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Mead Vinegar

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sfisher

NewBee
Registered Member
Oct 21, 2013
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Myrtle Beach, SC
Hello my name is Steve, I am a beekeeper that lives in South Carolina. I would like to Make some mead from my honey for the sole purpose of turning it into vinegar. First off do any of you make vinegar out of mead, and if you do my question is. Do you have to age your mead for such a long time if you are only using it for vinegar? I have read that if you only age it for 2-3 months it can taste like gasoline. Can you turn that gasoline into good vinegar? Or would you be better off aging it for a year or so until it mellows out, and then make your vinegar.

Thanks Steve
 
sfisher said:
Hello my name is Steve, I am a beekeeper that lives in South Carolina. I would like to Make some mead from my honey for the sole purpose of turning it into vinegar. First off do any of you make vinegar out of mead, and if you do my question is. Do you have to age your mead for such a long time if you are only using it for vinegar? I have read that if you only age it for 2-3 months it can taste like gasoline. Can you turn that gasoline into good vinegar? Or would you be better off aging it for a year or so until it mellows out, and then make your vinegar.

Thanks Steve
Click to expand...

Steve,

That's a really good question. I had some not-so-good mead that I wanted to turn into vinegar, but what's wrong with it would transfer to the vinegar, so there it sits, aging.

I have always ASSUMED that you could basically let the... oh, what's it called? Its a symbiotic combination of yeast and bacterium... anyway, to have THAT work to both turn the fermentables into ethanol and the ethanol into acetic acid. I'm not positive of this, but that was the impression I got.

There was a thread a while back with a link to a paper (PDF) on the subject. If you do a search for vinegar, it should pop up.

I will look for it as well,

Good luck, and welcome to the forum!

Joe (another Newbee)
 
As far as I understand, the acetobacter will eat the alcohol to produce acetic acid (vinegar) but I don't know if it's picky about what kinds of alcohols it will tolerate.

I've only ever made apple cider vinegar, when I tried to make wild grape vinegar it didn't turn, the alcohol just evaporated.
 
joemirando said:
Steve,

That's a really good question. I had some not-so-good mead that I wanted to turn into vinegar, but what's wrong with it would transfer to the vinegar, so there it sits, aging.

I have always ASSUMED that you could basically let the... oh, what's it called? Its a symbiotic combination of yeast and bacterium... anyway, to have THAT work to both turn the fermentables into ethanol and the ethanol into acetic acid. I'm not positive of this, but that was the impression I got.

There was a thread a while back with a link to a paper (PDF) on the subject. If you do a search for vinegar, it should pop up.

I will look for it as well,

Good luck, and welcome to the forum!

Joe (another Newbee)
Click to expand...

Is the word you are looking for "mother"?
 
mannye said:
Is the word you are looking for "mother"?
Click to expand...

Sort of. Mother of Vinegar, I think of as the 'end product', or at least an intermediate, kind of like sourdough starter. It, if I remember correctly, is a colony of the bacteria that turns ethanol to acetic acid.

The stuff I'm trying to remember is a conglomeration of yeasts (which convert fermentables into ethanol) and the bacteria that convert that ethanol into acetic acid.

I'll have to do a search. I know it was mentioned here a while back.

Thanks,

Joe
 
MikeTheElder said:
Are you talking about Kombucha?

Ugh nasty stuff, supposed to be healthy but tastes like dumpster scrapings.

It is usually made from tea though.
Click to expand...

You are partially correct. Some kombucha is as you described. Some is absolutely wonderful. I was lucky enough to get the good stuff on the first try. If I got the bad stuff on the first try, I would have your opinion.

Good kombucha is very good.
Bad kombucha is very, very bad
 
sfisher said:
Hello my name is Steve, I am a beekeeper that lives in South Carolina. I would like to Make some mead from my honey for the sole purpose of turning it into vinegar. First off do any of you make vinegar out of mead, and if you do my question is. Do you have to age your mead for such a long time if you are only using it for vinegar? I have read that if you only age it for 2-3 months it can taste like gasoline. Can you turn that gasoline into good vinegar? Or would you be better off aging it for a year or so until it mellows out, and then make your vinegar.

Thanks Steve
Click to expand...

Hello Steve:

As in wine and mead making, aging improves vinegar's quality.

Regards,
 
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