Harry Rosenblum - Vinegar Revival: Artisanal Recipes for Brightening Dishes and Drinks with Homemade Vinegars

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my mom and dad, Marylyn and Harry, and brother, Aaron, who taught me to carry on more than one conversation at a time. To Taylor Erkkinen, my wife and partner in everything, for her support and for pushing me to write. And Moxie Ann and Mr. Frank, thanks for the laughs. And the hugs.

The excellent team at the Brooklyn Kitchen never complains about working with me and around my ever-growing experiments with vinegar and fermentation. You guys are the best.

To Angelin Borsics for making me into an author, and to Marysarah Quinn, Ed Anderson, Suzanne Lenzer, and Maeve Sheridan for making this book beautiful. Farley Chases guidance was indispensable. And many thanks to the rest of the team at Clarkson Potter for their hard work, including Ada Yonenaka, Heather Williamson, Erica Gelbard, and Kevin Sweeting.

Many important ingredients, people, and places helped keep me going during the making of this book, including coffee, acetobacter, Michael Harlan Turkell, Heritage Radio Network, Claus Meyer, Bob Sewall, Eli Zabar, Sandor Katz, Ted Allen, Albert and Kim Katz, Andrea Bezzecchi, Justin Karr, John Karr, Nancy Singleton Hachisu, Yuko Suzuki, Bob McClure, Liz Thorpe, Jeremy Umansky, Patrick Martins, Talitha Whidbee, Neil Rosen, Neal Rosenthal, naptime, the Meat Hook, bourbon, gin, wine, cider, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Andy Swift, Lindera Farms, Keepwell, Christopher Nicolson, everyone who helped test these recipes, the Good Food Foundation, and the Good Food Retailers Collaborative.

To all my friends, family, and neighbors, it truly does take a village.

Lastly, Id like to take a moment to raise my glass to Steve Hindy and Garrett Oliver of the Brooklyn Brewery for working with and supporting so many of us who come to them with crazy ideas, such as my initial request to waste five gallons of their terrific product so that I could try my hand at making vinegar.

HARRY ROSENBLUM is the co-owner of the Brooklyn Kitchen, a specialty kitchen supply store and grocery that offers quality tools, technique-based cooking classes, and locally sourced groceries. He is also the cofounder of the Meat Hook and the brewing start-up Bierbox and host of the Heritage Radio Network podcast Feast Yr Ears. Rosenblum lives with his family in Brooklyn, New York.

PERFECTING YOUR CRAFT

While making your own vinegar is very easyrequiring far fewer tools and steps than brewing beer or ciderthere are ways to produce an even better product. This section breaks down a few complicated concepts into simple processes, from pasteurizing and clarifying batches to testing pH and acidity.

PASTEURIZATION

Pasteurizing is simply the process of heating the vinegar to 150F in a nonreactive pot for 30 minutes, which kills any bacteria, molds, or yeasts, including acetobacter. The result is a shelf-stable product that you can store for an extended period of time. The vinegar is no longer alive and will not grow a motherso its ideal for bottling and gifting to someone who might be put off by the gelatinous mass. You can strain your vinegar through cheesecloth for more clarity before pasteurizing. However, I find that pasteurization weakens the flavors of the vinegar and decreases the healthful benefits of the fermentation. Since the bacteria needs oxygen to grow, you can instead just fill a clean bottle almost to the top and leave very little headspace. There wont be enough oxygen for the bacteria to thrive, leaving you with full-flavored and full-strength vinegar without heating or pasteurization. Your vinegar may grow a tiny mother in the bottle; this is often what you see in raw commercial vinegar where the mother has sunk to the bottom leaving sediment in the bottle.

ACHIEVING CLARITY

In some cases, depending largely on the chemical and mineral content of your starting product, your finished vinegar may still be cloudy. While I dont care about clarity, because it doesnt affect the flavor of vinegar, you may want a clearer vinegar when bottling for gifts.

To clarify your vinegar, there are a few steps you can take. I start with pouring or siphoning off the vinegar from anything that has fallen to the bottom of the barrel or jar where Im fermenting. You will likely have sediment that has collected in the bottom; this is great for starting your next batch or giving to friends who want to join in on your acid trip. Cold helps clarity, and storing your vinegar in the fridge can help cold crash any sediments out of solution. Wait a few days and youll be able to pour the clear vinegar off the sediment. You can also pour your vinegar through a coffee filter to remove any suspended mother or sediment. (Its a good idea to pour some boiling water through the filter first to sanitize it.)

DETERMINING PH AND ACIDITY

The pH (power of hydrogen) scale measures the concentration of hydrogen ions in a liquid to determine the relative acidity or alkalinity of a substance. The scale ranges from 0 to 14, with 7 being neutral (the pH of water is usually close to 7). The lower the pH level (i.e., anything below 7), the more acidic the ingredient; the higher the pH (i.e., above 7), the more basic or alkaline it is. Commercial distilled white vinegar () has a pH of 2.4 and 5 percent acidity, which means there are five parts acetic acid to ninety-five parts water.

In comparison, Coca-Cola has a pH of 2.53. A good rule of thumb is that the more tart and sour a vinegar tastes, the lower the pH and the higher the acid content. A pH test kit is a good and inexpensive investment for the home vinegar maker, as it will allow you to analyze and compare your ferments with one another. This is especially important if youre intent on processing pickled vegetable made with your homemade vinegar in a hot water baththough I dont recommend it (store-bought vinegar is safest; for more information on canning, see ). The higher acidity also leads to more flavorful pickles.

Depending on the type of alcohol you use to make vinegar, you might end up with more than just acetic acid. Some of the common acids present in wine and cider include tartaric, citric, malic, lactic, ascorbic, and succinic. So while we can test the pH and get a proper measure of the acidity levels, you cannot be sure that the vinegar is purely acidic acid.

To test pH, you will need pH test papers or a pH meter (see Resources, ). The papers are cheap and not very accurate, but they will tell you the whole unit of the closest pH range. A pH meter will read to the hundredth place of pH, but it costs between $50 and $100 and requires calibration for best accuracy.

TESTING ACIDITY

To test for acid content, you will need an acid titration kit (see Resources, ) like the ones sold for wine making; they cost about $20. You will need to adjust your method, as the instructions contained will be for testing a much smaller percentage of acid in wine (usually 0.3 to 0.75 percent). Your titration kit should include the following:

• 20-milliliter syringe
• 150-milliliter testing cup
• 15-milliliter dropper bottle of indicator solution
• 100 milliliters of base liquid

Follow these instructions for testing the acid level in your vinegar:

Use the syringe to place 2 milliliters of vinegar in the testing cup. Add 20 milliliters of water and 3 drops of the indicator solution, and stir to combine.

Fill the syringe with 10 milliliters of the base liquid. Add the base, 1 milliliter at a time, until the liquid turns pink. Once the liquid has turned pink, note how much of the base you added to get the reaction (for example, if you have 4 milliliters left in the syringe, then you used 6 milliliters of base).