Malt Vinegar

Drewfus1

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Has anyone here purposely tried making malt vinegar? There seems to be a limited amount of info online about it. I've developed an allergy to corn and any corn derivatives. It turns out that white vinegar is made from corn. My girlfriend and I make lots of pickles and preserves every year and the white vinegar we use is starting to cause me an allergic reaction. So, since I'm an all grain brewer, I figured maybe I should try making a 6 gallon batch of mild malt vinegar we can use instead. My thought was to make a simple unhopped wort from 2-row with a target of 6% alcohol. Ferment with something clean like US-05, rack into a secondary after fermentation and add a bottle of unpaturized vinegar with "mother" to the batch. Then fit the secondary with a foil or cheesecloth lid and let the acetobacter go nuts. Am I on the right track? I want a mild tasting vinegar that can be used for multiple purposes. Maybe I should use some wheat in the malt bill as well? From what I understand, if you start with 6% alcohol, you should end up with around 6% acetic acid. Thoughts?
 
All I've read is it's a slow process c9uld take over a year. Only once I've made a vinigary batch of cider that I recon if I'd left it long enough would of made a nice batch of apple cider vinegar. Good luck
 
I make vinegar. You can make wine vinegar, cider vinegar, malt vinegar, etc.

I've noticed that I don't really like hopped malt vinegar that much, so I'll decant my yeast starter and add the mother of vinegar to that. It works well because it's low ABV and unhopped. I've used both light and dark DME for this, and the vinegar is quite good!

I cover the opening with cheesecloth, and put in a dark cupboard and let it do its thing. Wine vinegar is a bit more touchy- it has to be diluted to a lower ABV in order for it to come out well.
 
I make vinegar. You can make wine vinegar, cider vinegar, malt vinegar, etc.

I've noticed that I don't really like hopped malt vinegar that much, so I'll decant my yeast starter and add the mother of vinegar to that. It works well because it's low ABV and unhopped. I've used both light and dark DME for this, and the vinegar is quite good!

I cover the opening with cheesecloth, and put in a dark cupboard and let it do its thing. Wine vinegar is a bit more touchy- it has to be diluted to a lower ABV in order for it to come out well.

Thanks Yooper! Maybe I should forgo the all grain mash and just use light DME the first time round. When you're adding mother, what is the timeframe for a batch to finish? A few months?
 
I've made plenty of apple cider vinegar. For the first batch, just added 1/4 cup of Bragg raw unfiltered ACV with the mother, shaken to suspend plenty of sediment and added to a gallon jug of cider at about 5.5%. Covered the mouth of the jug with cheesecloth and stuffed it in a cool cabinet. Waited until a SCOBY formed and then took a taste. It was a bit stronger tasting than the Bragg's the wife uses, so diluted it down to her taste with filtered water.
I added more fermented cider to the jug containing the SCOBY and put it back in the cabinet. IIRC, it took about 6 weeks. I did that about two more times before discovering that I had 4 SCOBYs in the jug. The younger ones were pretty easy to remove, but the oldest was a bear. After that I got a wide mouth gallon jar. Also tried just using non fermented cider. After close to 3 mos. it was vinegary, but still had some sweetness.

Was thinking of just using one of the ACV SCOBYs to make some malt vinegar, but never got around to it. Sounds like Yooper has got the process down.
 
Thanks Yooper! Maybe I should forgo the all grain mash and just use light DME the first time round. When you're adding mother, what is the timeframe for a batch to finish? A few months?

Depends on the temperature, but usually within about 7 weeks.
 

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