Oak Aged Cider Vinegar

mr_goodwrench · 10-30-2011, 12:28 AM

I mentioned this in Yooper's Vinegar- anybody make it? thread but now that it is done, I figured I would give it it's own thread.

I had a small batch of cider from over a year ago that I used to experiment with oak aging. Well, I overdid the oak and it was like chewing on a handful of oak chips. I thought that aging it might mellow the oak to a palatable level. After 13 months in the bottle, it had mellowed but was still too strong. I have been wanting to get into making vinegar for awhile and had thought of making a small batch of cider to use for that. It occurred to me that I could use the 'bad' cider instead.

I picked up a small crock from Walmart (it is actually sold as a kitchen utensil holder) for around $5. It holds 91 oz so I figured that would do to get me started. I will get a bigger crock later... especially once our garden gets going next year and we have cukes for pickles.

I stopped at Publix and bought a bottle of Bragg's unfiltered cider vinegar. I added the whole bottle to the crock and then put in a six pack of the oak aged cider. I covered it with cheesecloth and set it on a shelf in the basement for 2 weeks. About a week into it, I lifted the cheesecloth and saw what at first looked to be mold. When I nudged the crock, it was actually a gelatinous film covering the surface... Mother of Vinegar!

Tonight, I brought the crock up to the kitchen to taste it and the mother had sunk. I am sure that it was from getting jostled while carrying it. Tasting it confirms that we have vinegar! There is a definite oak note to it. We shall see if it is too much once it is mixed in a dressing or marinade. I figure worse case scenario, I have to dump the 1/2 gallon of vinegar and I still have a mother to start my next batch. I would like to do some malt, red wine and white wine vinegars as well.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to take any pics until after decanting it but here is the resulting vinegar:

And this is the mother (not a very clear picture but you can still see her floating around in there):

lustreking · 11-01-2011, 02:05 PM

Cool, got any pictures of the crock?

mr_goodwrench · 11-01-2011, 04:20 PM

None handy, but I will snap one tonight when I get a second.

**Yooper** · 11-01-2011, 04:54 PM

That's awesome! I made some marinated cucumbers yesterday with my cider vinegar, and the malt vinegar tastes great! Thanks for sharing the pictures.

mr_goodwrench · 11-01-2011, 05:35 PM

Thanks! We will have to make some dressing with it tonight and see how it goes.

mr_goodwrench · 11-02-2011, 12:54 AM

Here are a couple of pics of the crock.

mr_goodwrench · 11-08-2011, 02:34 PM

Last night I started a small batch of red wine vinegar using Winking Owl merlot from ALDI ($2.69 a bottle!) So, I dumped out my mother to grab a chunk to innoculate the wine with. SWMBO took one look at it and ran from the kitchen about to retch! She has issues with boogers and snot...