# Vinegar thread



## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

Hi all, I am new here, I am a trained viticulturist but I am building a cottage industry making vinegar now, I have been at it for 5 years. Anything you want to know about making any sort of vinegar, ask away and share your experiences too please.


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

I bottled my first trial batch of honey vinegar today. I am quite happy with it, I have already sold 5 gallons in bulk to someone who used it for pickling caper leaves. It has the aroma of the honey I used and there may be some sweetness left, I am not sure as I don't have any more diagnostix left to test the sugar level. 

To make the honey liquor I mixed 6 kg of honey in to 50 litres of water. The aim was to get the concentration of sugar around 10%. The honey is about 70-80% sugars. I also added 0.2 g per litre of diammonium sulfate (total 10g), which is a nitrogen supplement for the yeast as the honey is low in nutrients. Also added 1g per litre of malic acid as there is no acid in honey. Pitched my yeast, I think any room temperature wine yeast that conserves aromatic compounds rather than makes its own will do okay, look for words like fruity, avoid anything that says complex or 'enhances thiols' in the description.

Fermentation went normal, over in two weeks. It then went through the malo-lactic fermentation. Till this point I protected it from oxygen like any normal fruit wine, but from here on I started acetifying it. To do this I put a piece of cheese cloth, old cotton sheet or pillow case will do, over the mouth of the vat fixed with some elastic bought from a sewing store and leave it in the sun for a few months. It has to get to over 77 degrees for long periods for it to turn to vinegar, it was spring so there was enough sun on the vat to get it up there, if it was going to be a cool night I threw a blanket over it. Of the days are going to get over 90 degrees then put a blanket over it or put it in the shade. A couple of months and it was ready. It forms a very light or thin mother because there is no cellulose in honey unlike fruit juices or wort.


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## Shin (Mar 25, 2014)

That sounds like some fine vinegar!


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## MichaelZ (May 21, 2013)

I assume all the vinegar discussed here is the organic raw type. I started taking some with honey and water once per day. Could someone list all the health benefits?


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

Organic refers to the ingredients you use, you can make vinegar out of either organic grown ingredients or commercially factory farm grown. 
Raw means the vinegar has not been pasteurized and should have living bacteria in it.
Unfiltered is also a good thing when it comes to vinegar as all the good bacteria and bacterial products (mother) are still in there. Also you want to make sure it has not been centrifuged after acetification as this gets rid of the good stuff too, it is virtually the same as filtering.

As to health benefits, you can google it quite easily, the ones that have been scientifically studied are 1)blood sugar stabilization, and 2)slowing the absorption of food when taken together with apple cider vinegar. This doesn't mean that the other claims made are not true, just that they haven't been studied yet, as there is no money to be made from a natural product like apple cider vinegar. Now the authors of these studies use apple cider vinegar and often say that it is probably the acetic acid not the apple that is making the difference. Until that is proven I wont believe it. I think that apple cider vinegar has more potency that other vinegars.


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

Have been busy making malt vinegar the last week. I have been making 20L a day between taking the kids to school and picking them up. I do it a bit different from beer making. I get the water in two large pots totaling about 20L/5 gallons. Turn the heat on, and stir in the malted and cracked grains. Then I stir and keep checking the temperature till it gets to 68 degrees C. This takes about 25 minutes. At this point I turn off the heat and leave it there, turn it back on after half an hour and get it back up to 68C and then turn it off and leave it till it has cooled to about 37C. At this point I drain it into a 60 or 80 liter food grade barrel or vat, rinse the grains a couple of times too. Add the yeast and let it ferment like wine. I have been adding 20 or so liters a day to this barrel and have not had to add more yeast each time as the first lot has multiplied by the next day and there is more than enough to inoculate the incoming wort as well. I added some yeast nutrient on 4th day. 

So that is my base liquor or barley wine, now I treat it the same as the honey vinegar and leave it with cheese cloth covering in the sun and wait. This forms more of a mother than the honey vinegar but not a very thick one either. The grain bill is more like one for a porter or stout, I like that chocolaty malt flavor.


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## Solar Geek (Mar 14, 2014)

I wanted to make BEER vinegar but only had a balsamic vinegar mother. Didn't matter. Put mother and 2 12 oz beers in bottle, covered with cheese cloth and BAM after 1 month, BEERNEGAR. Not sure what I will use it in but tastes pretty ok.

Since my DH works for a beer company, I am always looking for ways to use up beer.


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

Put it on fries, absolutely delicious! We have an English heritage here so we put salt and vinegar on our chips (fries). 

Also pickled meat (what we call corned beef or pork). Great in ketchup and other chutneys, and meat marinades.


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## IowaLez (Mar 6, 2006)

In many places here in the US, we get fruit flies indoors or out, and vinegar is a major attractant for them. If you inoculate the alcoholic base with acetobacter there is no need to leave the container open with cheesecloth over it, and have the clouds of flies hovering, swirling, and walking around on it, laying eggs on it. Just a regular lid that isn't screwed down tightly, so gas buildup can escape.

Cobber, what about state/federal alcohol laws? Here in the US, if a winemaker wants to create vinegar, there are many legally required forms that must be kept up to date and filed with the BATF and state alcohol regulators (like in Cali it's the ABC - alcoholic beverage control agency), to document the trail of where the alcohol came from and went to, whether you made the wine yourself, or bought it ready to use. 

If a winemaker/winery has to "dump" bad wine, that has to be documented as well. If you're going to continue making large qualities to sell and build it up into a profitable venture, aren't you going to run afoul of some alcohol laws over there in Ozland? At some point, if you make that much vinegar to have an income from it, I would imagine you can't fly under the radar forever and not get into some legal trouble, no? (I have had a pen pal raisin grape farmer in Mildura (Birdwooten area), Victoria, for 20 years, as of this month! He uses "Ozland", and I'm just copying him, hopefully no offense caused by that!)


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

Hi Lez, in Australia the alcohol is taxed only when it is sold, so since I don't sell when it is alcohol I don't have to worry about it. I think it is the customs and duties office that collect alcohol tax here, the onus would be on them to prove I was selling alcohol or that anyone else was selling alcohol that I made. So if I want to start buying ready made cider or wine to acetify I have to pay tax on it, but I can apply to get it back - not worth it at this stage and I make my wine a bit different to the way they make it at the wineries so that it makes a smoother vinegar. You also need a licence to sell alcohol from any premises. Those Cali laws sound really onerous, glad I don't have to deal with that. 

I do have to keep the alcohol level of the vinegar under 0.5% though, which isn't a problem as long as I leave it to acetify long enough. And the acetic acid content has to be above 3% (or it may have changed to 4% since I did my college days) for it to be called vinegar. All my vinegar is 4-5% anyway.

The kind of laws they have in California are applied here to distilleries . Every liter has to be accounted for. It is also illegal to distill alcohol anywhere in Australia without the appropriate permit. The permit is free but it means you are going to get inspected and have to account for every liter and pay excise duty on it. Most people have given up on distilling their own because of that. :buds:


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## bama-newsteader (Dec 2, 2011)

i have a newby question.....i tried to make apple cider vinegar for the first time and i am not sure i am doing it right. i put about 2 quarts of raw (untreated) fresh cider into a jar and added about 1/2 cup of raw, organic ACV with mother. It has been a couple weeks now and there has been much activity, but now there is a film/scum on top. I dont know if it is mold or a mother. there is also alot of what looks like sediment on the bottom. it smells vinegary, i just want to make sure things are normal.

also, should i be stirring regularly or leave it alone?

thanks,
robin


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

Hi Robin, from the smell it sounds like it is working fine. The film on top might be a vinegar mother or it might be a film yeast. If it is white and powdery it is the film yeast, a mother is a bit shiny looking, but it is hard to tell in the first few days. 

When you say "2 quarts of raw (untreated) fresh cider" is that alcoholic cider (hard cider) or still sweet apple juice?

How are you covering the jar? What is the average temperature (approx) where you are keeping it? Vinegar bacteria work above 25C and film yeast can handle right down to 10C.

If it is a mother then dont stir it, leave it alone for a few months. If it is a film yeast then skim it off with a fine sieve or vegetable strainer. You will have to do this every 3 or 4 days till the mother forms and enough acetic acid is produced to stunt the growth of the film yeast. It wont hurt if you get a bit of it, but if it is allowed to grow thick and wrinkly it will change the taste to something less pleasant, though it still wont hurt you to drink it.


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## bama-newsteader (Dec 2, 2011)

Thanks Cobber - i used sweet apple juice, freshly pressed a few days earlier. All the recipes i saw online is to make hard cider first, then acv. however i dont have the proper apparatus to make hard cider first so i thought i would try just the juice with a 'starter' of raw acv.

the jar is covered with a coffee filter secured by a rubber band. it is in my kitchen on the counter where it is 60-70 degrees F.

there was about an inch of foam on it, but the foam dissipated and now there is this film. I believe it is a bit shiny looking, so hopefully its the mother. unfortunately i stirred it (before i saw your message) - i hope that doesnt cause too much of a problem.

thanks so much for your help! i would like to make some more this way but i wanted to start with a small batch in case i messed things up.


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## Crankin (Jul 13, 2015)

I poured 3oz. of Bragg Apple Cider Vinegar into some wine and let it sit for two months loosly capped. The result smells like vinegar. There was a mother in the bottom of the Bragg. I wonder, was it live? The question is, can I grow a new mother?


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

Mother is extremely long lived, a few years at least, though it can go dormant. Some mothers sit at the top and some at the bottom, I have found either to be good for vinegar making. If you take the mother from your bottle and put in new wine it will grow bigger. Or you can take a piece of it and put it in another bottle of wine and it will grow and turn it to vinegar.

Have you tasted the wine? Is it vinegar? Is there any hint of alcohol left? One problem I have come across is when there is not enough oxygen getting to the substrate to produce acetic acid but enough to produce ethyl acetate. This stuff smells a lot like nail polish remover, or acetone, and it is disgusting. I ruined a 3 year old solera method balsamic by doing this last year, very annoyed at myself. If you are going to make vinegar, leave the cap off with a piece of tight woven cloth fixed over the top with an elastic band or something.

A further note on ethyl acetate production, if you have the wine or substrate open to the air (covered) and you have the lees at the bottom still, it takes a long time for it to turn to vinegar as the lees absorb oxygen. This can also lead to ethyl acetate production if left like this long enough and the oxygen getting to it isn't enough.

Also most, if not all, commercial wine has SO2 (sulfur dioxide, Preservative 220) in it, you usually have to neutralize it before trying to make vinegar with it for the same reasons as above, it absorbs oxygen. This sounds crazy but you do it by adding a drop of 3% H2O2, hydrogen peroxide per bottle. It is perfectly safe to do it as long as there is SO2 in the wine.


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## Crankin (Jul 13, 2015)

Cobber said:


> Mother is extremely long lived......
> 
> Have you tasted the wine? Is it vinegar? Is there any hint of alcohol left?.....
> 
> ...


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

Lees are the spent yeast bodies mostly, looks like a light brown sludge on the bottom of the container bottle, you didnt say if you had bought the bottle of wine or made it from grapes yourself. 

No need to add the H2O2 if it has turned to vinegar already, you only need to add that at the start to make the process faster and stop ethyl acetate being produced. If the wine is leftovers or something and you dont care if it doesn't make a good vinegar then don't add any.


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## HillBettyMama (Aug 29, 2015)

So the is probably a thread explaining how to make apple cider vinegar elsewhere but since you seem to have an active one going I am going to ask here. 
I have tons of apples and I need to use them up soon as the kitchen pantry IMO new apartment has luxurious in floor heating and they will likely spoil. 
I think I can figure out how to make cider on my own but would like to make apple cider. Ingest from that. Do I just add some Briggs and let it ferment like it is kombucha or kefir?


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

The floor heating in the pantry is bad for keeping things but good for fermenting. As long as you make hard cider from the apples then you can add a bottle of Braggs but I suggest getting some vinegar mother from elsewhere if you can, some health food shops sell it. The way I turn the alcoholic cider to vinegar is by putting a piece of tight weave cotton cloth over the top, (tea towels or bed sheet are good) held to the rim with an elastic band or a length of garment elastic. The temperature needs to be above 25C for the mother to work and grow. So you may be able to put a little heater in there too.

There is a good thread here on making hard cider that was active just a couple of months ago.


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## Crankin (Jul 13, 2015)

Is Kombucha mother good for making vinegar? Is it close enough?
My wife makes Kombucha and the new mother grows every month.


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

No, kombucha is a bacteria/fungi symbiotic organism, vinegar mother is purely acetobacter and cellulose. The cellulose is 99% of the mother, it makes it float to the top where the air is.


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## bama-newsteader (Dec 2, 2011)

Cobber said:


> Hi Robin, from the smell it sounds like it is working fine. The film on top might be a vinegar mother or it might be a film yeast. If it is white and powdery it is the film yeast, a mother is a bit shiny looking, but it is hard to tell in the first few days.
> 
> When you say "2 quarts of raw (untreated) fresh cider" is that alcoholic cider (hard cider) or still sweet apple juice?
> 
> ...


it has been a couple months since my last post. the film on the 'vinegar' was yeast, so i skimmed it off. then what i thought was another yeast film started on top again, but when i went to skim it off it was more rubbery, so i think that was the mother. that mother sank to the bottom and another one is forming on the top. it's starting to smell a bit more like vinegar, but not quite. the color is very pale. any ideas if i am on the right track and how much longer this may take?
thanks,
robin


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

Sounds right. Depending on the temp it can take from 2 months to a year. Once you have got it going the best method is back sloshing, where you add 50 to 75% fresh hard cider back to your vinegar, this makes it faster. You bottle some of the vinegar first to keep you going till the new batch is ready.


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

bama-newsteader said:


> Thanks Cobber - i used sweet apple juice, freshly pressed a few days earlier. All the recipes i saw online is to make hard cider first, then acv. however i dont have the proper apparatus to make hard cider first so i thought i would try just the juice with a 'starter' of raw acv.


Making hard cider is easy, you need all the special equipment to stop it from turning into vinegar but since vinegar is your end goal all you have to do is add yeast and maybe some yeast nutrient to the juice. I suggest you don't add the mother or vinegar to the juice until the vigorous yeast fermentation has ceased, usually a week as it will take longer to become vinegar if you do.


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## mojos5 (Jan 4, 2016)

Where to find acetobacteria ?


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

mojos5 said:


> Where to find acetobacteria ?


I may be wrong but I think it's already on the fruit and in the air.


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## SueMc (Jan 10, 2010)

Thanks for this interesting thread. I had a gallon going very well last year. I used homemade hard cider with a little Braggs. A mother formed fairly quickly and all was well until fruit flies moved in en mass despite having the jar covered. That's what I get for not wearing my glasses when I check my jars and carboys. I have five gallons of hard cider now so will be making vinegar again.
One question, my vinegar would form a mother, it would sink and another mother would form on top. I gave quite a few of them away until the fruit flies took over. Is it ok to store mothers in a jar of vinegar like this?


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

I cover the vats with a tightly woven cloth like the sort used for making cotton bedsheets. I have not had a problem with flies, but maybe the species that are affecting you dont live here.

The mother can stay in the bottom of the carboy for up to a year. It becomes inactive but eventually it dies if there is no alcohol and oxygen for it to consume. It doesn't need much alcohol, even 0.5% it will form a new mother when it gets warm enough for long enough. You can also keep young, thin mothers in a carboy or demijohn of vinegar for a few months if keep changing the vinegar or adding a cup of some alcoholic beverage every month or so. See my warning below.


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

*WARNING*
The things we learn when we thought we pretty much knew everything we needed to know.

This summer has been a particularly long summer here. I don't know if that had something to do with it. Well I had two barrels of 2 yo wine vinegar about half full. I thought the vinegar was pretty safe as it was 2 years old and vinegar doesn't go off. Well being a particularly warm summer here and not having converted all of the alcohol to acetic acid yet, a thin mother formed on the top. I saw this and thought nothing of it.

Well, 8 weeks later, after coming back from holidays and Christmas,etc. I got a nasty surprise. As far as I can tell what happened is that there was water evaporating through or from the sides of the mother, the water condensed on the lid and dripped down onto the top of the mother. As the mother was sitting half a centimeter on top of the vinegar it was not particularly vinegary. Mold grew on the mother and the smell (and flavour I presume) permeated the whole batch. Lost 200L of vinegar to this. Awful smell, like the worst bad breath you could think of. I suppose mold growing on bacteria is gonna smell bad.

So just because your vinegar cant go off, the mother can.

These are the kind of barrels I use, about 200L (44 gal) and come from Greece with olives in them originally.


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## SueMc (Jan 10, 2010)

Thanks Cobber for the info.


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## cmcpherson (Nov 15, 2010)

Cobber said:


> Anything you want to know about making any sort of vinegar, ask away and share your experiences too please.


Will adding cider that has not completely finished fermenting kill the mother vinegar?
Also, the mother is hanging out at the bottom rather than floating. Is that normal and okay?


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

I assume that you mean adding it to a previous batch of vinegar. If it hasn't finished the yeast fermentation there will still be some sugar in the cider. It wont kill the mother but the acetic acid will probably kill the yeast. If there is too much sugar in the vinegar then you may end up with spoilage microorganisms in the vinegar. If it is very nearly finished its yeast fermentation then it should be okay. Be prepared to decant it later because a fermenting apple juice will be a bit cloudy and all that will settle to the bottom.

As to the mother, some form on the bottom and some on top. Some form on top and split with half sinking to the bottom and half remaining on top like a kombucha tea. If it less than a year old then I think it will still revive and turn the alcohol to acetic acid for you.

There is the case of true balsamic vinegar, where the yeast and acetobacter live together in the concentrated juice and slowly turn it into vinegar, that is a different species of yeast though and a different strain of acetobacter, it would take a lot of time for the right organisms to establish themselves if you tried that. You would need to leave a small opening to the air for that to happen too.


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## cmcpherson (Nov 15, 2010)

Thank you Cobber!
I really do appreciate that you take your time with us on this subject.
It's difficult to find real answers on this subject because most people are interested in PREVENTING vinegar.

Next question...
On the same batch that's nearly dry, I have a layer of white/translucent film on the top.
The batch is in an open 5 gal bucket.
It's a wild yeast and I didn't Sulfite the juice.
I stir it daily to off-gas CO2 and to oxidize.
I believe it is a white mold that cider fermentors try to avoid.
How will this effect my vinegar?
What should I do?


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

It is a film yeast, or a kam yeast and it does change the taste if it is allowed to grow unchecked. It takes oxygen and alcohol and changes it to acetaldehyde. 

This is the one thing we all struggle with. Because temperatures of above 25 C are needed for the acetobacter in the mother to work I oftenhave to store the cider over winter and then wait till mid summer till it has all turned to vinegar. Meanwhile the temperatures are not too low for that film yeast to grow. I have tried putting a film of cooking oil on the top of the barrel, it worked ok but was a real pain to clean off at the other end. I tried dosing with CO2 but it didn't work well enough. Sulfuring the must makes little difference tot he growth of this. 

What I do is keep skimming it off every couple of weeks. It does make a little acetaldehyde but not enough to be really noticeable in the end product. The less the better. The quicker you can convert the cider to vinegar the better, as it does not like vinegar when it gets to a certain strength. If you can get the mother to grow on top before it can grow then the mother pushes it out. 

However just check that it is actually a film yeast and not a mother forming. In the first few days it is hard to tell the difference. When it has had a week to grow you will see a mother will be smooth and slimy whereas a film yeast is powdery on top and breaks up very easily. When I run the fine sieve through the top it tends to form little globules very quickly, and I usually only get one pass at it. 

This film yeast is actually used to good effect in Flor sherry but it ruins ever other alcoholic beverage or vinegar. Look it up if you are interested.


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## JohnMcCord (Apr 30, 2016)

Years ago I had a sample of onion wine at the Pennsylvania Farm Show. It was horrible! But I thought it would make a great vinegar. Has anyone used rice and amylase enzyme with fruit instead of making a sugar wine?


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## copperhead46 (Jan 25, 2008)

I made red wine vinegar !! It's great, we love it. It made a beautiful mother, now I want to make vinegar with some beer, can I use the mother from the red wine or must I start all over again?
Don't know if it matters, but the wine and the beer are home made..


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

Great to hear about your red wine vinegar. Home made is always better because it isn't watered down.
Yes you can use the mother for the beer but it will turn it red.
If the beer is already made you will want to choose a low hops beer. If you are going to make it yourself, dont add the hops. I make my malt vinegar by making a wort, fermenting it and then letting it go to vinegar like the wine or cider. It's my favourite vinegar, especially since I use a dark/stout grain bill. It comes out tasting like a cross between stout, soy sauce and vinegar.


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

I have wanted to investigate making rice vinegar but haven't got around to it. Onion vinegar sounds like a good idea. I have experimented with making tomato vinegar which is a Austrian specialty but haven't tried the results yet. I have also thought about beetroot vinegar and carrot vinegar, might get around to it when I'm bored.


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## MOgal (Jul 27, 2002)

I made some vinegar from our own organic apple peels and cores late last summer. When the fermentation seemed to have stopped, I put in a bit of mother from a bottle of Bragg's ACV. The color and aroma are spot on and when I tasted it, I really liked it. 

Can I go ahead and decant it to smaller bottles now and if so, should I divide up the mother among the bottles or what? Can I freeze the mother?

I made 3 batches but the other two don't smell or look like ACV. The successful one should last until next apple season and I can't wait. 

Thanks for advice.


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## Cobber (May 22, 2015)

Sounds like the vinegar is stable so you can separate it now in to smaller bottles.

I recommend dividing the mother in to smaller pieces to go in to each bottle. When I'm bottling 100s of bottles I actually break the mother up in a blender and use a syringe to squirt the same amount in to each bottle before filling with ACV. This does not harm the bacteria at all.

The best way to make ACV is with juiced whole apples, not just the cores and skins but if you are happy with the results then good for you.


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## MOgal (Jul 27, 2002)

Thanks, Cobber. Now to find some bottles with lined lids in my stash.

This was just an experiment, trying to make something from nothing, I guess. I'm sure vinegar made from whole juiced apples would be far superior but this was fun and a good learning experience.


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## copperhead46 (Jan 25, 2008)

Cobber said:


> Great to hear about your red wine vinegar. Home made is always better because it isn't watered down.
> Yes you can use the mother for the beer but it will turn it red.
> If the beer is already made you will want to choose a low hops beer. If you are going to make it yourself, dont add the hops. I make my malt vinegar by making a wort, fermenting it and then letting it go to vinegar like the wine or cider. It's my favourite vinegar, especially since I use a dark/stout grain bill. It comes out tasting like a cross between stout, soy sauce and vinegar.[/QUOTE
> 
> I have a large batch of merlot, that I made a few months ago and I added the oak, even though I don't like oak. Now I have all this wine and don't care for it, can I somehow sweeten it a bit and make vinagar with it ? I'm thinking if I just make vinagar like it is, I won't like it either.


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## copperhead46 (Jan 25, 2008)

Cobbler, I made a Merlot a few months ago, and don't like it, I used the oak chips and don't care for it. Could I make wine out of it, or would it still have the oak flavor. 
Could I add some sugar to it, to lighten the flavor ?


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## copperhead46 (Jan 25, 2008)

I'm sure youve figured out that I meant ...can I make vinagar with it, or will it still have the heavy oak flavor ?


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