An Overview on the Biological Production of Vinegar

Abstract

Vinegar contains about 5% acetic acid in water, varying amounts of fixed fruit acids, colouring matter, salts and a few other fermentation products which impart characteristic flavour and aroma to the product. Vinegar traditionally has been used as a food preservative. Vinegar production methods could range from traditional methods employing wooden casks (Orleans Process) and surface culture (Generator Process) to submerged fermentation. Vinegar is the product made from the conversion of ethyl alcohol to acetic acid by a genus of bacteria Acetobacter. Many technical devices have been developed to improve the industrial production of vinegar. Generally, these improvements increase the speed of the transformation of ethanol into acetic acid in the presence of acetic acid bacteria. In this review a detailed description on vinegar production, methods of production, different substrates and microorganisms used for its production, and the chemistry of vinegar is presented.