Eastern Ontario 2023

[paulslund]

I use vinegar too to clean my pans but with a twist.. I make my own maple vinegar. We call it maple cider vinegar. Almost identical to apple cider vinegar but the good stuff. I don't pasteurize it so it is a live vinegar.
I make about 20 gallons a year. Keep 5 for cooking and pickles and salad dressing. Anywhere you want to have a unique vinegar. Its really really good.
What I do is use my late late season syrup. The stuff that tastes a bit like molasses. Draw it off when it is hot and about 15% sugar content. That will make a product that is about 8% abv. From there I let it cool and toss in some activated bread yeast and let it ferment. Once it is done fermenting I add a "mother" from a live apple cider vinegar. Or just dump some non pasteurized live cider vinegar into it and let it go. The secondary process converts the alcohol to vinegar.
I wind up with 20 gallons of amazingly flavourful maple cider vinegar. The final product is about 6% acetic acid. Ideal for pickling. I give bottles of it away. I add about 50ml or mid season syrup to a 500ml bottle of vinegar. It is a crowd favourite. Keep 5 gallons for myself and use the rest to clean pans. Cost pennies.

Ok wow! That sounds really neat! I will have to try that.. It sounds like it may have a similar taste to Balsamic vinegar perhaps?

[Galena]

@ paulslund Well...with maybe a hint of maple lol ;-)

[4Walls]

Smart a$$
Yes. between balsamic and apple cider vinegar. We quite enjoy it. Honestly use it for everything. All my pickles for the past few years have been packed in that. Transforms ordinary pickled beets into something magic. I use it for salads. Works wonders for asian stir fry as a replacement for rice vinegar. Not good for cleaning. Bit of sweet to it. Works great in the pans tho.

[Galena]

Smart a$$
Yes. between balsamic and apple cider vinegar. We quite enjoy it. Honestly use it for everything. All my pickles for the past few years have been packed in that. Transforms ordinary pickled beets into something magic. I use it for salads. Works wonders for asian stir fry as a replacement for rice vinegar. Not good for cleaning. Bit of sweet to it. Works great in the pans tho.

Good to know :-) so exactly how much syrup do you sacrifice to make say 20g? Also I don't have a sugar therm, is there another way to figure out sugar %?

One thing I have been doing the past few years is keeping the paper coffee filters which syrup has gone through. They are still sodden with syrup and nitre. I am keeping them in the freezer so, if I'm bored come summertime, or have a visitor who wants to see how sugaring is done, I can just chuck them in a pot with a couple gallons of distilled water. Usually results in at least another 500ml syrup. I think this year I'll reassign those same filters to nmaking vinegar :-)

[paulslund]

Good to know :-) so exactly how much syrup do you sacrifice to make say 20g? Also I don't have a sugar therm, is there another way to figure out sugar %?

One thing I have been doing the past few years is keeping the paper coffee filters which syrup has gone through. They are still sodden with syrup and nitre. I am keeping them in the freezer so, if I'm bored come summertime, or have a visitor who wants to see how sugaring is done, I can just chuck them in a pot with a couple gallons of distilled water. Usually results in at least another 500ml syrup. I think this year I'll reassign those same filters to nmaking vinegar :-)

Oh that's a great idea... I just put my orlon back in the freezer until I can gather enough bottles to continue bottling (I'll be freezing my next batches until then) and was going to clean it in the pan, but maybe I'll just soak it in some hot water to release most of it and freeze that to try making a bit of syrup.

I suppose you could just your syrup with known brix and dilute it down to 15%.. if my math is correct, at exactly 66brix, you'd need to dilute 1L of syrup up to 4.4L of solution (so add 3.4L of distilled water), if at 68brix, you'd need to dilute up to 4.533L of water (so add 3.533L of distilled water) and in between should just be a linear computation...

I'm not sure how my girls will react when I tell them instead of making candy and fudge we're going to make vinegar one day!

[Galena]

...I suppose you could just your syrup with known brix and dilute it down to 15%.. if my math is correct, at exactly 66brix, you'd need to dilute 1L of syrup up to 4.4L of solution (so add 3.4L of distilled water), if at 68brix, you'd need to dilute up to 4.533L of water (so add 3.533L of distilled water) and in between should just be a linear computation...
:

Galena very bad at maff. Can you dumb it down a bit more? Like you're explaining it to a hamburger? Seriously I get the basic idea just need it broken down a bit more. Off to go tackle about 60l sap. Time to get my Whacky on!

[4Walls]

I use one of the floaty brewing hydrometers. Use it to make sure there is no sugar leaking through the RO into the premate. Not exactly sure how much late season sugar I use for the vinegar. I suppose I could calculate it. Quick math say that about 1L of syrup with 4L water should give you about 8% potential ABV on the brewing hydrometer. You can make it anywhere between 6-12 % for the ABV before turning it to Vinegar. I like mine about 6 % acetic acid in the final product, so I aim for 8%ABV. Fill desired container and fix an air lock bubbler to it and away she goes. Just make sure that the solution is below 100f before casting the yeast. You can start small and use a 1L mason jar with the lid just loose on top. Make the maple "wine" first then add any unpasteurized vinegar to it once its done brewing. I would be happy to send you some of my vinegar to you if you want to try it first. It can also be used as the starter or "mother" for the transformation of the wine to the vinegar.

[Galena]

I use one of the floaty brewing hydrometers. Use it to make sure there is no sugar leaking through the RO into the premate. Not exactly sure how much late season sugar I use for the vinegar. I suppose I could calculate it. Quick math say that about 1L of syrup with 4L water should give you about 8% potential ABV on the brewing hydrometer. You can make it anywhere between 6-12 % for the ABV before turning it to Vinegar. I like mine about 6 % acetic acid in the final product, so I aim for 8%ABV. Fill desired container and fix an air lock bubbler to it and away she goes. Just make sure that the solution is below 100f before casting the yeast. You can start small and use a 1L mason jar with the lid just loose on top. Make the maple "wine" first then add any unpasteurized vinegar to it once its done brewing. I would be happy to send you some of my vinegar to you if you want to try it first. It can also be used as the starter or "mother" for the transformation of the wine to the vinegar.

Would absolutely love to try some of your maple vinegar! Will pm you my mailing address. Lots of Mason jars and I already have a couple SCOBIES including an ac vinegar one. Absolutely no brewing equipment though or floaty therms.

[jungmaria]

Thanks for this. It sounds really good! Going to give it a try. How long do you leave it to ferment before adding the mother and then about how long does the secondary process take?

[paulslund]

Galena very bad at maff. Can you dumb it down a bit more? Like you're explaining it to a hamburger? Seriously I get the basic idea just need it broken down a bit more. Off to go tackle about 60l sap. Time to get my Whacky on!

LOL.. So 66Brix is 66% sugar and represents 660ml (actually I think it's technically mg, not ml) of sugar in 1000ml of total solution (i.e. syrup). If you want the 660ml of sugar to represent 15%, then divide 660 by 0.15 and you will obtain 4,400ml. That is the total solution you need.. so if you are starting with 1L, and need 4.4L (without changing the amount of sugar) you would add 3.4L of distilled water. Then you will have a solution with 660mL of sugar on a total of 4.4L of total, which gives 660/4400 = 15%.

If you're starting point is 1/2L of syrup, then divide the above by 1/2 (i.e. you would add 1.7L of the .5L of syrup to get a 15% solution).

Make sense?