White Vinegar in Baking

• White vinegar appears in some bread recipes. For example, a common French bread recipe calls for 1 teaspoon of distilled white vinegar and 2 teaspoons of yeast. The vinegar helps fermentation and adds to the flavor, although some authorities disapprove of the addition. If you have a recipe that calls for white vinegar, substituting malt vinegar shouldn't change anything in terms of the fermentation process, but it might have a slight effect on the flavor.

Malt Vinegar Flavor

• Malt vinegar is characteristically sweeter than white vinegar, with a slight citrus tang. Because malt vinegar has a more delicate flavor than other types of vinegar, it may be necessary to increase the amount in the recipe to make the flavor more noticeable. Malt vinegar might make a good additive in bread recipes that contain beer because it complements the malt in the beer itself. Substituting malt vinegar for white may slightly alter the flavor of a loaf.

Recipes With Malt Vinegar

• Malt vinegar appears on its own, rather than as a substitute for white vinegar, in some bread recipes. The proportion of malt vinegar to yeast is often higher in these recipes than it would be if white vinegar were used, probably to make the malt vinegar flavor stand out.

Using Caution

• Replacing white vinegar with malt vinegar works in most bread recipes, but might not work in all. Unlike white vinegar, malt vinegar is not gluten-free, making it a bad choice for gluten-free bread recipes. In these cases, stick to the original vinegar recommendation.