Beer/Mead Vinegar Update #1

It's been a week or so since I put a couple of containers of beer and one of mead on my dining room table. They will turn to vinegar, sometime. When I started this experiment, I wondered how I would know when it is vinegar? How long will it take?

 Having some passing experience in waiting for things to ferment (bread, mead, bottle conditioning brews, sauerkraut), the answer is easy. It is done when it is done. Originally, I thought that maybe I could measure the pH levels, so I pulled out some pH paper and dabbed it into both liquids. The colours were just slightly different. That wasn't going to work. Ended up looking this up on the internet later and found out that beer acidity ranges from 4 to about 5.5 with the average beer being around 4. Vinegar clocks in in the high 3 to 4 range. So, there goes one method.

 Another test would be the smell. Have you ever smelled vinegar, I mean really smelled vinegar? Go get a bottle right now. Take a deep breath. I'll wait.
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Are you coughing? I just got you to smell vinegar. (Hey what do you want, I've got a ten year old and a 7 year old boy in the house. This qualifies as good fun.) Notice the acrid hit at the back of your nose? Pretty potent stuff.

Every day, I take a little sniff to see what is going on in those jars. There are differences in the way the three samples are developing. The mead still smells heavily of honey and spices but it is a little rounder with no evidence of sourness. The medium more malty sample smells of spice and a darker smell. Granted, the major part of the liquid is a Belgian spiced ale and this could account for the remaining smells. The third darker and hoppier container has lost its sharpness and gone past a familiar smell that of leftover dregs of beer. In the summer, my garage will smell like that before the bottles go back to the beer store. There is a slightly oaty, sour smell underneath the fading smell of hops. Maybe that is the start of something good.

Of course, you could just taste it. The mead tastes like mead. The other two have lost the hoppy, bitter characteristics and I am not sure I would recognize them as beer. They both have a taste like the smell of wet buckwheat to varying degrees. Not sure if this is good but it is there.

No visual sign of a mother developing in any samples. I guess I'll have to wait until next week.