Schmickl vinegar reactor You can make vinegar of the highest quality with the vinegar reactor that we developed ourselves. The way it works is based on the Generator process: in a fixed-bed reactor, the vinegar bacteria colonize filling material and are sprayed with the fermentation medium at certain times. Essentially, activating the filling material is relatively easy: operate the reactor for several days with the fermenting vinegar so that the bacteria can colonize the packing material. The fermentation medium can then be replaced with alcohol. As soon as this has been converted into vinegar, replace the vinegar with alcohol again, and so on. The handling of the vinegar reactor is also described in detail in the book “The Artisanal Vinegar Maker’s Handbook”. For flavorful mashes, wine or beer, for example, inorganic, neutral-tasting materials such as zeolites are best suited as filling material. The addition of aromatic substances during the vinegar fermentation makes our vinegar system unique in the world. If aromatic substances are put into the reactor as well as the neutral-tasting filling materials, an incredible diversity of possibilities open up for the greatest variety of flavors. Depending on the desired flavor intensity and the respective material, approximately 10 – 90% of the reactor volume can be filled with herbs, spices, dried fruit and so on. Or as used to be common you could use only pure beech wood shavings (possibly smoked) in order to give your self-fermented vinegar a special flavor. The flavor of captive-fermented vinegar is neither like pure fermented vinegar nor infused vinegar. The vinegar bacteria colonize the aromatic filling material, which means the fermentation process takes place directly on the filling material, as can easily be seen in the following picture. During the process, flavorings and aromatics are released like those of conventional fermented vinegar, however during the vinegar fermentation of the alcohol fermentation,