Abstract:
Vinegar represents a sour-tasting liquid produced usually by
oxidation of the alcohol in wine or other hydro-alcoholic solutions, and used
as a condiment or food preservative. In Romania there is a great interest for
the fermentation vinegar industry. Till 1990 the technologies and equipments
from vinegar industry were old-fashioned from technological point of view,
ensuring low quality production with low efficiency. Most of vinegar
factories had a prevalent craftsman specific activity and as concerns the
technical and economical aspects, profitableness, productivity, quality
control and competitiveness on a free and unplanned market were not
considered. At present most of these vinegar factories are closed due to the
lack of raw materials, especially the piquette, the lack of auxiliary materials
such as the sawdust to fix the acetic bacteria and due to the old equipment.
The paper presents the considerable results obtained by the Institute of Food
Research in the field of vinegar technology, the results being applied within
the Romanian vinegar factories. These results are the following: - intensive
vinegar technology ensuring a duration of the technological process of ca. 60
hours, in comparison with 7 – 9 days performed in this moment; - equipments
ensuring the best conditions in order to apply the intensive technology and
allow the uniformity and the control of the main technological parameters; -
specific technologies to ensure the sanitary and hygienic conditions,
necessary for the development of a bio-technological process; - micro
organisms pure cultures, in this case acetic bacteria, that could be delivered
by request and having a high shelf-life duration and ensuring the quick
initiation of the technological process; - different vinegar varieties depending
on the production area and season.
