Malt Vinegar Makers

[dinnerstick]

Does anyone make malt vinegar, I mean make it on purpose, not just let a bad batch of beer go to vinegar? I've made vinegar here and there from wine and cider, but never fermented something specifically to make it into vinegar. I am thinking to do a few trials to make a nice one; steep some specialty grains (bit of medium crystal?), DME, ferment with S05, basically make a liter of 5-6% abv unhopped ale. I'll add mother of vinegar and O2 after it's fermented. I can't find anything useful online, about people actually looking into what grain bill gives interesting vinegar, something with some body and a touch of sweetness against the moderate acetic sour. Hops? Dark grains?More to follow!

 

[Xpertskir]

sub'd

 

[Yooper]

I've done it, with good results.

The first time, I just used the spent wort from a starter I made. I used DME and water (no hops), and then boiled that together and cooled and added my yeast. After two days, I put that in the fridge, decanted that spent wort, and added my mother of vinegar that I saved from Bragg's Cider Vinegar. It came out really good, so I did a few more times with wort.

The only time I didn't like the results was when I used hopped wort (oops). That was bitter, and not very good.

I haven't noticed a big difference in different "recipes", whether it was just DME or some leftover wort but I didn't do it enough to really tell.

 

[Xpertskir]

What type of turnaround time have you experienced?

 

[dinnerstick]

when i let things go naturally to vinegar it takes months, i shake or pour back and forth when i think of it. with this malt vinegar project i'll be adding aceto culture and pure oxygen at the start. i figure it will take 2 weeks to ferment the beer and another 2 weeks to make it into vinegar. +/-

 

[dinnerstick]

the first experiment is underway. the only variable is crystal malt percentage. i made 3 tiny batches of beer, 200 ml each. all are predicted by beersmith to ferment out to 6.1% abv, so the final acidity of the vinegars should be about the same even if the OG is not exactly, but then again the error introduced by the balance in weighing such small amounts is greater than the little difference in predicted OG anyways. the crystal malt is thomas fawcett light (70ebc) crystal, steeped for a while in 65 degree water and strained out. the light DME is light DME.

malt vinegar 1: no crystal
33 g light DME

malt vinegar 2: 10% crystal
3.4 g (yeah, that's 3.4 g)
31 g light DME

malt vinegar 3: 20% crystal
7.2 g crystal
29 g light DME

microwaved these to a boil in coffee mugs, covered with tin foil until cool, pitched an about-equal teaspoonful of top-cropped west yorkshire ale yeast (1469) since that was what was ripe for top cropping. funneled into sanitized beer bottles and topped with tin foil. they went in the ferm chamber at 20 degrees (would have started them cooler but wasn't exactly going to reset the temp on an active ferment for the sake of these guys!). i'll report back....

 

[dinnerstick]

fermented vigorously with the yorkshire ale yeast. blew out the tops of all three bottles! looked finished after a few days, poured off the somewhat clear beer to clean bottles. added about 10 ml of acetobacter culture (the bottle says to add 1:10, so this was about half that amount) oxygenated with a blast of pure O2, shaking, repeat the blast and shake. capped with loose foil, left at warm room temp (near the heater; ~23). next day smelled really nice, malty, estery, mild vinegar smell.

 

[Airplanedoc]

sub'd

Same

 

[Airplanedoc]

Looks like I need to find vinegars mother. I have a gallon or so of unhopped wort ready


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[shelly_belly]

I used 10% of this which I have found at Walmart, Target and Winn Dixie. I've seen other brands too, but this one was under $3.

 

[dinnerstick]

Looks like I need to find vinegars mother. I have a gallon or so of unhopped wort ready

meanwhile you can get it fermenting with an ale yeast. and if you can't find an unfiltered 'live' vinegar, or an acetobacter culture, you can always let it go naturally; if you've got ethanol and oxygen ad it's loosely covered, you'll get acetobacter!

 

[dinnerstick]

an update: even with only four days elapsed since adding the aceto culture these were smelling very vinegary, so i (non-blind) taste tested them. they are all quite sour but not puckeringly. the pH was off the scale of my beer pH strips (so below 5.2) but also registered a weird color on my cider pH strips which start at 3.6. i need to take these to work where i have a proper pH meter. they all taste nice and malty, with the highest crystal malt % sample tasting the most full and most malty. as i'd hoped! i *think* a lot of the character of the timothy taylor's yeast is shining through, but i'm not sure honestly, that will be my next experiment- different ale yeasts. meanwhile i'm gonna let these go another few days and then make some fish n chips. pics are horrid as my camera phone sucks so they look like they are taken through smog, and my proper camera is on holiday, but you can see they they are already pretty clear, and there is no pellicle only bottom sediment. the beers were fairly cloudy when i poured them off to new bottles (= racked!). the photos are the lightest (0% crystal) and darkest (20%), i only have 2 clear shot glasses, and the 3 bottles showing clarity, lack of mother pellicle, sediment.

 

[estricklin]

Subscribed.

 

[dinnerstick]

The pH of the darkest (20% crystal malt) is 3.95

 

[Airplanedoc]

It's already fermented, I just looked in a big jug of cider vinegar there is some slimed looking brown stuff in the bottom of the jug. Is this what I am looking for?

 

[dinnerstick]

i can't claim to be an expert, so look around on the internet before you take my word. the 'standard' mother of vinegar is a floating mat, like a rubbery pellicle, but i would go with your slimy stuff, as long as it's an unfiltered unpasteurized vinegar, since there is bound to be a lot of acetobacter in there. the mother can form but aceto activity does not require the floating mat. i have made vinegar from the gunk at the bottom of a live vinegar before and it has come out fine.

 

[Airplanedoc]

Can or should I do this in a better bottle or would I be better off in glass?

 

[dinnerstick]

I think if you're happy with any bacterial cleaning issues involved with plastic then go for it. The 'traditional' way would be to use a vessel with a large surface area so lots of exposure to air, like a big ceramic jar, and a tap to draw liquid out the bottom, and add new beer to keep the process ongoing, to avoid disturbing the mother pellicle. but for quick batches like these i don't think it makes a difference. the 'industrial' way is to bubble pure oxygen through the beer, then the vessel really doesn't matter.

 

[FatDragon]

Crap. Looks like there's more fermenting in my future... Homemade vinegar sounds awesome.

 

[dinnerstick]

Crap. Looks like there's more fermenting in my future... Homemade vinegar sounds awesome.

i know! and the possibilities are limitless. imagine a stout grain bill made into vinegar and barrel aged for 10 years like balsamico! on the other hand, all you really need is some second runnings from a medium to big beer, and you're on your way.

 

[Airplanedoc]

I think if you're happy with any bacterial cleaning issues involved with plastic then go for it. The 'traditional' way would be to use a vessel with a large surface area so lots of exposure to air, like a big ceramic jar, and a tap to draw liquid out the bottom, and add new beer to keep the process ongoing, to avoid disturbing the mother pellicle. but for quick batches like these i don't think it makes a difference. the 'industrial' way is to bubble pure oxygen through the beer, then the vessel really doesn't matter.

Good point, glass it is then

 

[Airplanedoc]

Been 4 places today no vinegar mother in town apparently

 

[BGBC]

Subscribing to this.

I love Yooper's suggestion to use decanted starter wort, at least as a starting point. One man's drain pour is another man's (future) vinegar?

 

[cluckk]

So let's see. Around my house I ferment beer, wine and mead. I make sauerkraut, and fermented salsa as well as sourdough bread. My wife makes kimchi. Now I want to make vinegar. I may need an intervention.

 

[Yooper]

Been 4 places today no vinegar mother in town apparently

Did you ask for Bragg's Apple Cider Vinegar? It's got a live mother in the bottom.

So let's see. Around my house I ferment beer, wine and mead. I make sauerkraut, and fermented salsa as well as sourdough bread. My wife makes kimchi. Now I want to make vinegar. I may need an intervention.

Oh, keep going. Cheese is also a fermented product. I make regular fermented veggies, also, and not just kimchi. Cider didn't make your list either, and a fermented hot sauce (liquid, not salsa) is great as well.

 

[thatjonguy]

Heinz also sells a natural raw apple cider vinegar with the mother. I have seen it at Walmart.

 

[chocotaco]

I've never made vinegar at home, but pretty much every bottle of balsamic I've ever had has eventually developed a nozzle-clogging mother. So I'm guessing balsamic has plenty of live acetobacter kicking around. I would wager that if you add a bit of balsamic to your beer it will develop a mother that you can then transplant for future vinegaring.

 

[Airplanedoc]

None at Walmart, rural king, Kroger, or county market

 

[cluckk]

Thanks Yoop. I forgot about the apple cider and apple jack. I already want to make cheese too.

 

[estricklin]

Thanks Yoop. I forgot about the apple cider and apple jack. I already want to make cheese too.

Spring is coming, time to plant some pickling cucumbers and then ferment them for some great tasting deli style pickles.

 

[shelly_belly]

So let's see. Around my house I ferment beer, wine and mead. I make sauerkraut, and fermented salsa as well as sourdough bread. My wife makes kimchi. Now I want to make vinegar. I may need an intervention.

How about some kombucha?

 

[Airplanedoc]

Don't Forget Yogurt

 

[ChefRex]

This sounds enticing, subed!

 

[estricklin]

Don't Forget Yogurt

I make yogurt about once a month and have for years now, I LOVE a homemade smoothie, I've got the process down to where I can be done in 3-4 hours and it comes out so perfect. I make .5 to 1 gallon at a time.

Here is my (soon to be) malt vinegar. I found that bottle of Apple Cider vinegar at Wal-Mart Today for $3.98, it says on the label "unfiltered unpasteurized with the mother". I was going to use some decanted beer from a 1 gallon starter but I had a little leftover beer that I was bottling today, it's a bourbon barrel porter that I've been working on since October of last year. I've got a feeling it's going to make some crazy tasting vinegar!

 

[dinnerstick]

nice! please report back. is it heavily hopped?

 

[estricklin]

nice! please report back. is it heavily hopped?

I will report back as soon as I have results, not sure how long this should take. The hop schedule was very light, I used Fuggles though I don't have exact hop bill in front of me right now.

 

[Airplanedoc]

Its official, I live in food hell. I have now been to every grocery and store farm store in town, and there is no unfiltered unpasteurized with mother in it to be purchased.

 

[estricklin]

Try amazon.

 

[dinnerstick]

i got the aceto culture from a home winemaking supply place. it was cheap.

 

[dinnerstick]

Here's an update. It's good news. First, look at these nice clear beauties! (sorry, i need to clean my windows) These are delicious vinegars, all three. And they are very different, in exactly the way that I was hoping for. The lightest (no crystal) is by far the most tart. I am assuming they all have the same acidity but i didn't do a titration! So the first is more thin, sharp, but still with a nice malt taste, and oddly, a strong vanilla note. Very pleasant, but I wouldn't drink a pint of it. The ones with crystal malt are exactly what you might expect; they have residual sweetness which dampens the impression of (very much present but far from overwhelming) sourness, and gives them a more malty punch. There is really something of the english pint in all of them, but especially the heaviest crystal malt sample. Again, they have a vanilla note. Some of this could be from the yeast? But honestly I have no idea. Might acetobacter do something with the esters thrown off by this strain? The next experiment should help answer that question. It is shaping up to be: base beer of extract plus crystal malt, fermented with (perhaps) timothy taylor, cal ale s05, brett brux trois, rochefort yeast, i'm kind of just picking different ones out of my glycerol stocks library. witbier? lager but fermented warm (yuck?)? Brett lambicus? I'll bash this up in a few weeks.