If you don’t know anyone who is currently provideing a home to a working Mother, go find a local beercraft store, wine merchant, or anyone selling wine-making supplies. They will be likely to hook you up with the required starter-dose of mycoderma aceti, which comes in a little vial of fluid as clear as water.

Once at home, pour the mycoderma aceti into your crock of choice with a couple of bottles of newly-remaindered wine. Then just set the crock in a warm spot in your kitchen or pantry and wait. If you dutifully “feed” your crock with a glass or two of left-over wine each week for the next few weeks your Mother will eventually make her grand appearance. You will first notice her when a hazy grayish veil begins to cover the liquid.

To keep your Mother healthy you must also let her breathe. This means that a linen napkin, or cheesecloth, or any porous material should be kept tied over the mouth of the crock to permit air while it prohibits flies.

Slowly your Mère de Vinaigre will swell with life, thickening in order to defending her brood of bacteria below from the elements. A good Mother needs to be very thick-skinned in order to create vinegar. Somebody with a tremendous amount of time on their hands has actually calculated that a Mother can grow in thickness at a rate of 1.25 inches per year.

As you offer your Mother wine for the next dozen weeks or so (that’s right, you’ll have to drink wine on a regular basis for all this to work), your Mother will slowly sink to the bottom of the crock and a new “skin” will form again at the surface.

Once your Mother has hit crock-bottom she can be moved to a new container in order to rnurture another batch of vinegar, or simply be discarded altogether. Meanwhile, the newly-orphaned vinegar left in your crock needs only to be strained through several coffee filters or a folded cheesecloth in order to remove the last remnants of the “Mother”. it can then be stored and enjoyed perpetually.

Don’t forget to feed your Mother at least a glass of wine every couple of weeks or so-and not too much at a time, as this can disturb her digestion. And never give her any sweet or fortified wines (port, sherry, etc.) as this will delay or even prevent the momentous occasion of the birth of blessed vinegar.