Making vinegar from beer

[unionrdr]

I haven't tasted it yet. I thought it'd be better once it's cold-crashed clear, like beer would be? Trying to show some patience for a vinegar I thought I'd let turn into something possibly unique? Might be useable like a Basalmic?
And hopping in a beer intended to be used for making vinegar should be light. It is said to make the flavor a bit funky, if I remember right? Gotta look through the thread again? I lightly hopped my Cooper's English bitter with an ounce of EKG, thinking the herbs with lemon grass flavor of the hop would compliment it?
I made the Cooper's English bitter to the intended 6G, or 23L's, using the 6th gallon to make vinegar in this 2G pail...
Here, I'm racking off a gallon of the Bitter to oxygenate it;

Decent amount of foam indicates I've gotten some O2 in it;

Here, you can see the 2.5G nylon paint strainer bag I put over the top to aid in air getting in to convert alcohol into vinegar;

 

[Curtis2010]

I haven't tasted it yet. I thought it'd be better once it's cold-crashed clear, like beer would be? Trying to show some patience for a vinegar I thought I'd let turn into something possibly unique? Might be useable like a Basalmic?
And hopping in a beer intended to be used for making vinegar should be light. It is said to make the flavor a bit funky, if I remember right? Gotta look through the thread again? I lightly hopped my Cooper's English bitter with an ounce of EKG, thinking the herbs with lemon grass flavor of the hop would compliment it?
I made the Cooper's English bitter to the intended 6G, or 23L's, using the 6th gallon to make vinegar in this 2G pail...
...

Should be like a light Malt vinegar. I make a malt vinegar using Guiness as a base, quite nice.


Ive heard that too much hops flavor doesn't work well in a vinegar, but haven't experienced that yet. The hop levels in canned Guiness work fine.

True Balsamic starts with grapes and is barrel aged using a solera process. The stuff you typically find in the grocery store is "Modena" Balsamic which users color and flavor additions instead of long term barrel aging...of course, its also a lot cheaper too.

Good Wiki article on Balsamic Vinegar: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balsamic_vinegar

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah, I know Basalmic is made differently. But, so far, this one has that same sort of rich sweet/tart sorta thing going from the aroma thus far. Can't wait till it crashes clear to see what I've wrought!

 

[Curtis2010]

Yeah, I know Basalmic is made differently. But, so far, this one has that same sort of rich sweet/tart sorta thing going from the aroma thus far. Can't wait till it crashes clear to see what I've wrought!

Cool. Let us know.

I blend mine to taste with water before final bottling. Usually, the original brew is way too acidic. Blending it down a bit I find lets the underlying flavors come thru more too.

 

[unionrdr]

I'll have to keep this^ in mind...

 

[unionrdr]

Same here! We love the stuff! It's definitely worth the effort.

 

[Tegra]

Sorry to resurrect this.... but I have found a better way to measure percent acid in home made vinegar.

1. Mix about 4 tablespoons of baking soda in about 12 oz of water in a fairly wide container. (Will not all dissolve, but this is good enough)

2. Submerge a small beaker (or similar clear marked container) so it is full of solution and turn upside down.

3. Place a short piece of tube so it feeds into the beaker and the free end ready to connect to a syringe.

4. Use a syringe to collect about 4ml of vinegar with a known percentage.

5. Connect free end of tube to syringe and quickly ‘suck’ the baking soda solution up to about 12ml point on the syringe.

6. The solutions will ‘boil’ and fill the beaker with a certain amount of gas.

7. Repeat with your vinegar and do a little math to get your percentage relative to the known vinegar.

I tried this with 5% and got 25ml of gas, tried again with a 7% pickling vinegar and got 35ml, so the math works!

When I tried mine I got 45ml which works out to 9%!

I usually add about 50 percent water to any wine I start so it is interesting how this got so strong. I had heard that if you leave vinegar open it would lose its acid and eventually go back to water. In this case I had actually left my jar for a year and a fair bit had evaporated. I was expecting rather poor vinegar but it turns out it was the water that evaporated and concentrated the acid. (I have some fabric over the top and a piece of plastic over this so it is not fully open to the air)

This tells me that vinegar is not as fragile as I was told. I will have to water this 9% down a bit as it almost burnt off my tongue when I tasted it! (Maybe we are well on our way to basalmic?)

Töm

 

[z-bob]

I've never made vinegar but I think apple brown rot is acetobacter, and I have always wondered if I could use a properly rotten apple for a mother to make vinegar. Just haven't gotten a round tuit yet.

 

[Horseflesh]

Measuring the gas is a great idea.

 

[tld6008]

Know this is an old thread but I was wondering how to tell when the vinegar process is complete? I have about 2 gal that has been continually making a Mother raft for the past 6 months, it falls about every 3-4 weeks then makes a new one. I have had to top off a couple times with distilled water as it has evaporated quite a bit.

 

[Curtis2010]

Know this is an old thread but I was wondering how to tell when the vinegar process is complete? I have about 2 gal that has been continually making a Mother raft for the past 6 months, it falls about every 3-4 weeks then makes a new one. I have had to top off a couple times with distilled water as it has evaporated quite a bit.

There is no obvious visual clue, but 30 days should be plenty.

Acetobacter will continue to live in the vinegar after initial fermentation is complete, that's why you continue to see mother production....and why you can use existing unfiltered vinegar to inoculate a new batch.

Vinegars age well. I have some malt vinegar, and apple cider vinegar, that I bottled in 2017...both are delicious.

 

[GrogNerd]

Sorry to resurrect this.... but I have found a better way to measure percent acid in home made vinegar.

1. Mix about 4 tablespoons of baking soda in about 12 oz of water in a fairly wide container. (Will not all dissolve, but this is good enough)

2. Submerge a small beaker (or similar clear marked container) so it is full of solution and turn upside down.

3. Place a short piece of tube so it feeds into the beaker and the free end ready to connect to a syringe.

4. Use a syringe to collect about 4ml of vinegar with a known percentage.

5. Connect free end of tube to syringe and quickly ‘suck’ the baking soda solution up to about 12ml point on the syringe.

6. The solutions will ‘boil’ and fill the beaker with a certain amount of gas.

7. Repeat with your vinegar and do a little math to get your percentage relative to the known vinegar.

I tried this with 5% and got 25ml of gas, tried again with a 7% pickling vinegar and got 35ml, so the math works!

When I tried mine I got 45ml which works out to 9%!

I usually add about 50 percent water to any wine I start so it is interesting how this got so strong. I had heard that if you leave vinegar open it would lose its acid and eventually go back to water. In this case I had actually left my jar for a year and a fair bit had evaporated. I was expecting rather poor vinegar but it turns out it was the water that evaporated and concentrated the acid. (I have some fabric over the top and a piece of plastic over this so it is not fully open to the air)

This tells me that vinegar is not as fragile as I was told. I will have to water this 9% down a bit as it almost burnt off my tongue when I tasted it! (Maybe we are well on our way to basalmic?)

Töm