Malt Vinegar

A couple months ago I made my first batch of Vinegar using homebrewed hard cider.  It turned out to be a relatively simple process and the results were pleasing enough to want to try it out again.  This time I'll be making a vinegar out of un-hopped beer - a Malt Vinegar.

I'm going to make a small batch of wort for this using just pale ale malt in my kitchen (shooting for something close to 1.5 quarts).  My cider was about 6% ABV and the final vinegar was acidic but not quite as acidic as a commercial version.  I'll aim for a 1.06 OG which, depending on attenuation, should get me a 7-8% ABV - will be interesting to see how the acidity level is with this much alcohol.  I'll ferment the wort with White Labs 099 - Super High Gravity yeast which I had available.  This yeast is a strong attenuator and produces a nice ester character which I think could make for an interesting dimension for a vinegar. 

Once fermented I'll move the beer off the yeast cake and pour aggressively to aerate.  I'll then transfer the mother culture off the Apple cider vinegar into the beer and give it a month or so to perform the conversion to acetic acid.

I plan to try some more experiments with Vinegar after this one is complete (beer or wine will most likely be next).

Brewing Notes:

• 8/15/20 - Brew Day:
• Made up a mash of 1 gal of water and 4 lb of pale ale malt in muslin bags (will use part of this as a starter for a beer)

• Brought the wort to a boil for a few minutes
• Chilled
• The wort measured 1.092 SG
• Transferred this to a large jar for fermentation.  Have 4 cups of wort.  Decided to water it down with 2 more cups of spring water which brings it to 1.059

• Added a maybe 2 tsp of yeast to the wort
• 8.19/20 - Fermentation seems to be about complete.  Solids are starting to settle out of the beer and sink to the bottom.  Left this in the kitchen and it was fun watching it bubble.  Was a pretty tame fermentation which didn't really form any krausen.  I'll give this another week to clear before I rack it off
• 8/29/20 - Solids have mostly settled to the bottom.  I decanted the beer off the top of this into a new jar.  The beer had fermented all the way down to 1.000.  This is 7.7% ABV.  It's dry with a slight bit of malt flavor.  I then pulled the mother culture off the surface of my Apple cider vinegar and added it to the beer.  Put a rag over the mouth and screwed it on using the lid ring.  Will let this sit for a few weeks in the kitchen before giving it a first taste

Mother culture from Cider

• 9/18/20 - The beer has gotten very dark over the last few weeks but hasn't formed a film yet.  I tasted it and it's got a very oxidized malt flavor.  No acidity has formed so far.  I decided to add 2 spoonful of the Bragg Apple cider vinegar to get it going.

• 9/26/20 - Still no sign of a film forming after another week.  I'm thinking maybe the beer has enough carbonation left over that it's hindering the acetic acid microbes.  I attempted to de-gas the beer by transferring the contents of the jar back and forth to another container.  It did seem to be letting off a fair amount of carbonation at first which decreased significantly after 3 or 4 transfer cycles.  We'll see over the next week if this made any difference
• 10/18/20 - The malt vinegar finally has formed a thin layer of film.  It has a sort of fruity/acetic aroma starting to become prominent.
• 10/31/20 - I think this is just about done.  It has developed quite a bit of acidity (although it is still very mild compared with the Brag's Apple cider vinegar).  Has a mild but recognizable malt presence which is quite nice.  I'm going to move it into a swing top jar for keeping.  Will use the mother culture from this to make a new vinegar.

• 11/26/20 - I've been using this on salad.  It is plenty acidic and I'm really enjoying it