<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
 
Malt vlnegar has never been part of my diet, even in pre-celiac days.  I
have been unable to find it in the stores that I usually frequent.  What
knowledge I have about it comes from the library and that suggests that
the problem for those with celiac disease is the existence of two kinds
of malt vinegar.  "Malt vinegar" is made from malted barley by the usual
double fermentation process - yeast to generate alcohol and Acetobacter
to convert the alcoholic product to vinegar.  There is no distillation
involved and therefore it is possible that barley hordein peptides
survive the fermentation processes.  This malt vinegar is clearly a
potential hazard to those on a GF diet.  "Distilled malt vinegar" is
distilled at low pressure after the Acetobacter fermentation and it
contains only the volatile components of "malt vinegar".  As prepared it
is essentially colorless but does have the smell and taste of "malt
vinegar".  It should be free of hordein peptides and so should be
tolerated by those on a GF diet.  The distilled version is said to be
rare in North America but common in Britain.  This distribution obviously
may change with time.
 
This limited information on malt vinegar was gleaned from a chapter on
vinegar by H. Ebner and H. Follman in "Biotechnology, A Comprehensive
Treatise", H-J Rehm and G. Reed, eds., 1982, and a chapter on cider
vinegar by A. G. H. Lea in "Processed Apple Products", D. Downing, ed., 1989.
 
                                - Rich Abrams, Pittsburgh, PA
 
On Fri, 24 May 1996, Donald D. Kasarda wrote:
 
> My one question has to do with malt vinegar.  I don't know how malt vinegar
> is prepared, but have assumed (perhaps wrongly) that it probably is not a
> distilled product because of the color and strong flavor.