Making Vinegar question?

[wnybassman]

A few years ago I topped off my 2x4 flat pan with sap at the end of the season and covered it for a couple months. Opened it up and everything lifted off as well as any vinegar solution I have ever used. I may do that again this year with my current rig.

[Michael Greer]

My first experiment with maple vinegar started out as an accident. We had a cold spell in the middle of the season, put an electric heater in the arch to prevent freezing, and came in one morning to discover the aroma of a bakery...oops! We had to empty and clean everything before we could resume sugaring, but as a life-long member of the clean plate club, I just couldn't throw it out. We put all 40 gallons into clean 5 gallon pails and took it home. At this point, I had decided that making vinegar was in my future, but had only the vaguest idea of the process. I decided to start by killing the yeasts that had taken over, which in retrospect may have been un-necessary. I brought it all to a boil (in batches) cooled it down, and added wine-making yeasts. I cleaned and sterilized a big plastic drum, and put the whole 40 gallons into it, sealed it up and installed an airlock bubbler vent. I knew that the first stage was to turn sugar into alcohol.
The initial fermentation took more than a month, but the bubbles finally stopped. The next stage is to change alcohol into vinegar, which is an aerobic process. I racked off the (wine) into a new clean drum, added a vinegar "mother" and covered it with a cloth to keep the critters out. This barrel sat in a warm environment in my shop for the whole summer. When cool weather came, I tasted it and bottled it. I gave away about 30 quarts to anyone who seemed the least bit interested. It is nice in a marinade, and heavenly used to de-glaze a skillet. I have about 20 gallons ageing in my cellar, and I'll call it a success, but i want to know more.
I would like to streamline and size up this process. It looks to me that the last days boil will always leave one with an evaporator full of partially cooked syrup...40 gallons in my case. Instead of cooking that last batch through, why not just stop and make vinegar. It's worth $100 dollars a gallon and takes half the cooking time. Anyone out there have larger scale experience with maple vinegar?

[Planethill]

I have some experience with vinegar from many years of beer brewing. Know that once you successfully make vinegar, you should probably isolate that gear to always be vinegar equipment going forward. No matter how well you clean and disinfect, there is always a chance you will accidentally make your next batch vinegar as well, even if that wasn't what you intended. 😄 Also be very aware of cross contamination between your vinegar and non-vinegar products.



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[minehart gap]

If you have any birch trees in your sugarbush, make birch beer then turn that into vinegar. Not terribly difficult and the birch beer is pretty good too. You might not have enough to make vinegar with.

[mspina14]

I've only made maple syrup.

What's a vinegar "mother"?

Mark

[minehart gap]

I believe that it is the "head" on the vinegar. Like the head on beer. Im not sure thought, I haven't been able to make enough birch beer to have leftovers yet. I am going to have to make wine some year that way I don't drink my future vinegar. Vinegar is cheep enough to buy, I enjoy the home brews too much to allow them to sour.

[Quebecguy]

For decades now I have been filling up my 3'x8' back pan (3'x12' arch) with sap at the end of the season and leaving it until the end of July or the start of August. I then empty it and with some scrubbing and rinsing bring the pan back to an "as new" condition. The pan is soldered stainless. I think it is lead free solder. After sitting in the pan for those months, the sap takes on a strong vinegar smell and I'm pretty sure one could make good edible vinegar with that but I haven't tried it because my wife got some mother from a friend years ago and makes vinegar from that. Only two or three gallons a year though. She gets me to set aside partially boiled sap of between 20 and 25 degrees Brix and then adds the mother to that. I dump on the ground most of what has been in the pan for months but I do save a few five gallon pails of it to use for front pan cleaning the following Spring. I have two front pans so the usual procedure is to place a pan on a palette in the brook after it has had 20 or 30 gallons of syrup go through it. After 2 or 3 days in the brook with plenty of water running through it, I drain it out, bring it down to the garage, put it on a pair of sawhorses and pour 5 or 10 gallons of the "vinegar" in it. After a few hours the nitre will loosen up but if I'm not in a hurry I'll let it sit for a day or two or three. A gentle scrub and a good rinsing is all that is then needed to have it properly cleaned and ready to use again. The "vinegar" is saved for the next pan. Both my front pans are soldered stainless. I should note that I add additional supports under the old arch before I fill the back pan with sap - IT IS HEAVY! Some years I don't end up with enough sap in the buckets to fill the pan so I will use what I have and then top off with water - this seems to work as well.