vinegar.

9. Leaching vinegar: Pour vinegar blanks made of all raw materials, namely 60% yellow blanks and 40% smoked black blanks, into black and yellow shower tanks respectively, and soak the yellow blanks with the vinegar of the previous day 12- 16 hours. The next day, let go of the shower head of the yellow vinegar pool, the spilled yellow vinegar will flow into the vinegar pot, boil and sterilize, and then put it in the fumigation pool for 4-6 hours, and the finished product will be obtained after the black vinegar and the yellow vinegar are mixed. Soaking vinegar requires one soaking, two boiling and three showering.

10. Identification of finished products: those that fail to meet the national indicators after identification shall not be put into storage. Generally, three methods are used to identify finished products: feeling, observation and testing. The feeling is the sour taste of raw vinegar, with or without miscellaneous taste; The view is to see if the color is transparent; Detection is to measure acidity and concentration with instruments. Generally, the acidity of famous vinegar is above 5 degrees, the color is dark, transparent and shiny.