Friday, January 30, 2009

Bad Beer Continued


When life hands you bad beer, make malt vinegar! When our first beer flopped at the end of this summer, I decided to try my hand at making vinegar. It didn't seem hard, just pour your failed alcoholic beverage into an open container (stainless steel or ceramic), cover with cheese cloth and wait. If you are lucky, vinegar-making bacteria will come and live on it. Take a peek every couple of weeks, and you will eventually see a layer of mold covering the top of your liquid. This is mother-of-vinegar, the magical beasty that makes vinegar sour. In my case, after about 4 months, this finally happened and now I have some pretty damn' delicious malt vinegar! When you think it's acid enough for your taste, filter it through some cheese cloth and bottle it. I knew mine was ready when Mr. Chops (the Golden Nose) started complaining that our office smelled like cheese. I was keeping my pot of vinegar under the desk because it was too cold in the cellar. What? Not everybody does this? Whatever....Apparently, you can also make vinegar with all those unfinished dregs of wine bottles you might have just lying around. Just keep on pouring them into a crock (under your desk/table/bed), and with a little patience (and some funky smells), wine vinegar! It will undoubtedly be tastier, and better quality than the everyday swill in the grocery store.

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