# Cider Vinegar



## philmud (20/7/14)

I've been taking a bit of cider vinegar each day for the alleged health benefits & because it's better raw & with the mother I've been playing with brewing my own. A couple of bottles of ornery cider converted nicely & my most recent experiment is as follows:

2L organic apple juice
1x packet of bread yeast
Dash of yeast nutrient
1 x franger (airlock)

So far my juice has fermented dry ( if you're ever wondering whether bread yeast makes drinkable cider, stop. It doesn't, at all.)

My next step is to decant the cider off the yeast and I'll add a shot or two of raw cider vinegar to introduce the mother (not necessary, but will speed up the process).


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## Not For Horses (20/7/14)

I've done this many times and a few different ways. The best results using a method close to yours is to decant a bottle of raw commercial cider vinegar (Bragg is good) and use a larger portion of the lees to start your new vinegar. If you use a small amount, you will be waiting a long time.

Ed: home made vinegar tastes very much like the cider it is derived from so if yours is already horrible tasting, it will be horrible vinegar.


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## philmud (20/7/14)

Woops, that bodes poorly for mine then. The one I made from my ornery cider is very similar to Braggs, so I'd say it's made a better vinegar than it did a cider, but it does have the same characteristics, so I suspect you're right and it would have been worth using a better yeast.

Will also keep that in mind re: the lees


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## lael (20/7/14)

Where does one get Bragg's from?


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## philmud (20/7/14)

Health food shops usually stock it, or if not they probably have a raw, with-mother brand of vinegar. If you want to use it as a starter, that's what you want to look for


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## Airgead (21/7/14)

As a way to drink your vinegar, why not try making shrubs. Its basically a vinegar cordial you mix with water. They were very big back in the early 1900s. I made a lemon shrub and a lime shrub the other day. They are fantastic with soda and superb with tonic.

Basic citrus shrub - 

Bunch of citrus.
Zest them.
Juice them & measure the quantity.
For every cup of juice you want 1 cup of sugar.
Mix the zest with the sugar and leave covered overnight (or longer) to extract. Smells amazing the next day.
Dissolve the sugar in the juice by stiring for ages.
Strain out zest.
Now you add vinegar. Rule of thumb is about half the quantity of juice but add about half that, taste and add small amounts until its right. You want something with a vinegar tang in the background but not tasting too much like vinegar. I used good cider vinegar for mine but you can use others.
Bottle and leave for a week or two for the flavours to develop and meld.

Use like a cordial. You can also use as a mixer in cocktails... gin or vodka, shrub and tonic. Great on a hot day.

Cheers
Dave


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## philmud (21/7/14)

I misread initially & thought you were drinking this neat. I guess it's not that much (unfermented) sugar once you factor in the tonic/soda


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## Greg.L (21/7/14)

Proper cider vinegar should be at least 5% acid, you test with an acid titration kit, they are available from wine supplies websites. It takes at least a few months to get that level of acid, it will taste and smell like vinegar before that, but i think for selling it has to be 5%. It doesn't matter so much for vinegar made at home but if you want to do it properly get a titration kit and wait for all the alcohol to turn to acetic acid.


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## beercus (21/7/14)

I hope the dinger is unlubricated! Maybe a flavoured one would add to the drinking experience, can you get apple dingers?


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## philmud (21/7/14)

Greg.L said:


> Proper cider vinegar should be at least 5% acid...
> It takes at least a few months to get that level of acid, it will taste and smell like vinegar before that...


Interesting Greg, I assumed taste was a good guide. I read somewhere that the potential acid.% is usually around the ABV %, not sure if that's true or not.


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## philmud (21/7/14)

beercus said:


> I hope the dinger is unlubricated! Maybe a flavoured one would add to the drinking experience, can you get apple dingers?


It was ribbed for her pleasure.


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## Greg.L (21/7/14)

Prince Imperial said:


> Interesting Greg, I assumed taste was a good guide. I read somewhere that the potential acid.% is usually around the ABV %, not sure if that's true or not.


I think that is roughly right. It will smell strongly of vinegar at less than 0.5% acid, you can't tell by taste and smell. I know from experience it only takes a couple of days to get a strong vinegar smell in cider. Usually time to tip out the cider.

Temperature is important for making vinegar, needs to be above 20C.


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## Airgead (22/7/14)

Prince Imperial said:


> I misread initially & thought you were drinking this neat. I guess it's not that much (unfermented) sugar once you factor in the tonic/soda


No... neat its pretty intense. Mix it up like a cordial. Maybe 5:1 or so depending on how you like it.

I'm working in a raspberry shrub next...


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## wide eyed and legless (30/12/16)

Reading a good article in a garden magazine about the making and uses of Apple cider vinegar, not only health benefits from the vinegar but also the benefits in the garden, making a fertilizer, propagation mixture, sterilising plant pots, killing weeds slugs and snails. As it looks like I will be having a bumper crop of apples this year I will be making some, easy to make just using cores and skins.
Another good tip I read keeping strawberries in the fridge, to prevent them going mouldy put in a bowl with one part white vinegar to 3 parts water, leave for 10 minutes take out the strawberries and place on a paper towel and pat dry put back in the container and no mould, can't even taste any trace of the vinegar


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## Danscraftbeer (2/7/17)

Just putting it out there for the home brewing/food thing.

I'm making another Apple Cider Vinegar now. Only 4l this time. It is true that if you have off flavours in a Cider then the idea it will make good vinegar well. It depends on the off flavour. If its a dirty brew and tastes dirty then the flavour will carry through to the finished vinegar. A good cider makes a good vinegar etc.
But! If you make an Apple cider that tastes very Tart, too tart to drink then that will make a good vinegar.
Eg: I made an Apple/Blueberry cider once. The blueberries ruined it for a drinking Cider. The Blueberries were very Tart.
It turned out a purple-ish coloured Cider and was way too tart. Tart being what vinegar is all about I converted that 18l brew into vinegar and was the best Cider Vinegar I've ever had IMO. It also lost the purple colour after converting into vinegar. It was very bright clear vinegar with a good colour.

Threw this one together now coz I want more home brew vinegar. Its a safe bet IMO.
4l Shelf bought fermentable Apple Juice
200g Dark Brown Sugar
3 Home grown Mayan Lemons raw juice and a bit of rind in the fermenter. To add a bit of wild yeast sour tart funk.
1g Yeast Nutrient. Hydrated with boiled hot water and left sit. That shit stinks honestly. I'm worried about ever using that stinky shit but whatever its just for vinegar.
~ 80ml US-05 yeast cake (very over pitched but I want to get through this faster etc)
Ferment warm like in the hot water service cupboard. Esters! are good for cider I'm thinking. To finish at FG=1.000 or lower. Then rack off into infection vessel and add 200ml of Bragg Apple Cider vinegar.
Now the other conversion process to vinegar begins and introduced Oxygen to accelerate the process.
This is the home science thing I have had a stab in the dark with. I have made and used a venturi aeration method that I have overdone the oxygenation and gets a kind of earthy musty flavour. Then the sweet spot gets the best results but its about the interest of doing this conversion faster in a home brew sense. Some commercial organic cider vinegar methods can take a year.
Then again commercial mass production methods can complete the conversion to vinegar in a week or so.
So I have bottled o2 and may just squirt a bit of o2 into the conversion vessel, seal it and shake it once a day or so. Hoping to get it to finished, live Vinegar in say a month? we'll see.


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