Local Answers to Balsamic?

Amy Gardener wrote:So the taste of this fresh cider and ACV (1:16) is sweet and sour. Nothing like Balsamic, of course. Not unusable but a little disappointing. Lacks complexity. At this point, I am going to add some live aged ACV and let it mellow in a bottle sanitized with the ACV. I learned a lot but need to keep studying. Maybe time will help. Patience.

But looking at what I buy in the US, it is not so much of a real aged vinegar but more of a vinegar flavored grape syrup with umami depth.

Jay, I like the dehydrate idea for reduction but the yeasts on my grapes survive dehydration and, as above, I want to keep the sugar for the humans.

Jay Angler wrote:just how much sugar there was in a brand name Worcestershire sauce which had been a cupboard staple since childhood. That certainly suggests to me that permies could make a much better product using old-fashioned to down-right ancient techniques with a bit of research and patience. We might not end up with exactly the same product, but I suspect it would be nutritionally superior. If to get an end-product that appealed to modern tastes which tend to tolerate a lot of sugar, adding a little organic sugar or honey seems an acceptable trade-off.

...I was surprised when I went label reading, just how much sugar there was in a brand name Worcestershire sauce which had been a cupboard staple since childhood. That certainly suggests to me that permies could make a much better product using old-fashioned to down-right ancient techniques with a bit of research and patience.

It's a balance - one of the things that generates that umami flavour you're looking for is the yeast. Does that flavour survive boiling? If you made a simple wine out of the grapes and then boiled it, would it retain the yeast generating flavour while loosing the alcohol? If you mixed that with a condensed juice that had not been fermented (which as you point out, uses up the sugar you're looking for) would you end up with a product that had both sweetness and depth?

that is boiled to a concentrate, fermented and acidified, and aged for 12 to 25 years or longer in wood barrels.

This vinegar is typically aged from 2 months to 3 years in large oak barrels.

The recipe for Worcestershire sauce is 200 years old, just because something has sugar in it doesn't mean it is modern or edited for modern pallets.  Besides the 19% sugar both acts as a preservative and is negligible when you think how little of the sauce one uses in a recipe.

Amy Gardener wrote:Hey Anne! I was hoping someone else would reply to your question and, with any luck, someone with grape knowledge will. To keep this thread going, I'll say something about grapes. Though I have made wine with grapes from the local area, I only grow American table grapes (Thompson’s, Concord), not Lambrusco or Trebbiano or other wine grapes. If there is a bumper crop, I dry them and use them for baking. Edward Espe Brown, author of The Tassajara Bread Book, has a recipe for Fermented Raisins and Raisin Water:

"Place 1/2 cup of raisins in 2 cups of water. Cover and let sit for 3 to 4 days, unrefrigerated. Stir daily." p 83.

Espe uses this delicious bubbly liquid in a sourdough raisin bread instead of water.  The bread, sweetened only with the raisin water (fructose), is unusual and outstanding. A jar of these fermenting raisins sits on my counter right now.
For a table condiment as explored in this thread, I could take this sweet fermented grape / raisin liquid and let it naturally become vinegar by exposure to the air. The liquid is a little like naturally sweet stewed prune juice with flavor depth from the short fermentation. Putting this liquid into an aromatic cask and allowing evaporation and acidification to naturally occur could lead to something interesting over time.
Do you Anne, or anyone else, have ideas about working with grapes (or raisins or plums or prunes)?

Amy Gardener wrote: Balsamic is more of a reduced fruit syrup with mild strains of acid bacteria imbedded in the old casks. The unique critter culture in the vessels works on the fruit reduction but does not create a strong vinegar, rather, it is a sweet tart syrup...

Amy Gardener wrote:Earlier in this thread, I mentioned adding wood shavings to flavor the vinegar instead of buying a battery of Balsamic type casks. If this interests you, please read this fascinating study about using wood chips conducted by author Somesh Sharma in the Western Himalayan region of India. Specifically, he examines the impact of various local tree trimmings on wild apricot wine vinegar. The 2nd link includes a spider chart that helps describe the flavor characteristics of the brews with different types of wood:
https://www.scitechnol.com/proceedings/wood-chips-an-alternative-to-wooden-barrels-for-maturation-of-wild-apricot-vinegar-6974.html
https://www.scitechnol.com/conference-abstracts-files/2380-9477-C5-016-006.pdf
Really helpful if you want to add flavor depth using your local wood shavings without buying expensive barrels.

Amy Gardener wrote:Hi Morfydd. You are correct: the recipe in the Tassajara Bread Book is in my 2009 edition. The 1970 edition is VERY different (no sourdough raisin rolls) and I should have been more specific. Here is the link to the Shambhala Publications, Inc. 2009 edition:

https://www.shambhala.com/the-tassajara-bread-book-1495.html

Espe's recipe is called, "Sourdough Raisin Rolls" p 82-83 of the 2009 Tassajara Bread Book. I make the dough as he indicates but form it into a loaf of bread instead of the rolls. If you'd like me to type it out, let me know.

Regarding fruit flies, I cover all my fruits and ferments with clean cotton fabric: no fruit fly problems. I have a special way of doing this called "Einstein's cap" after the way he shaped a 2D piece of fabric to demonstrate the curvature of space-time. You just tie a knot in each of the 4 corners of the square piece of cloth and it forms a perfect cap for a Mason jar, a bowl, or anything else (I actually have a 2 meter x 2 meter square piece of canvas tied like this to cover my outdoor adobe horno).

Cécile Stelzer Johnson wrote:

Amy Gardener wrote:
Really helpful if you want to add flavor depth using your local wood shavings without buying expensive barrels.

I have to throw this in.  Along with different types of wood and different sizes  of chips we could also consider this method; Has anyone cut Willow twigs about the size of pencils and encased them in a resealable tin or tightly wrapped inside of several layers of foil and tossed the package into a small open fire or into an oven at at least 325°F? This produces very fine charcoal pencils for artist's purposes. I don't remember how long it takes, but I remember the incredible flash of aroma when the package is cooled and opened. Trapping and concentrating the wood chemicals around the chips seems to me like it would enhance the flavors quite a bit.

Amy Gardener wrote:Larisa, your experience is so helpful! Yes, from all that I’ve read, the aging of true Balsamic in casks creates the unique depth of flavor. Like you, I am making the boiled cider and 8:1 sounds like a good reduction target. I could bottle the pure syrup and refrigerate upon breaking the seal as you have described.

However, due to lack of cold storage space (and general curiosity), I am wondering if I could keep the cider syrup without refrigeration as you and Jan suggested, if I add ACV as a preservative and flavor enhancement? I would like to keep the acidified cider syrup in bottles or small flavor-enhancing wooden casks without the sterile canning step.

Forager-herbalist Mandy Oliver takes a different route to elderberry vinegar.  She steeps 350 g (12 oz) of fruit in 500 ml (17 fl.oz.) of white wine vinegar for 3-5 days, stirring occasionally, and then strains.  She adds 350 g (12 oz) of sugar per 260 ml (9 fl.oz.) liquid, boils for 10 minutes and bottles.  She regards it as a better alternative to balsamic vinegar.