Making vinegar
Vicky
I've been reading up on Andrew's website and my question is about a starter. I have a bottle of french cider vinegar which I believe to be unpasteurised. It has a 'mother' in the bottle. Can I use some of this vinegar or the mother to kick start my own? I don't have the option of a warm place to keep it, will it survive at much lower temperatures, probably the shed.
Cheers,
Vicky
Andrew Lea
>
> I've been reading up on Andrew's website and my question is about a
> starter. I have a bottle of french cider vinegar which I believe to be
> unpasteurised. It has a 'mother' in the bottle. Can I use some of this
> vinegar or the mother to kick start my own? I don't have the option of
> a warm place to keep it, will it survive at much lower temperatures,
> probably the shed.
Double check first it is a true mother. A floating gelatinous mass? Then
it will do. But if its just some sludge at the bottom of the bottle, no
it won't (though mothers do sink if disturbed, they will eventually
re-form at the top again)
You really do need 20C or so for acetobacter to work. A shed in winter
is really likely to be too cold. The bacteria may survive, perhaps, but
they won't do anything till next summer.
Andrew
--
Wittenham Hill Cider Pages
www.cider.org.uk
Vicky
20C could be tricky at our place, already 15C indoors! I wonder if anyone would notice if I hid a few jars under my desk at work.....
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Daithi C
I saw this video on youtube I thought was instructive an gave some
background too. http://www.youtube.com/user/EatTheWeeds#p/search/0/TEwOzhyVYyc
Andrew Lea
> Yes I think it's the real deal. Can I just use some of the vinegar
> itself or best to get the mother out and use of piece of that?
Probably best to to get the mother out and use that. It will have more
bacteria attached to the gel than the vinegar (unless you want to use
the whole bottle). It will drop to the bottom when you do that but a new
mother should slowly grow on the top.
If 15C is all you can do, go with it, but don't expect speedy results.
We are talking months here!
Claude Jolicoeur
> I saw this video on youtube I thought was instructive an gave some
> background too. http://www.youtube.com/user/EatTheWeeds#p/search/0/TEwOzhyVYyc
For my part, I started a vinegar last year. What I did is to first
ferment a cider made from early apples that I considered unfit for
cider as the juice was too poor in sugar and too high in acidity.
Actually, the SG was about 1.040, good for 5% potential alcohol, and
the TA was over 1%. Once fermented to dryness, I filled a 5 gallon
glass carboy to about 3/4, leaving plenty of air, then added strips of
spliced oak wood about a foot long, thin enough to go through the
opening of the carboy. I finally added about a cup of good quality
natural cider vinegar in order to have a start of acetobacter. I
closed the carboy leaving some small holes - too small for insects to
fly through, but enough to have some air exchange.
A year later, I now have a very nice carboy of vinegar. When I first
saw the film on top, I thought it was a film yeast. But no, it is a
very nice mother and the vinegar is excellent. This has been sitting
in the basement of my orchard house, at much lower temperature than
20C during winter, but it still made...
One last recommandation - keep your vinegar as far as you can from
your cider making room! I make the vinegar in the orchard house, but
the cider is in my city house!
Claude
Dick Dunn
On the matter of where to keep it, may I add (remind) that it should be
well away from any place having to do with your cidermaking! We're talking
serious culture-clash here. Like, if your shed holds your cider, you
really want to find another place for the vinegar.
What came to mind with your problem of finding a place is: Could you find
a friend who -really- likes good vinegar, to have a place for it? That
way it could get the temperature it needs to convert quickly -and- you
wouldn't have the risk near your cider.
--
Dick Dunn rc...@talisman.com Hygiene, Colorado USA
Ray Blockley
cider-vinegar.
I also have a real 'Mother' - we collected some cider from a well-known
maker in Somerset and when we got home (about 3 days later) there was
already a distinctive floating 'slug'. Taking the lid off gave a strong hit
of 'Sarsons'. I've kept and nurtured this so I may have a go too. Doesn't
cider-vinegar carry a higher price than cider too?
Ray.
http://hucknallciderco.blogspot.com/
http://torkardcider.moonfruit.com/
Nat West
For my part, I started a vinegar last year. What I did is to firstferment a cider made from early apples that I considered unfit for
cider as the juice was too poor in sugar and too high in acidity.
Actually, the SG was about 1.040, good for 5% potential alcohol, and
the TA was over 1%. Once fermented to dryness, I filled a 5 gallon
glass carboy to about 3/4, leaving plenty of air, then added strips of
spliced oak wood about a foot long, thin enough to go through the
opening of the carboy. I finally added about a cup of good quality
natural cider vinegar in order to have a start of acetobacter. I
closed the carboy leaving some small holes - too small for insects to
fly through, but enough to have some air exchange.
A year later, I now have a very nice carboy of vinegar. When I first
saw the film on top, I thought it was a film yeast. But no, it is a
very nice mother and the vinegar is excellent. This has been sitting
in the basement of my orchard house, at much lower temperature than
20C during winter, but it still made...
One last recommandation - keep your vinegar as far as you can from
your cider making room! I make the vinegar in the orchard house, but
the cider is in my city house!
Claude
Andrew Lea
>
>
> I had a vinegar tasting a month ago with some friends who make pickled
> and fermented foods and they were excited to have some. It has a lot
> more character than the original vinegar, lots of taste, not just plain
> vinegar. I never got a mother floating in it. Maybe that takes a lot longer?
It's curious you never got a mother. I'd have thought that was a
prerequisite in the 'Orleans' system (which this effectively is).
Did you measure the acid level? You need 5% acetic for pickling.
Oherwise the food won't keep and will go off.
Nat West
Did you measure the acid level? You need 5% acetic for pickling. Oherwise the food won't keep and will go off.
Andrew Lea
No, pH won't help you any. It has to be titratable acid.
Nat West
Dick Dunn
(re making vinegar)
> Alas. Maybe it's just really funky, really acidic cider :)
Alas w/o :-), you can manage to oxidize a cider to where it's quite sharp
(and a bit nasty), but that's not vinegar when it happens.
And Andrew's right on checking the TA.
Nat West
Did you measure the acid level? You need 5% acetic for pickling. Oherwise the food won't keep and will go off.
Andrew Lea
>
> The kit range is 4 to 11 "g/L as tartaric acid". My "vinegar" came up as
> 11, same as a store-bought cider vinegar. But if you're saying I need
> 5%, 11 grams (the max of the kit) per liter isn't anywhere near enough.
> How do I check higher levels of total acid on a home scale?
Just dilute the vinegar exactly 10 times with distilled or rainwater and
do the test and multiply the result by ten.
Claude Jolicoeur
> Did you measure the acid level? You need 5% acetic for pickling.
> Oherwise the food won't keep and will go off.
I just checked mine and it is at 3% TA as Tartaric. And the smell is
not as strong as good cider vinegar. So I guess I need to leave it
some more time!
Claude
Andrew Lea
3% as tartaric is 2.4% reckoned as acetic. The minimum acetic acid level
for retail vinegar in the US is 4%; not sure about Canada. In Europe the
minimum is 5%. You're getting there!!
Andrew
--
Wittenham Hill Cider Page
Claude Jolicoeur
> 3% as tartaric is 2.4% reckoned as acetic. The minimum acetic acid level
of tartaric acid would only neutralise 0.8 g of acetic acid...
> for retail vinegar in the US is 4%; not sure about Canada. In Europe the
> minimum is 5%.
acid essentially), does this mean that the 3% acidity I tested is then
just 2% acetic + 1% malic?.
I think it is the alcohol that transform into acetic acid. Is it a 1
to 1 transformation? i.e. does 5% alcohol transform into 5% acetic
acid?
Claude
Andrew Lea
> Andrew Lea wrote:
>> 3% as tartaric is 2.4% reckoned as acetic. The minimum acetic acid level
>
> I gather from this that the amount of NaOH required to neutralise 1 g
> of tartaric acid would only neutralise 0.8 g of acetic acid...
Yup. The 'official' conversion factor works out at 0.8 exactly. MW of
acetic acid is 60; MW of tartaric is 150 but it's dibasic so the factor
is 60/(150/2).
>
>> for retail vinegar in the US is 4%; not sure about Canada. In Europe the
>> minimum is 5%.
>
> Andrew, considering there was 1% acidity before the process (malic
> acid essentially), does this mean that the 3% acidity I tested is then
> just 2% acetic + 1% malic?.
> I think it is the alcohol that transform into acetic acid. Is it a 1
> to 1 transformation? i.e. does 5% alcohol transform into 5% acetic
> acid?
Ah now that is a very interesting and perceptive question, to which I
cannot give a straight answer. You might think the acetic acid was on
top of the malic but as often as not there is no malic acid, nor lactic
acid, detectable in finished cider vinegar. Some of it may be converted
to acetic, some may go elsewhere eg CO2 (but not enough to give gas
bubbles). It will not be the same in every case. In any case the actual
acetic acid is rarely if ever measured (being not easy to do) and I'm
fairly sure the legislation applies simply to total titratable acid.
The stoichiometric alcohol to acetic conversion is actually 130% on a
weight basis but because we measure alcohol as v/v but acetic as w/v you
have to offset the alcohol density of 0.789 which brings it back to 102%
in a perfect world. In fact literature yields are quoted in the region
of 90% or so.
Andrew
--
Wittenham Hill Cider Pages
www.cider.org.uk
Nat West
Just dilute the vinegar exactly 10 times with distilled or rainwater and do the test and multiply the result by ten.
Andrew Lea
> On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 2:28 PM, Andrew Lea <y...@cider.org.uk
> <mailto:y...@cider.org.uk>> wrote:
>
> Just dilute the vinegar exactly 10 times with distilled or rainwater
> and do the test and multiply the result by ten.
>
>
> 50 mL rainwater collected overnight to which was added 5 mL of vinegar.
> Did a dropper test with the kit and it says 7.5 g/L, but that works out
> to be much less than 5% if I reckon correctly (something like 1 g/mL
> being 5%).
Sorry I don't follow. You did a tenfold dilution, you get a titre of
7.5g/L acid, you multiply by ten and you get 75g/L or 7.5%. Where does
the 1g/ml being 5% come in??
>
> So I guess I'm nowhere near vinegar, but I do have vinegar eels!
> Zillions of them, kind of cute. Why does it smell so strongly of vinegar
> if it's such a weak concentration?
>
If you have told us right, you have a good strong vinegar there at 7.5%
*0.8 = 6% acetic acid, assuming your acid measurement is as tartaric
(what was the original alcohol level?). Can't speak for why the eels are
there but yes they are kind of cute. They live on the acetobacter. If
you look at them with a handlens you can see them better. Their bodies
are transparent so sometimes under a microscope you can see them with
babies inside. AFAIR they can produce both eggs and live young.
We think your vinegar is OK, but remember that vinegar smell has
*nothing* to do with vinegar strength. It is not the acetic acid you are
smelling any more than it is the alcohol when you smell cider. The aroma
compounds are quite different chemicals. Pure 5% acetic acid has
virtually no aroma.
Nat West
Sorry I don't follow. You did a tenfold dilution, you get a titre of 7.5g/L acid, you multiply by ten and you get 75g/L or 7.5%. Where does the 1g/ml being 5% come in??
If you have told us right, you have a good strong vinegar there at 7.5% *0.8 = 6% acetic acid, assuming your acid measurement is as tartaric (what was the original alcohol level?).
Can't speak for why the eels are there but yes they are kind of cute. They live on the acetobacter. If you look at them with a handlens you can see them better. Their bodies are transparent so sometimes under a microscope you can see them with babies inside. AFAIR they can produce both eggs and live young.
We think your vinegar is OK, but remember that vinegar smell has *nothing* to do with vinegar strength. It is not the acetic acid you are smelling any more than it is the alcohol when you smell cider. The aroma compounds are quite different chemicals. Pure 5% acetic acid has virtually no aroma.
Nat West
I just checked mine and it is at 3% TA as Tartaric.
Claude Jolicoeur
> Claude, how are you checking your titratable acidity as tartaric? What kit
> are you using? The kit I bought at the local homebrew shop is not something
> I can regularly afford - $20 for 10 tests.
consisting in a bottle of NaOH (about 100 ml) and a small bottle of
phenolphtalein. The thing is that I use small syringes of 1 and 2 ml
instead of the large ones provided with the kit - so I use 1.5 ml of
juice (instead of 15) and I do the titration with the 1ml one (1 ml of
NaOH gives 1% TA as tartaric). This way, you can do 10 time more tests
with the same amount of chemical...
Claude