How to find out if there is vinegar in a beer brew

I am brewing ginger beer for the first time ever. In fact this is the first time I am brewing ever. I used 200 grams of sugar, 100 grams of yeast, a few mint leaves, and a whole lemon (sliced) in 1.5 liters of water and boiled the mixture. Then cooled it and added 1 teaspoon of baker’s yeast, squeezed one lemon in it and put it in an airtight bottle with an airlock. I cleaned all article with hot water prior to use. 7 days down the line, I opened the bottle and found that the brew to be sour in taste (it does smell of alcohol). Is it possible that there is vinegar in the brew? Is there any test to find out if there is vinegar in the brew pls.?

Looking forward to your advice.

Thanks and Regards,

Arvind Gupta

Topic vinegar ginger-beer yeast fermentation homebrew

Category Mac

1
answered at

Vinegar has a fairly distinctive flavour. If you can't taste it, I would say no.

During fermentation, the yeast rapidly uses-up all the dissolved oxygen in the vessel. Acetobacter needs oxygen to turn ethanol into vinegar. So as long as your air lock was in-place, the fermentation will maintain a positive pressure of carbon dioxide. So there should be no dissolved oxygen, and thus no acetobacter.

Could you be tasting the lemon? Some aspect of the mint?

It could also be another souring bacteria, like lactobacillus. But with good sanitation this should not be an issue.

And while I've never used yeast as it's own nutrient, 100 grams seems like a huge amount.

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