Also, see our Making Your Own Vinegar poster
So you now have read Part I and both know what vinegar is made of as well as what it can be made from. “Doing is knowing” so the next step is to make vinegar on your own! In this part II, we will discuss the steps you will need to set up and prepare your vinegar fermentation. These will include: choosing the type of vinegar you want to make, cleaning procedures, how to inoculate your vinegar, and which type of storage vessels to use.
What should you make vinegar from?
The answer is anything you want! Vinegar can be made from any type of alcoholic beverage. However, this doesn’t limit you to beverages which are regularly alcoholic, but rather you can also use any sorts of juices that you can add yeast to in order to create an alcoholic beverage.
The instructions here are general but I will address special issues with wine, beer, etc. as well as your own concoctions such as hard cider or mead.
First thing: cleanliness and vessel materials
Before you start we need to discuss some cleanliness issues as cleanliness often makes the difference between a successful or failed fermentation. In addition, we need to discuss the appropriate fermentation vessel materials since vinegar has special requirements that are more stringent than even alcoholic liquids.
As Part I stated, vinegar is an acid and it will attack and corrode many materials. In short, there are certain materials which you can use and others which are completely prohibited due to the danger of vinegar attack.
In addition, if you have a larger setup, any fasteners (such as screws and bolts), valves/spigots, as well as washers, etc. should meet these same specifications to prevent corrosion and contamination by metal salts created by vinegar corrosion.
Permitted vessel materials
Stainless steel (typically 304 or 316 grade) – do not use the zinc plated or galvanized steel found in many hardware stores. These are easily attacked by vinegar.
Glass – always a good option and you rarely can go wrong with a glass vessel
Plastic – The best option is always food grade high density polyethylene (HDPE). The plastic type initials are usually shown on the bottom of the plastic vessel inside the recycle arrows. Make sure the HDPE is FDA compliant food grade since there are non-food grade HDPE buckets (e.g. for paint). If there is any question, you can order them directly from a company like Uline or buy them at your local homebrewing store.
Wood – wooden barrels are classic for vinegar making. The hoop material on the outside should not matter.
Silicone (gaskets,o-rings, etc.) – the best material for food grade applications are food grade silicone type o-rings and gaskets.
Forbidden Materials
Iron, bronze, brass, aluminum – these metals are easily attacked and corroded by vinegar. The danger is not leaks but rather metal salts created in the reaction with the vinegar that are both foul tasting and sometimes toxic. None of these should be in contact with the vinegar at any time.
Many plastics – While vinegar in store bottles can be in PP or PET type plastic containers, for most plastic vessels you buy, it is best to stay with food grade HDPE to be safe. Vinegar can corrode some plastics. Polycarbonate should not be used as it is attacked by vinegar and also is known for its bisphenol A (BPA) content.
Vinyl and Nylon – this mainly applies to o-rings, gaskets, or pumps. Vinegar corrodes both of these over time and they should not be used. If you are handling vinegar with gloves, use latex or nitrile.
As a final note, make sure the opening of your vessel is as wide as possible so it is easily cleaned and allows a large surface area for the mother to form.
Cleanliness
I must emphasize the importance of cleanliness, which is important at all steps of making vinegar, especially if you are starting with a sugar solution to go to alcohol and then vinegar. With the alcohol fermentation, it can be easy for spoilage microbes to infiltrate and ruin your batch.
There are two parts to cleaning: cleaning and sanitizing. Cleaning is the act of washing the vessel to remove any visible dirt and material, similar to washing dishes. Sanitizing is the act of using chemicals to kill any microbes that may spoil your fermentation.
First, you must clean the vessel. For simple cleaning of materials you can use dishwashing soap, though preferably without perfumes to affect the taste. Homebrew stores have other specialty chemicals like percarbonates, often sold in powdery form to add to water.
Sanitizing is the killing of microbes and must be done after cleaning. Chlorine bleach, diluted in a ratio of one tablespoon per gallon of water, does a great job if soaked for at least two minutes, though fifteen is preferable. Amongst homebrewers, a common standby is Iodophor, which is mixed in a ratio of one tablespoon per five gallons of water. This can be easily used on all materials for quick and comprehensive sanitation. Iodophor contains iodine, however, so it is best not to use it if you have iodine allergies. A good alternative chemical in this case is Star San, also available at most homebrew stores.
Making alcoholic beverages
I will not cover this in detail here since there are so many resources around the Internet which give the topic of homebrewing or winemaking its just depth. For fruit wines, the forum at winepress.us has several topics that can be excellent guides to making wines from all types of fruits.
In short, you will need to add yeast to the juice in order to make it into vinegar. For any quantity up to several gallons, one packet of yeast from a homebrew or winemaking store should suffice. Do not use baking yeast found in grocer stores as that is specially selected for baking and poor in providing fermentation for alcoholic beverages.
There are several key things you need to determine before trying to make juice into vinegar though. First, is the rough sugar content. Sugar content is measured either by Brix (that measures sugar in grams per 100 mL of water) or specific gravity (that measures the juice’s density relative to pure water).
Determining sugar content is important since sugar content directly determines the alcohol content from yeast and finally alcohol content determines vinegar acidity. Too low of a sugar content will generate a weak vinegar that may both taste bad and not prevent spoilage bacteria.
For store bought juices, your job can be pretty easy. Look at the Nutrition Facts label and find the grams of sugar. Make sure you only use the grams of sugar and not the total carbohydrate grams. Next, divide this by the stated serving size in mL and multiply by 100. So for example, a typical orange juice has 23 g of sugar for a 240 mL serving size. This means the Brix is 23 / 240 x 100 = 9.6 Brix.
If you have homemade juice you will need a tool called a hydrometer
Courtesy: Salt City Brew Supply
You drop the hydrometer in a graduated cylinder filled with the juice and it rises and floats relative to the sugar content. The reading on the hydrometer at the surface of the juice will tell you your Brix/specific gravity.
From this, you can use a table like the one here to determine the potential alcohol your yeast can produce. For vinegar production, you want a minimum of 4.5% potential alcohol and a maximum of about 8% so you need a Brix/specific gravity roughly between 9/1.035 to 14/1.055. Note this maximum alcohol is much lower than your typical wine.
If the Brix is high, unlikely unless you are starting with a syrup like maple or honey, you can add water to dilute it to the correct level. The equation for the water to add given your desired Brix is:
Volume of water = Volume of Juice or Syrup x (Current Brix – Target Brix) / Target Brix
Make sure that the volume of water and juice are in the same units when you calculate.
If the Brix reading is low, you have two options. One is to add sugar to increase the Brix. Regular refined or raw sugar will do. The amount of sugar you need to add for a desired Brix is:
For every 1 Brix increase: 1.5 oz. Sugar x Volume of Liquid / 1 Gallon
The second option is to boil the juice down. This means placing the juice in a pot on the stove and boiling the juice until the liquid level is reduced. Since the water boils away but the sugar remains, the Brix increases as the liquid volume decreases. Given the starting and ending volume of your juice, you need to reduce the volume per the next equation:
Final juice volume = Starting juice volume x Staring Brix / Final Brix
Now that you have adjusted the sugar to the correct level, you are ready to add brewing yeast to the batch to produce alcohol.
Using alcoholic beverages
If you are starting with wine, cider, mead, beer, etc. your job is much easier. In the case of beer, you don’t need to do anything. Just remember that beer is typically lower alcohol so you want to use a beer of at least 4.5% ABV to get an appropriately acidic vinegar.
For wine, with ABV between 12-14%, you will have to first remove sulfites and then dilute it down. Sulfites are added to wine specifically to prevent the reactions that allow the formation of vinegar. They are easy to remove though. Stirring for about thirty minutes is the oldest way to help the sulfites escape as a gas. A quicker and safe way is to add a small amount of standard 3% hydrogen peroxide. For one 750mL bottle of wine, ½ teaspoon is enough. Add the hydrogen peroxide, stir for a few seconds and the sulfites are removed.
Next, is dilution. Vinegar making bacteria are not effective above 10% ABV and most wine vinegars are 7-8% acidity max. So you need to dilute your wine with water (and mother of vinegar as will be described later) to an appropriate alcohol level. To dilute the wine to the desired ABV with water and mother of vinegar:
Combined volume of water + mother of vinegar to add =
Wine volume x (Starting ABV – Final ABV)/Final ABV
So to get 7% ABV from 14% ABV wine, the combined water+mother should be equal to the wine volume. To go from 12% to 5%, the volume should be 1.4 times the volume of wine.
Please note the vinegar conversion is not 100% efficient so usually the final acidity is around 90% of the starting ABV. So your target ABV should be your target vinegar acidity divided by 0.9.
Starting your vinegar
Now the alcoholic mash is prepared, you are ready to start your vinegar. In order to start your vinegar you must add the mother of vinegar. This is available in several forms. First, there are commercial mothers of vinegar such as those sold by us through Amazon or homebrew outlets. These are grown to produce especially vital cultures and are filtered to remove harmful spores that may cause mold etc. There are also the raw vinegars you can find at the grocery store such as the common raw apple cider vinegars.
The advantage of mothers designed for vinegar making is the amount of solid mother is larger and the vinegar is fermented in a specialized industrial process that maximizes the amount of bacteria for fermentation. Store bought raw vinegars can be fine though (honestly) they can be less consistent partially due to the manufacturing process (submerged process) that is biased towards cultivating bacteria that need a rapid and ready supply of injected oxygen. Many of these can survive but it is not consistent since the health benefits of the vinegar do not vary with the vitality of the mother bacteria. They may also require more time and bias your vinegar towards an apple cider flavor.
They can also take a bit longer to get started in fermentation and building a mother. This was a fact I have found when the vinegar bacteria from different sources and manufacturing processes are cultured on petri dishes media for RNA analysis (another topic for another time).
However, you choose, adding the liquid mother (with solids) should be done as follows:
1. For wine or alcohols with ABV between 6-15%, the dilution should be done as per the previous section adding water and mother in equal proportions to set the volume needed to dilute the wine to the desired ABV.
2. For alcohols between 4.5-8%, if you want an acidity near to the ABV, you do not have to add water but just add mother in a proportion 1:1 between the mother and alcohol.
Add the mixture to your fermentation vessel and then cover it with something such as cheesecloth or a thin towel. You need the cover to be air permeable as the vinegar fermentation requires oxygen, however, you want it to be snug, tied with a string, so no pests such as fruit flies can get in and begin to breed.
Then sit it in a warm place and wait for your mother to form. The initial lag can be as quick as 2 weeks or as long as six weeks depending on factors such as the bacteria type, temperature, and the amount of nutrients in your alcoholic mash.
Update February 2018: Want to make vinegar even faster? Please see our new post on the semi-quick (Boerhaave) process.
57 Comments on “Making Vinegar at Home The Essential Guide Part II: Starting Your Fermentation”
I’m making three vinegars (for the first time): red wine, white wine, and cider. I followed the instructions on your 8 oz bottles of mother and just put them into cheesecloth-covered 2-gal glass crocks. If I want to brew larger quantities after these vinegars ar ready, what do you recommend?
– drain the vinegars and add 50-50 mix of water and cider/wine to the new mothers
– don’t drain the vinegars and add 50-50 mix of water and cider/wine
– something else?
I want to have enough for personal use and for gifts. Thanks in advance for your reply.
Hi! Thanks for your comment. The procedure after your first batch is to drain 50% of the finished vinegar and replace with (undiluted) wine (with sulfites removed) or cider. There is no need to mix water in the second batch. You can also take out some of the mother after removing the 50% vinegar to start a new jar.
Hi! Excellent site! I’m preparing my first vinegars, but I think there’s another way to reduce the amount of alcohol in wine, by just measure the amount of liquid and let evaporate until the desired quantity; as alcohol will be the first element to evaporate, you’ll have it… am I right?
Alcohol does have a lower boiling point than water but it could be sometime for a significant amount of alcohol to evaporate on its own. In addition, by letting the alcohol evaporate out, you are reducing the quantity of vinegar you can make since the alcohol content directly leads to your yield in vinegar acidity. Dilution is the best route unless you believe there will be a huge loss in flavor.
We were recently in the south of France and there was a wine crock in the kitchen. When we asked, they said to go ahead and use the wine for dressing etc and to slowly add any left over wine into the crock, trying not to disturb the mother. I recently did this at home and had the most amazing red wine vinegar until the spigot cracked and began leaking. I am starting a new batch, with your red wine mother as I didn’t realize that I could have keep the old mother that had developed. My question is that everything that I have read says that you should remove the vinegar when it is ready, however, I didn’t do that with my first batch nor in France. Is it possible to just leave it in the crock and continue to add wine as it’s used?
Yes, that is possible. You can continue to add wine and it will just create more vinegar just fine. I just typically recommend people remove some vinegar so they have some to use over the period of time the next batch is fermenting but it is all personal preference.
Hi reginald, your page is very helpful, learning a lot. Something I dont get clear is that when I have a 5/6% ABV how much mother I should mix to not diluete so much. You said 1:1 to alcohol, so 6% of vinegar with mother is what I should use? Sorry if it is a stupid question. Thanks so much! Regards.
Hi, thanks for your question. When you have low alcohol (like beer) you should dilute only with mother, you typically don’t have to add water. If you have a 4% mother and you cut it half and half with 5% beer, your ending vinegar acidity should be between 4-4.5%. Only up to 1/2 of the volume should be mother and the mother can be as little as 1/4 of the volume depending on what final acidity you want.
Hello, I hAve made 400 ltrs of apple wine and now I wouldon’t like to convert it into vinegar.. I bought acetobacter aceti from online store. Now m stuck about how should I prepare mother culture and how to use the mother culture to revive for future. The packet of the bacteria says it can culture only 50 liters of wine at a go. Please can u guide me how shouldid proceed
If the packet recommends only 50 liters at a time, you should use it to prepare 50 liters and then once this 50 liters is done, use that to convert the other 450 liters. Trying to use it all on 400 liters will either not work or result in mold due to the low acidity.
Hi Reginald
Really enjoying reading the posts as I am starting to make cider vinegar and I am hoping you can help me figure out how to calculate when the vinegar has finished fermenting with a hydrometer. The cider I have made is 6.5% ABV and the hydrometer reading at 20 deg is 1.010 so still a bit of sugar remaining but finished fermenting and crystal clear.
I note that vinegar is denser than water about .05% on the hydrometer so will the hydrometer reading increase as the vinegar ferments or am I barking up the wrong tree.
Hope you can help………Len
Hi, Len welcome to vinegar. When you are making cider vinegar, a hydrometer is unfortunately of little use in determining how far the vinegar has fermented even though acetic acid is slightly more dense than water. It isn’t used in the industry or even amongst hobbyists as a reliable practice.
Your 6.5% ABV cider can produce at best, 6.5% vinegar though it will likely be between 5.5-6.5%. Though 6.5% vinegar has 6.5 g acetic acid per 100 mL of water, the overall mass change in vinegar from fermentation from hard cider is complicated by the fact that oxygen is combined with alcohol to make acetic acid so the density change is slightly higher from hard cider but still relatively hard to measure. A pH meter should show 3.5 or below and if you know how to titrate, that can help measure the acidity.
Let me know if this helps.
Thank you for your reply. I do not know how to titrate. Is this the only method? I have a PH meter that I use for cider so if I measure the PH before the vinegar ferment then will this decrease as the vinegar ferments?
Thanks
Len
pH will decrease as the vinegar acidity increases. At pH of 3.5 or below apple cider vinegar is basically done. If you want to titrate, you can buy a wine acidity testing kit from a homebrew store. You can also buy a setup with a burette, chemicals, etc. but that is probably more money and headache than you want. Finally you can send a sample to a local wine or cider lab and they will measure acidity for you. If it is like the US it should cost 10-15 pounds or so.
Hi Reginald, unfortunately my cider has a low PH as I use sharp cider apples to avoid infection during fermentation so PH won’t help.
By the responses I am having I am coming to the conclusion that the only way to accurately measure acidity of vinegar is through titration. If that is correct can you recommend any material or an idiots guide book on titration.
Many thanks for you help to date.
Len
Try starting with this guide. It seems pretty comprehensive: https://www2.stetson.edu/~wgrubbs/sciportal/index/exercises/JessicaS/Acid%20Content.htm
Thanks for the informative site.
I have a question not seen asked anywhere else, perhaps it’s not relevant.
Which mothers for which wines?
Can I use any kind of mother to convert a home-brewed plum wine into vinegar?
Any kind of mother can be used to make any type of vinegar. The main reason for the different mothers is to ensure a smooth taste profile. For example, using malt vinegar mother to make apple cider vinegar will leave a residual ale/beer taste.
Thanks for your posting of all of this informative material!
I just started my second batch of wine vinegar. I have a 5L barrel and mixed 4 bottles into about 1 L of leftover vinegar from my last batch (and part of a mother I had in the fridge). I watered this down to about 10% abv. It have been going for 6 weeks now.
No mother has formed, though it smells and tastes like vinegar (I’m not quite sure if it is complete, though). I started smelling some acetone in the vinegar today, so I drained the barrel and aerated.
Though, I’m wondering what I’m doing wrong about the acetone smell. Do you know what might have happened? Do you know what I should do? Do you know a sure-fire way of knowing when the fermentation is done? I’m a brewer, so I’m more used to definitive methods of the hydrometer.
Hi Stephen, thanks for your comment. First, the sure fire way to tell vinegar is done is by titration with dilute (0.5 – 1.0 N) sodium hydroxide to measure its acidity. It needs to be at least 4% (4g acetic acid / 100 mL H20). You can do this with a wine acidity kit, send it to us, or send it to a local wine lab.
As for the acetone smell, it is acetaldehyde, the intermediate between alcohol and acetic acid from vinegar fermentation. Usually the acetaldehyde doesn’t last long and is converted to acetic acid but sometimes if there is a fermentation issue it can hang around. It doesn’t mean the fermentation is ruined though. It can be caused for a variety of reasons but first I would dilute your mixture down to 8% or so. 10% is the upper limit and can cause issues in fermentation. It may or may not be the cause of acetaldehyde build up but it is possible.
I would also add a bit of nutrients such as one packet of brewing yeast that may help as well. Nutrient deficiencies that limit enzyme formation are another way that acetaldehyde can build up. Try these and let me know if they help.
Thanks! After adding a bit more water down to 8%, the mother formed almost immediately. It took a while to work through that acetone smell, but not it is smelling great! Still quite sharp. I would rather age it than dilute it more.
Would you recommend adding nutrient at the beginning of every new batch?
If I transfer from my barrel to a gallon bottle. Would it age and mellow well? On that note, could I just bottle it in my small bottles to let it mellow?
Awesome, congrats! I agree, age it to improve the aroma and taste, do not dilute it. If you are using wine, nutrient isn’t strictly necessary but it can’t hurt. It will add amino acids and other nutrients that improve flavor over time so go for it but don’t feel you need to overdo nutrients. A little goes a long way.
It will age well in a bottle. Just put it somewhere that can be closed airtight since while air is needed for fermentation, it is detrimental for aging. You can age vinegar almost indefinitely and it improves greatly with time.
Thank goodness I located your site. I inherited a 50 gallon barrel of vinegar the family started in 1932. Every year 5 gallons are removed and equal parts wine and water added in and it is phenomenal. I purchased a 15 gallon whiskey barrel 5 months ago because the barrel is starting to warp and I am afraid of losing the mother. I added 3.5g. Water , 3.5g. Mother and 7 gallon Wine . The vinegar started in 1932 is much more acidic and flavorful. The new Vinegar smells predominantly like vinegar but still has hints of the merlo wine I used. Should I add additional wine or mother or allow it to age and do nothing? How can I increase the acidity? Thank you Mark
Thank you
Hi Mark, what a great family heirloom! First, let the first batch of vinegar go to completion to get maximum acidity. Then if you want to increase the acidity add just wine (without additional water) to replace the volume of vinegar (I guess 3 gallons or so) that you remove each year. The acidity will slowly ramp with each fermentation this way. You will probably top out at 10%, maybe 12% if fortunate due to the limitations of the bacteria.
The new vinegar won’t smell as good since the older one has a mix of vinegars that have been aging for decades. It could take years for you to get a similar smell. If you ever want to age it long term, you can get a smaller barrel and fill it to the brim with vinegar and seal the hole air tight. This will allow aging without fermentation. See more on aging at this link.
Hello! I have read several conflicting things about stirring one’s vinegar batch on a daily basis. But the way I understand it is if I stir the batch everyday a Mother won’t form. Am I right in this or should I be stirring??
The vinegar should not be stirred–stirring has no practical benefit unless you are making Chinese style vinegar which is more of a slush than a liquid during fermentation. Allow it to remain undisturbed so a mother can form properly.
Hi There,
I’m trying to make grape/redwine vinegar from fresh grape juice from my garden. I took 782g of grape juice and added a mother from a previous batch of pear/fennel vinegar. It’s been going for about 1 week in a large glass jar covered with a cheese cloth on the counter away from direct light and I’m seeing what looks like a mold bloom on the mother. The mother grew quickly after I first added it, but now she has a slightly chalky, pinkish mold bloom growing at the surface. Do you think the batch is ruined?
Mold is usually the death knell of a vinegar batch unfortunately. Even if you remove it it tends to come back. There are often many mold spores in fresh grapes which is why it is best to pitch yeast and turn the grape juice to wine and then make sure it is diluted below 10% ABV before adding the mother.
This is an excellent site. Thank you! I want to make my first batch of red wine vinegar. I have several bottles of partially drunk red wine (good quality). Where can I buy a red wine mother? I am afraid that using apple cider vinegar will leave an aftertaste.
We sell red wine mother starter. Please see here on Amazon or call your local homebrew store to see if it is in stock.
Hi,
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge so openly and thoroughly!
I made a first attempt at making red wine vinegar from scratch, and successfully grew a mother, I transfered the whole thing to a bigger container and added additional liquid (7% abv, no sulfites,…) and now I cannot seem to stop kahm yeast growing first 🙁
I have tried filtering but it keeps coming back.
If I let it be and just be more patient, is there a chance the mother might develop/win over the kahm yeast?
Please help me save my batch, I was so happy with this new hobby/skill!
Hi, I have two quick comments:
1. The best way to kill off yeast is with higher acidity. If you have access to raw vinegar (preferably red but others work) add 1/5th of the current liquid volume with raw vinegar. This should hike the acidity and kill off the yeast. If no raw vinegar is available, regular vinegar can work as well.
2. Are you sure it is Kahm yeast? I am just saying this since sometimes different bacteria make mothers that look like kahm yeast. Either way, doing #1 can’t hurt.
Also regarding adding more wine. Don’t add wine until a batch is done. Otherwise you disturb the mother, restart fermentation and may accidentally raise the alcohol level too high. Wait until the batch is done, remove some to use, and replace that volume with new wine.
I added more wine and that did the trick, it gave it a chance to develop a new shiny mother 🙂
I will try to be more patient and just let it be!
Thank you very much for you help!!!
Hi, I have a question. I made apple cider vinegar abut 8 months ago and one of the bottles exploded and another one is also fizzy. What did I do wrong? It tastes fine and I followed the instructions carefully. The vinegar is stored in a dark place but admittedly it’s been very warm recently.
Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.
Regards,
Darrell
Hi Darrell, my guess is that the acid was very weak and the alcohol production of the yeast was continuing to consume sugar, thus building up CO2 and causing the explosion. Vinegar absorbs oxygen so actually causes a negative pressure condition inside bottles. I am thinking that you need to let the yeast finish fermenting and then let the mother re-form and ferment to get the acid higher and finish the vinegar. My best guess is the acid is only kombucha strength right now (1% or less) as opposed to 4%+ for vinegar.
I am currently attempting to make red wine vinegar from our own homemade shiraz wine, some years are good and some not so good so we have an abundant supply to play with.
It is very early days yet but fingers crossed!
I have been told not to store the vinegar, or any part of the vinegar making process any where near the bottled wine – the wine is in screw top bottles not corks!
I was told it spoils the wine
Please can you confirm if this is correct and if so why?
I would generally agree it is not a good idea to store good wine and vinegar together. Vinegar is made by bacteria which are very adept at contaminating everything. Wineries that make vinegar house the processes in different buildings entirely. If you are fermenting vinegar, keep it in another room and wash your hands before handling good wine.
Hi Reginald, what a great site you have. It is by far the most informative source of vinegar making information that I have seen. I am going to give vinegar making a shot.
I just purchased your red wine mother of vinegar so I can begin making it. I would like to make ever increasing volumes of it. Once that first batch is ready can I just use all of it to convert additional wine into vinegar? If so how much wine can I add to that first batch and subsequent batches? In other words what would the multiplier be? When determining how much to dilute the wine should I include the volume of the batch in the calculations?
Thanks in advance.
Thanks, good luck with making vinegar! Yes, you can use it all to make 4x volume of additional vinegar using larger ratios of wine and water. The ratio is always 1:1:2 mother/raw vinegar:water:wine (sulfites removed). So one 8 oz jar can make 32 oz vinegar. Then that 32 oz vinegar and mother can make 1 gallon of vinegar with 32 oz of water and 64 oz wine.
Hi.
Firstly, just want to compliment you on the site. Lots of great information in here. Has been very useful.
I am in the process of making beer vinegar and has been about 2 months now. The smell coming off the jar has reduced a lot the past week or so. The mother is about 1/2 an inch thick and some of it has sunk to the bottom. I have a couple of questions that hope you could help with.
1) Will the mother always sink or can it be ready with the some of the mother on top? If this is furry on top, how do I deal with this in terms of reuse in the future – is it possible?
2) I have just taste-tested the vinegar and, although it has a nice smell and flavour it is not very sharp. It seems quite weak. The beer I started with would have been about 5-6% alcohol. Not quite sure what to do now. Do I leave it longer in hope it gets more acidic or perhaps I have left it too long? If the latter, how can I best recover this batch – add mix with standard vinegar to increase the strength or reduce the liquid somehow?
Hope this makes sense and thanks for your help!
Hi Craig, the mother sinking is not an issue and typically happens. Another often re-forms and fermentation continues. You can definitely store the mother (click link) and reuse it in future batches.
As far as the sharpness, unfortunately it is hard to say without measuring acidity. One of two things happened:
1. Your vinegar finished and is naturally aging. The aging process reduces the sharp smell and taste while still retaining acidity
2. The vinegar went to long and is “over-oxidizing” or going in reverse due to the alcohol all being gone (see link above).
The only way to check is to measure titratable acidity. You can do this with a wine acid kit or send it to a wine lab. It should be at least 4% acidity though 5% is more indicative of the alcohol all being consumed. 2 months is usually not long enough for serious over-oxidation but summer heat accelerates the fermentation process so may have brought that forward.
Hello,
Thanks for all of your great information.
I know that there is no real way to tell if a fermentation if complete besides titration.
That said, my mother recently sunk since I was messing with it. Another strong mother formed on top of of the liquid. If that mother forms, does that mean I’m still actively fermenting? My main concern is letting it go to long. Would a mother form if there is no more alcohol?
Any guidance on a limit for how long it is ok to leave a sunken mother in there?
Hi, if you can monitor the pH and the pH stops decreasing or begins to rise by more than 0.1 pH units then it is done. It won’t tell you the final acidity but it will keep you from letting it go too long and becoming weak again.
I came across your blog today and I am so grateful for all the information stored here.
I started my first batch of red wine vinegar 2 months ago. Based on your blog it looks like I have another month to go. A nice and thick mother has developed on the surface. Is the only way to know when my vinegar is ready to measure the PH level?
Once my batch is ready I plan to draw and bottle most of the vinegar and then pour a bottle of wine in the jar to start a bew batch. Is that the right way of doing it or should I extract the mother, pour the wine and try and place the mother on top hoping it will float?
Hi, thanks for your comment. 2-3 months is the general guideline for the first batch but it could be ready now. The only way to be sure is to test titratable acidity which a wine lab can do. If you check pH every 5-7 days (make sure the pH meter is calibrated) a rough guide to when it is done is when pH no longer drops or starts increasing. This won’t tell you how strong it is though. Don’t use it for canning unless you know it is 5% acidity or higher.
Once you batch is done, bottle some and then pour in the wine to start a new batch. Leave a small piece of the old mother there, it won’t float but it will provide bacteria that will grow a new mother. You should have 1/2 – 1 bottle of wine volume of raw vinegar left with the mother when you pour the new bottle of wine in so the alcohol won’t be too high. No additional water is necessary but remember to remove the sulfites from the wine before adding to the vinegar and mother.
How many grams of yeast we add to 1000 g of apple pure
I have IgG allergy to brewer’s yeast and need to avoid it. I have been trying to make vinegar from scratch using a wild method thinking that it will have more diverse yeasts and not the selected consentrated brewer’s yeast species. (To complicate matters, I live in a city with a beer making facility so I don’t know if the air around is too saturated with brewer’s yeast that will go into my wild culture?)
1.) How do you make vinegar without Brewer’s yeast strain? Are there other strains you can buy or get that are guaranteed to be more wild or diverse? Is Bragg’s such a strain?
2.) What method should I use to make it myself? I have been following internet youtube videos on the subject for 8 months and failing – usually to mold. I finally got a mother but it now has mold growing on top.
Thank you for any thoughts on this matter!
Hi, wild fermentation (leaving open to air), can get wild yeasts but as you have seen, if they ferment too slowly or do not raise the alcohol concentration enough, it is easy for mold to take hold on the mother. If you are allergic to brewer’s yeast, you can try adding pieces of fresh fruit (not formerly frozen but fresh) such as berries or grapes. These usually have wild yeast due to their sugar content. You don’t have to add a lot, only a few small scraps. Raw kombucha often has active yeasts as well.
Don’t use Bragg’s or live vinegar. This should only be used after sugar has been converted to alcohol. Adding vinegar first will make the environment too acidic for yeast to thrive in.
Let me know if this helps.
My wife added a significant amount of red wine to my batch of vinegar I had just started without removing the sulfites. Now after 3 weeks nothing has formed at the top. Can I add hydrogen peroxide now or will it kill mother? Maybe it’s just a slow start for the top growth?
Hi, don’t add hydrogen peroxide as that will kill the mother. The problem is most likely the high alcohol content. Add 1/3 volume water to it and see if that jump starts it.
Hi i came across you blobs a few days ago, and find them very informative and interesting
have been making red wine vinegar for a couple of years now, with reasonable success!
But recently with the last two batches i have experienced a lot of vinegar loss, I guess from evaporation ? one batch thatsatfoe 8 weeks lost app 40 ozs and the mother ended up app. a inch and a half thick
Can you shed some light on why it is happening ,
Hi, the first thing I would ask is do you know if the relative humidity in the area you are making vinegar has changed? If relative humidity drops, evaporation will happen much more quickly. Also, what type of vessel are you using and how are you covering it? You don’t need a huge air hole. If you cover up the opening leaving an air hole only about the size of a quarter, that should still be fine for air exchange and fermentation.
Thank You Reginald for your response and input. It just so happens i increased the amount of air that was entering my glass containers, by using a single layer of cheesecloth ! Can’t really state if the humidity was different but it may have ! I will go back to my original covering method, giving less open area to the jars
Thank You again
I look forward to reading your articles on your website
Hello there:
I’m starting my first red wine vinegar batch and have an oak barrel. I will use the first batch as a starter and make 5 liters, then want to continuously brew.
I actually started with wine, apple cider vinegar and water and found that nothing much was happening. I added a squirt of hydrogen peroxide since I didn’t do that up front. One of your comments (which I read after I did this) says it will kill the mother (which is clearly weak anyway).
I ordered one of your red wine vinegar mothers and can employ it pretty quickly.
Should I add the new mother to the current 1 qt batch or add water or start over with the fresh mother and fresh wine/water?
I appreciate any comments.
Jim
Hi it is hard to tell without knowing what happened with the previous setup but I suggest you start over. That is the best way to avoid any issues.