When life gives you acetobacter.... Make Vinegar

[truckjohn]

Hey all,

Started my 1st cider batch of 2010 -- I just couldn't wait till the good apples started coming out of the apple orchards....

so Sunday I started a 4-gallon batch of "Store bought apples" cider -- various flavors of bag apples... Mostly Gala, Ginger gold whatever other apples were laying around the house...

I used ground up apples + Campden tablets Saturday night.... dumped the Pectic enzyme and yeast nutrient yesterday night... Tonight, I was going to pitch yeast.....

Come home from work... Get out my big spoon and give 'er a Stir.... Sniff sniff.... Hmmm... What's that smell.....

Bleah! Vinegar!

I am pretty surprised that it would kick over this fast -- and in spite of Campden tablets.....

Still pitched "Yeast" but I pitched Fleichmann's bread yeast instead of Nottingham.... No sense using up my good Cider yeast when the Vinegar nasties don't care whether it is Bread yeast or Nottingham....

I am actually kinda curious about how this will come out.... I am going to see if I can find some crabs and Yard apples to give it a little "Kick"... as those store bought apples were pretty bland....

So.... how did it come out when you guys did the same?

Thanks

John

 

[truckjohn]

Well... Let's just say that this ferment is taking on a decided turn towards "Comedy of Errors".....

#1 -- Above, vinegary pomace...

#2 -- Fleishmann's rapid rise bread yeast gasses off like no yeast I have ever played with! I have my big bucket 2/3 full -- 6"+ of headspace... and it still overflows the bucket every time I punch down the cap and it kicks back over.....Unfortunately... It definately does not taste like it is producing Alcohol.... though it is producing tons of gas... Hopefully, it will produce some Alcohol -- though it seems doubtful at this rate.....

#3 -- Experiment with Alpha-galactosidase (Beano) along with the usual Pectic enzyme..... it doesn't seem to be using up as much sugar as typical Wine or Ale yeasts .... or maybe the enzyme is doing something -- though I have had to change the white rag on top of my bucket 3x now... the pomace is still quite sweet....

Either way, this is a royal pita of a ferment so far.....

Shoulda used Ale yeast!

Thanks

 

[ryane]

its weird that it smelled of vinegar, as acetobacter need alcohol and oxygen to make vinegar, and your crushed apples shouldnt have had much alcohol production overnight after adding sulfites

how much sulfite did you add and did you measure the pH of the juice?

 

[Clayton]

vinger is made from alcohol, acetobacter ferments alcohol in to acetic acid aka vinegar. i think you smelled the Campden tablets.

dont people keep mason jars full of yeasty trub lay around the cooler?
if you did not want to "waste" the yeast make a starter and pitch hafe and save the rest in the cooler

also acetobacter is slow i make vinegar with all the left over wine and it is not quick

 

[truckjohn]

Had another Aha moment with this when reading the Grocery Store Beer thread....

I had threw in a nice ripe banana for a little "Body" in this cider mix....

Hmmm Room temperature active Alpha amalyse (banana) + Alpha galactinosidase (Beano) + apple mush (Starch) = fermentation blast off.....

I split it into 2 buckets -- now I have 2 gallons in each 5 gallon bucket.... Hopefully, it won't overflow now!

I haven't smelled any more Vinegar -- but I am going to wait and see what happens with this strange brew....

Thanks

 

[Kauai_Kahuna]

I had threw in a nice ripe banana for a little "Body" in this cider mix....

A banana in a cider?
OK,,, please let us know how this comes out. This just kind of blew my mind.
Beano, bananas, what's next?

 

[truckjohn]

Yeah... banana....
On my last batch of Peach wine -- banana helped to give it a little "Body"... so I went crazy and tried it out -- just to see what would happen....

LOL... Well, yesterday.... I almost threw in a Honeydew melon that got a little over-ripe... but decided to leave well enough alone. (You tend to entertain crazy ideas like this when you decide that the batch is already destined for Vinegar....)

Thinking back -- I halfway wonder if that vinegary-ness came from a bag of supermarket Fuji's -- They apparently sat in cold storage since last year before making it to the supermarket... The outsides looked good, but the insides were starting to show brown spots....

For a future batch.... I am toying around with "Mashing" a batch of apples with malted barley -- to see if the enzyme action will convert some of the abundant apple starch into fermentable sugars.... But... I like Malt and all -- just wonder how it will taste in a "Cider"....

Thanks

John

 

[truckjohn]

Racked it off the other night and tasted it....

*Bleah*.... Let's just say "Off Flavor* is this cider's middle name!

It didn't have any real Apple flavor.. but it had a ton of weird off and bitter flavors.... Apparently, that's the consequence of using Grocery Store apples that have sat in cold storage since the late stone age....

Not going to do that again....