I want to make homemade vinegar from the leftover fruit (grapes) and a starter from Bragg's apple cider vinegar and need a bit of guidance...

I've already made my grape juice to be canned. I have a lot of peels and pulp left over. I have some Bragg's raw/unfiltered apple cider vinegar with the mother. I am not making the vinegar from scratch (using the Bragg's as the starter), nor am I adding wine. I just want to use the leftover fruit and Bragg's, and need some guidance on what size container is best, proportions of sugar (if any is needed), how much water, how much fruit pulp, etc.

I've also read to let my water sit for 24 hours to let chlorine evaporate. Do I need to do this? Can a container be too big? I have a LOT of pulp and would like to use it, but don't have to make a huge quantity if it isn't efficient.

I have a large glass tea dispenser (3 or 4 gallon size, I think) that has a spigot at the bottom, and a wide mouth top. I thought that might be useful, but it might also be too big? I have some half-gallon canning jars I could use if I need to make this in something smaller.

Thanks...

I would taste your vinegar every few days to decide when it gets to the point you want it. I've had herb vinegars get bitter steeping in two weeks, while others steep longer with no problem. You could also consider some spices such as some anise stars or cinnamon sticks. Fennel seed may pair very well too. Ground spices generally tend to cloud vinegars and don't work that well. I would wait until you strain the pulp from the vinegar to deal with sugar, heating the vinegar to below boiling and stirring briskly to dissolve. Add just enough to sweeten to your taste and uses. Personally, I store my vins filtered, with no remaining herbs or fruit.

You may have already discovered this fact sheet in googling and old searches, but it's still good info.

First: There are yeasts(various strains) that convert sugar into alcohol, similar to waht is used in baking bread. The sugar can come from fruit juice or you just dissolve sugar in water, then add the yeast ... (follow process)

Second: Once you have wine, add mother vinegar to it and stir it once in a while to get oxygen into it. The the mother vinegar( which is a kind of bacterium ) will take the alcohol and oxygen and convert it into "acetic acid". So the amount of acetic acid in wine vinegar is directly related to the amount of alcohol contents of the wine, from which wine vinegar is made. (and the amount of alcohol in the wine is directly related to the amount of sugar in the grape juice).
So what is called "vinegar" is a diluted acetic acid to around 4 to 5%

If you leave an open bottle of wine open, There is a chance that it might become vinegar. (It often turns into acetone.) But the bacteria have to get in there , somehow.
The word "VINEGAR" is French meaning Sour Wine. So the first vinegar was made by accident.

Third: in the process of making wine, if the vinegar making bacteria are present , and you stir it(or leave the container open), then as the yeast produce alcohol, the bacteria will digest it and convert into vinegar.

Good wine vinegar, is more expensive than the wine from which it is made, reason being that there is an extra process and man hour is required to make it. So, I dont think that you can make a decent wine vinegar from the grape pulp. More importantly, it will not have enough sweetness, unless you add sugar to it. I would rather buy some economical wine and make vinegar from it.

I'll link a fact sheet from Ohio State

here is another
http://thenourishingcook.com/how-to-make-fruit-scrap-vinegar/

I searched and read through many processes but the basic is one qrt clean filtered water
to 1/4 cup raw sugar or honey and two tbsp vinegar 'with mother'. My containers are large so i just doubled.

This is what got me going and linked to other sites...http://www.leaningshed.com/recipes/grape_vinegar.html

here is my concord vat...day one....It has been about a week and looks as it should.
I may bottle it today or tomorrow. Some let it go longer. I may have used too much fruit but it smells divine. (i have an abundance of fruit this year)

"Homemade vinegar can only be safely used for pickling if it has at least 4.5% acetic acid. All commercial vinegars are that acidic or more so. You can test your homemade vinegar's acidity by using an acid titration kit, available from home winemaking suppliers."