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This is another good explanation about the process of making vinegar:

Vinegar is actually a fermented product. You make it by taking a liquid
such as wine, apple cider, malt, etc and add aceterbactre which feeds on
the liquid and turns it into acetic acid. Distilled vinegar is made from
a distilled alcohol (which has nothing for the aceterbactre to feed on
so they act something called a nutrient by the industry which is a
mixture of various minerals, yeast) plus the aceterbactre. After the
fermentation the product is filtered by several methods such as through
but NOT by distilling.

Distilled vinegar has more than just the acetic acid according to one
article from the FDA (Sec. 562.100 Acetic Acid - Use in Foods - Labeling
of Foods in Which Used). Their review of the literature determined that
distilled vinegar has at least 11 volatile components that are not
present in pure food grade acetic acid. They found that "volatile
components consisted of aldehydes, ketones, esters, and alcohols.
Acetaldehyde, acetone, ethyl acetate, and ethyl alcohol were present in
all samples of vinegar analyzed". Plus "distilled vinegar is readily
distinguishable from dilute acetic acid".

I don't understand the exact method of controlling the level of acetic
acid but my understanding this is done by the way they control the
fermentation just like they can control the level of alcohol in wine
production. Plus there are apparently some methods to control the
concentration of the acetic acid after the fermentation by removing the
water, etc.

I talked to some people in the vinegar industry several years ago and
did get enough information to be "dangerous" but not enough to be able
to answer your questions with alot of details. I was mainly interested
in the process of making distilled vinegar and what is in the nutrient.

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