Making Honey Vinegar, need yeast suggestion

Hey everyone!
I just picked up a 1 gallon jug, and 1lb of blueberry honey with the express purpose of making a mead to be turned into vinegar. So much documentation is out there on how to keep your wines and means sanitary and keep out bad bugs, I can't find much on purposefully converting it into vinegar.

So, I have seen some people mention that you want to dry it completely which would sugest something like Lalvin Ex-1118 would be great. The downside is that the end goal is only around 5% ABV.

If anyone has made vinegar, are there any yeasts you would suggest for such a low OG?

What can I ask, is the difference in yeast choice for a low OG? EC-1118 will take it down as far as it will go, as will almost any yeast (at least those of which are made for wine) that can handle 5% alcohol by volume. The sugar in honey is all fermentable, so there will be little if any residual sugar remaining once fermentation is complete.

KBentley57 said:

What can I ask, is the difference in yeast choice for a low OG? EC-1118 will take it down as far as it will go, as will almost any yeast (at least those of which are made for wine) that can handle 5% alcohol by volume. The sugar in honey is all fermentable, so there will be little if any residual sugar remaining once fermentation is complete.

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+1
I think that just about any yeast will do--pick something that will give the flavours you want and appropiate for your climate like for any mead. I've used Nottingham brewers yeast for a low ABV (like 4.5-5%) mead and it dried out beyond what I wanted. On the vinegar part you will probably have to buy something called "mother", which is the live culture that will convert the wine to vinegar--I know there are kits out there for the purpose. I would probably consider the mead to be a white wine if there is an option between "mother"'s for red or white.

Disclaimer: I have never made vinegar...

How did this work out?
I'm about to try it myself

Gladly! I ended up making a 1 gallon batch in a 1 glass jug from my LHBS. I used 1 pound of honey, aiming for around 5% abv. Then I used a single packet of champagne yeast to completely dry it out. The yeast tore through the fermentables in about a week, but I gave it 2 to be safe.

I ended up using champagne yeast to completely dry it out. I've found people saying that vinegar is best from sweet wine, and also people saying it's best from dry wine, so I'll ultimately try both. I figured it was easy enough to just use champagne yeast since I already had it on hand, so dry won.

After 2 weeks it was clear, so I split it between another gallon jug (which will be dedicated for vinegar making), and a quart jar. Then I split a bottle of bragg's apple cider vinegar with mother between the two (I honestly can't remember the ratio). Everything got covered with cheese cloth, held in place by rubber bands (you could possibly try tyvek if you have it around, should do the same thing). It's been sitting downstairs in the basement since then. Supposedly it takes around 6-8 weeks for it to be ready, so I suppose I should start kicking off another batch of honey wine to go into it. Right now it has a nice sweet vinegar smell which is a good sign. I'll keep you posted with how it ultimately turns out.

Roeselare Ale Blend

i made a batch of apple cider vinegar using ec 1118, let it dry then added the dregs of a bottle of braggs organic vinegar with mother to it.. you wouldn't want to add taht tho.. it would throw the taste of your honey vinegar off forsure. iw ould try and find some mother and put hat in directly.. you wont find a big peice in bragg's.. i can buy them from my LHBS, you could just leave it out and wait.. but you might be waiting a long time. you can also catch wild vinegar from fruit flies. just leave a cup of beer out for a week. it will grow a slimmy mother

Greenbasterd said:

it will grow a slimmy mother

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Haha... Slimy mother.....