Honey Vinegar

[Hayseed]

This may not fit in this category but it seems as close as any.
I've heard that there is a product called honey vinegar. I can't seem to find adequate info on how to start a batch. Any help here?
I think I understand the basics, but where would one find a "mother" from a true mead source? Would using say an apple cider mother eventually become a mead mother simply as a result of feeding only mead?
Appreciate any help.
Dale

[Michael Bush]

You make it the same as any vinegar and the mother would be the same bacteria that causes vinegar. It needs "mother" and air and the right dilution or at least enough dilution.

[DeeAnna]

I am not any kind of expert on this, but I stumbled across an old pamphlet at Project Guttenberg that might be useful. The author glosses over some steps that I would have liked more information on, but, hey, it's a start:

The Production of Vinegar from Honey, by Gerard W Bancks, 1905
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24510

Bancks explains that vinegar is formed in two stages -- first, sugars are converted into ethyl alcohol, then the alcohol is converted into acetic acid.

He says, "...Proof Vinegar contains 5·4 per cent. [acetic acid], with a specific gravity of 1·006 to 1·019. For all ordinary purposes this is a convenient strength and first-class vinegars contain about this percentage....

He continues, "...supposing the conditions favourable, it is possible to obtain from an aqueous solution of 1 part honey to 8 of water, about 5 per cent acetic acid. A suitable proportion will thus be 1 part honey to 7 to 8 parts of water by weight....

"In due course, if left alone, alcoholic fermentation, by a natural process, will be set up; but I am inclined to think, from my own experience, that it is best to add, in the first instance, a small quantity of yeast. If, as sometimes happens, the fermentative action be too slow, putrefaction of a portion is liable to take place, and the vinegar is spoilt.

"The acetic fermentation is accelerated by the addition of vinegar plant, and also by the presence from the commencement of a small quantity of vinegar.

"...A suitable temperature is 70 deg. Fah., or from that to 80 deg.... At a little over 100 deg. Fah. the development of the acetic germ ceases, while below 68 deg. it is gradually arrested.

"The length of time before the completion of the process varies according to circumstances. While usually, under completely favourable conditions, in from six to eight weeks sufficient acetification has taken place, [but] not unfrequently a longer period is required...."

Hope there are some useful tidbits...

DeeAnna

[DeeAnna]

I should also add:

The "mother" is a body created by the bacteria that form the vinegar, not the original liquid (apple cider, wine, etc.) that the vinegar comes from. You could add a mother from any other kind of vinegar to your fermented honey and get honey vinegar.

You don't strictly need a mother to make vinegar ... you really need a source of the bacteria. Obviously a mother will do that, but any naturally-formed unpasteurized vinegar (health food store?) should work too, with or without a mother.

--DeeAnna

[Michael Bush]

Health food stores have vinegar "with the mother" which should have what you need...

[buz]

One year I ended up with a fifty gallon oak barrel of apple cider vinegar...by default. I'd planned on the drinking kind. Seems I waited too long to bottle and the barrel may have contributed to the process. There was the biggest mother floating in there--all by itself.
I'm just about out of vinegar.......a smaller batch will be sufficient for normal use.
Best of luck

[danno]

at any health food store take a look at the different vinegars and buy one that looks like someone blew there nose into the bottle. The nasty looking stuff is mother.

[nursebee]

Wines get turned to vinegars (acetic acid) with additional stuff, I think acetobactor species. So to make "honey vinegar" you first make mead then add mother with the acetobactor species to make your vinegar.

One might be able to make vinegar straight from honey and water but it is not how I have done it. In the case of accidental changes it could just as well come from a fruit fly.

[DeeAnna]

"...One might be able to make vinegar straight from honey and water..."

Well, no, it really doesn't work that way, Nursebee. In naturally formed vinegars, sugars are converted into ethyl alcohol which is then converted into acetic acid.

The alcohol is required as an intermediate step -- the bacteria cannot convert sugars straight to acetic acid. No alcohol ... no vinegar.

[mrspock]

This may not fit in this category but it seems as close as any.
I've heard that there is a product called honey vinegar. I can't seem to find adequate info on how to start a batch. Any help here?
I think I understand the basics, but where would one find a "mother" from a true mead source? Would using say an apple cider mother eventually become a mead mother simply as a result of feeding only mead?
Appreciate any help.
Dale

Vinegar requires three things:

Oxygen
Aceobater
Alcohol.

The first can be provided by agitating (shaking) your carboy. The second can be hand-delivered on the dirty little feet of fruit fliest who will happily visit a a carboy without a waterlock closing the top.

In short: Remove plug, shake, wait.

There's the science. Here comes the art:

The batch of mead I was preparing for my wedding got infected with fruit flies. I was devastated. Against all brewing logic i turned out to be the best batch of mead I'd ever made.

YMMV. Really.