can I make vinegar from sugar?

[Zech]

I know that all vinegar comes from sugar, ultimately, but do I have to turn it all into alcohol before I start on the vinegar, or can I get both processes happening at once?

I've had some success with making vinegar last year, and I have a blob of jelly that I'm pretty sure is a vinegar mother. I also have some too-sweet beech leaf wine (basically a herbal tea sweetened with lots of sugar and partially fermented). It's too sweet because I tried to make wine using bread yeast and it gave up half way through. The wine has cleared by now, so I'm not sure whether there's any yeast left in it, or whether it's all sunk to the bottom.

I've seen instructions for making vinegar directly from apple peelings, suggesting that sugar to vinegar conversion can be done in one go, so I'm wondering the sugar will turn into vinegar if I just put the mother into the wine. Does anyone know what I can expect if I try this?

[Green Aura]

We've made vinegar from crappy wine with good success, but that was starting without a mother. If you already have that I don't see why you shouldn't be able to turn just about anything into vinegar. It doesn't take very long with the mother so it might be worth trying a small tester.

Otherwise buy some wine yeast and restart you wine. We've done that too with mixed results.

[doofaloofa]

One can make a type of gun powder from sugar

[Zech]

Cheers, Green Aura. Maybe I'll just stick it all in a jar and see what happens.

Doofa, I believe that icing sugar will go up with quite a bang all by itself, but that wasn't quite the effect I was aiming for!

[doofaloofa]

sweet

[ina]

One can make a type of gun powder from sugar

Any recipes? Might need some in the near future!

[doofaloofa]

ISBN1-893626-11-3

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-k ... oniccom-20