Making Vinegar at Home

When making homemade vinegars, a vinegar "mother" or mat will often appear in the container of liquid during the fermentation process. This development is a good, though not a necessary, occurrence, because the mother's appearance indicates a healthy environment for the vinegar's development. The vinegar mother can take on a variety of forms, ranging from transparent to dark in color, and delicate and leaf-like in appearance to a solid mass floating at the top of the container. It is usually comprised of cellulose and complex sugars. Once the vinegar is completed, the mat should be removed and either used to create another vinegar or simply discarded from your base. If the mother is left in the container for too long it can begin to rot and adversely affect the finished vinegar.

After a few weeks of fermentation, it is time to test your vinegar. You will want to check the sugar, alcohol, acetic acid levels, and, of course, the flavor of your product. For a home brew you may simply wish to taste your vinegar and proceed accordingly; for a more scientific approach, test kits can be purchased from most home brewing or winemaking supply stores. You can use a titration kit to determine whether or not the acetic fermentation is complete. Alternatively you may simply judge by looking for a complete absence of alcohol in the nose and on the palate when tasting the vinegar. Once the acetic fermentation is complete the vinegar should be strained and transferred to airtight containers to reduce the risk of spoilage. Once the alcohol disappears, in the presence of oxygen the acetobacters will continue to break down the vinegar into carbon dioxide and water, reducing the acid levels and leaving the vinegar open to the development of various undesirable microorganisms. Straining the vinegar and transferring it to an airtight container will safeguard it from deterioration.

The final step in your vinegar-making process is aging. Fresh vinegar has a sharp, intense flavor. The aging process allows the esters to mature and the flavors to develop. If the vinegar is aged in wood, care should be taken to ensure that the barrel is topped off on a regular basis. Otherwise, simply storing it for several months in a sealed, airtight container will do. A minimum of six months is generally recommended for maximum benefit. Once the vinegar has been aged it should be racked or gently poured off the sediment and rebottled for use.

We're sharing our formula for maple vinegar, so that you can try making it at home.