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Has anyone done this? I have a huge pan full of apple peelings and cores from making and freezing apple pulp from my very productive old tree. Over the last two months it has bubbled away in the airing cupboard and has turned pleasantly sour and vinegary.

I did find a "mother" in a large bottle of bought vinegar, and tipped it into the huge pan to help things on their way.

I love vinegar (for cooking and cleaning), and have been buying it in bulk very cheaply from a Chinese supermarket (See Woo) but the idea of having a free gallon or so is very captivating. One problem is that it may not be up to the 4.5% acetic acid required for safe pickling etc. I am looking for a testing kit.

Meanwhile I have taken off a jug of it to boil up experimentally with raspberries and sugar, and the result is very tasty for making salad dressings. I am very keen on flavoured vinegars (blackberry, raspberry, gooseberry - not so good....) for salad dressings and for adding to meat sauces for extra flavour.

I read that the longer you leave the pan fermenting, the sharper the vinegar becomes. I would be very interested to hear what others have done. I bet Goodlife has made her own vinegar!

Sorry, can't help.  Just curious.  What does a 'vinegar mother' look like?  I never had anything but vinegar in a vinegar bottle.

It is a slimy lump or layer supposedly jumping with the sorts of organisms that create vinegar, given fruit and sugar etc to feed on! I have a bulk container of Sarson's malt vinegar, which I use for cleaning as well as cooking, and pouring it into a smaller bottle, out came the "Mother". It is whitish/brownish and eventually jelly-like.

I am gradually straining my homemade vinegar and using it. It does not taste as strong as bought vinegar but the salad dressing made with it is very good.

My giant pan in the airing cupboard has gone a bit quiet now.....I would still love to hear from anyone with vinegar making experience.

Fascinating!  Thank you for explaining artichoke.

Oh well, shame no-one has advice to offer. Just to follow up, I have been scooping out the vinegar, filtering it through cheesecloth, and boiling it for 10 minutes to pasteurise it so that it keeps for longer. I have scooped the "Mother" off the top, nice thick strong jelly-like membranes, and stored her in a screw top jar. I now have quite a lot of  completely free apple vinegar (unknown acidity until I get hold of a tester) for cooking and cleaning with, and a "Mother" for starting off the next lot when I pick the last apples.

I think this has been a very worthwhile experiment, and still would love to hear from anyone else who is making vinegar.

Sorry for not getting round to replying sooner, Artichoke.  i have been making our own vinegar for two or three years now, solely using a 'mother' as you call it.  Don't know the name in English and can't remember what we were told the name was in french.  This jellyfish-like lump was given to us by local French friends who always make their own wine vinegar with it, in a big stone jar. 
We regularly buy our wine/sherry/port etc "en vrac" (in quantity from barrels) over the border in Spain.  Sometimes the quality leaves a little to be desired. Rather than throw it, we now turn it into vinegar.  We have a stone jar sitting in a warm bedroom full of not good wine or sherry, plus the ' mother' which floats around on the surface doing its job.  We bottle vinegar when it has been working for about a year, and add more wine as we have it.  So we have sherry vinegar, and wine vinegar.  I've no idea as to the acidity level, but it makes very good vinaigrette!

Fascinating thread, it is something which I have wanted to do when time allows!
Thank you for the information.