Help me save this balsamic vinegar bottle.

August 1, 2009 3:02 PM

The balsamic vinegar in my serving bottle (the kind with the metal spout) has solidified. Can I get it out somehow, or do I need to throw it away?

The top 3-4 inches of the balsamic vinegar in my cute little serving bottle (it's this one) have become solid. I've tried soaking the solid parts but it's been a week and that hasn't worked. I tried poking it with a chopstick, and that broke it up a little, but the pieces are still much larger than the opening of the bottle.

Anything I can do to dissolve this and continue using the bottle? Or should I just give up and throw it out?

posted by rabbitrabbit to food & drink (21 comments total)

Have you tried warming it under hot tap water?
posted by halogen at 3:15 PM on August 1

Sounds like you have mother of vinegar.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 3:23 PM on August 1

Oh, here's a better description.
posted by pseudostrabismus at 3:24 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]

Have you tried warming it under hot tap water?

Yes, I've tried soaking it in very hot water. Not boiling, but about 120-130F.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 3:41 PM on August 1

Are you trying to save the vinegar or the bottle?
posted by bensherman at 3:43 PM on August 1

Fill it with wine and wait.
posted by aquafortis at 3:54 PM on August 1

Take off metal cap, put it in the microwave?
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 4:04 PM on August 1

Take out the metal spout and microwave it for 30 seconds? I have no experience with this, but it might work.
posted by raisingsand at 4:04 PM on August 1

Are you trying to save the vinegar or the bottle?

The bottle.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 4:07 PM on August 1

aquafortis: Fill it with wine and wait.

Is this a theory or have you successfully broken up the vinegar solids this way?
posted by rabbitrabbit at 4:09 PM on August 1

Just tried microwaving for 2 minutes, no dice.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 4:13 PM on August 1

Do you think if you put some rice in the bottle and shake it, the agitation of the rice in the bottle might break things up enough to get it out? That's my go-to method for cleaning out bottles, but I'm usually using it to scrape goo off the inside (like cleaning out a peanut butter jar), not break up something like this. It might be worth a shot, if nothing else works.
posted by pemberkins at 4:25 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]

Vinegar is an acid...so I'd try neutralizing it and see if that breaks up the gelatinous structure. Were it me, I would drop some sodium hydroxide in there, but I have a bunch of it on hand, and I have a set up to contain caustic chemical spills. (And I do stupid stuff with chemicals.) Keep in mind that the exothermic properties of NaOh may also be problematic depending on your glass. And last but not least is the issue that sodium hydroxide slowly reacts with glass to form sodium silicate, which depending on the manufacture of your bottle could be really ugly. I had the bottom of a massive glass beaker filled with lye pop off once...disaster.

A base that you probably *do* have on hand, and which is considerably safer is antacid tablets [PDF]which have a ph of around 11 (vs 14 for NaOh). It should neutralize the solution and help you break up the mass.

Do it in a sink.

AVOID bleach; it'll create something akin to mustard gas. Trust me on this one.
posted by dejah420 at 4:52 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]

If it's really mother of vinegar, as pseudostrabismus suggests, then (according to Wikipedia) it contains cellulose and bacterial colonies-- i.e., mostly protein. That'd suggest that you should use a cleaner which effectively breaks down protein-- so I'll second dejah420's suggestion of a strong base, just not in order to neutralize the acid (vinegar is a fairly weak acid, anyway).

Why not try soaking it in a little (half-strength) Drano? If that dissolves hair clogs while leaving plumbing and fixtures intact, it should work a treat on cellulose.
posted by Bardolph at 5:38 PM on August 1

generally the worry with bleach is that it shouldn't be mixed with ammonia-based cleaners. As long as the bottle just contains dehydrated/fermented balsamic, and not some other cleaning chemical, it would be perfectly fine to add bleach.

which, realistically, would be my choice -- a couple of tablespoons of household bleach and water, left to sit over night.

Obviously, if you've already added a strong basic cleaner, then the bleach might be a bad idea. Though realistically, if you rinse with water in between you should be fine.
posted by mercredi at 6:09 PM on August 1

I'm sorry, mercredi, but you're wrong. Leaving a mixture of vinegar and bleach to sit there on the counter making chlorine gas over night is a very, very bad idea.

Chlorine bleach contains sodium hypochlorite or NaOCl. Because bleach is sodium hypochlorite in water, the sodium hypochlorite in bleach actually exists as hypochlorous acid:

NaOCl + H2O ↔ HOCl + Na+ + OH-

Hypochlorous acid is a strong oxidizer. This is what makes it so good at bleaching and disinfection. If you mix bleach with an acid, chlorine gas will be produced. For example, if you mix bleach with toilet bowl cleaner, which contains hydrochloric acid:

HOCl + HCl ↔ H2O + Cl2

Chlorine gas attacks mucous membranes, such as your eyes, throat, and lungs and can kill you, so causing that reaction isn't in your best interest. If you mix bleach with another acid, such as the acetic acid found in vinegar, you get essentially the same result:

2HOCl + 2HAc ↔ Cl2 + 2H2O + 2Ac- (Ac : CH3COO)

Courtesy of Anne Helmenstine, Ph.D
posted by dejah420 at 7:20 PM on August 1 [2 favorites]

Have you tried using vinegar to dissolve it?
posted by pmbuko at 10:10 PM on August 1

I think mechanical action is your best bet. Vigorous shaking with a handful of (steel) shot or ball bearings or coins or nuts may work, or more of the chopstick, or a bottle brush.

I'm DO NOT recommend bleach. Chlorine exposure is every bit as bad as people say. There was a reason it (as bertholite) was the first poison gas. But it's an interesting question to consider and if you do decide to try chlorine bleach I'd really appreciate hearing how you controlled the chlorine.

At a guess, you can neutralize the acid first with baking soda, which will also help trap any subsequent chlorine in the water as (neutralized) hydrochloric and hypochlorous acids. Chlorine is denser than air, so a window sill and a box fan should take care of the rest. I'd try it, but people tell me I get too curious for my own good.
posted by d. z. wang at 2:28 AM on August 2

Just a note...if you add baking soda to vinegar, you will get a volcano.
posted by dejah420 at 7:20 AM on August 2

I had the same problem. Here's what the nice man at Belazu told me:

It seems there has been some solidification of the natural fruit sugars in your balsamic which has been caused by unseasonably low temperatures experienced by suppliers in Italy, and unfortunately during the aging process this has caused the sugars in some bottles to crystallize making it difficult to pour.

I can assure you that this is a completely natural occurrence and is an unfortunate side effect of the combination of the temperature fluctuations and a slightly higher than normal fruit sugar content in a batch of grape must that was used in the production of the product.

We suggest that you place the bottle on your window sill for a day or 2 or you can plunge the bottle in a bucket full of warm water for about 10 mins, the gentle increase in temperature in our experience will make the crystallized sugars re liquefy and return to their normal pourable state, much the same as when olive oil becomes cloudy and is then cleared when placed in a warmish environment.

I did the warm water thing and it worked just fine, maybe try the windowsill?
posted by theCroft at 9:28 AM on August 2

Hmm. I tried warm and hot water multiple times with no results, other than the color eventually got leached out of the chunks.

I'm too much of a wuss to try bleach, antacid, Drano, etc... I eventually gave up and threw the bottle out. Now my olive oil bottle is lonely.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 9:59 AM on August 5