Wednesday, April 8, 2009

What’s In Your Vinegar, Anyhow?


Whether you’re cooking a killer BBQ chicken or a really mean steak, red wine vinegar is a key component to any marinade. Have you ever wondered if the quality of the wine used to make the vinegar impacted the overall quality of the vinegar in the end?

Red wine vinegars are made from a variety of wine grapes: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir—and even the less expensive Concord-type grapes used to make Welch’s grape juice. Vinegar aging (not the wine aging) is done via two methods: the Orleans method of natural aging, which takes months or even years, or the acetator method, in which the vinegar can be made by machine using a bacteria in 24 hours.

Cook’s Illustrated conducted a recent test to determine whether it was the wine grapes or the aging of the vinegar that determined the overall quality of the vinegar. They learned that Americans prefer sweeter vinegar, which is often derived from the Concord-type grapes. They also determined that the type of aging did not affect the overall quality. In other words, less expensive supermarket brands of vinegar are actually quite competitive.

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