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It
takes a special
sort of person to decide to make vinegar, when they have all the kit to
make
beer! But that is exactly what Walter Ellsey did - and the fact that
his
investment is still thriving more than 75 years later is testament to
his shrewd
judgement.
History has played
a major role in shaping the destiny of his firm but Ellsey’s
remains one of Wigans
best known names.
It was in 1932 when Walter Ellsey, Edith Tinsley and John Sleaford, workmates from a vinegar firm in Manchester, decided to have a go themselves and took over the old Heaton’s Brewery on Warrington Road, Goose Green, Wigan. At that time there were many similar businesses dotted all over the area but, as the years and decades rolled by, most of the competition fell by the wayside and eventually Ellsey’s was one of only 3 vinegar brewers in the North of England. |
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 In
those days
Ellseys produced exclusively malt vinegar. Malt vinegar is
produced from
malted barley or malt. Malt is produced by
steeping barley grain in water,
allowing it to germinate on the malting floor, then roasting it in
kilns to
arrest further growth and to preserve its characteristic flavour. Few
vinegar
brewers malt their own barley; they prefer to rely on the expert
knowledge of
specialist maltsters. On receipt of the malt from the maltsters it is
coarsely
ground and packed into the “mash tub”, a large
copper vessel with a mesh floor.
It is then doused with hot water for about two hours. The malt contains
an
enzyme, diastase, which breaks down the starch content of the malt into
a
sugar, maltose, which dissolves in the
water, and the hot sweet liquid,
called sweet wort drips out of the bottom of the
vessel. This is then cooled
in refrigerators and pumped into fermentation vessels. Yeast is added
and
alcoholic fermentation starts in a few hours, subsiding after about
four days.
The alcoholic wash or gyle is passed through a
centrifuge to separate the
spent yeast then piped into storage vats and matured for a limited
period.
The second
fermentation, in which the alcohol in the gyle is
converted into acetic acid
to form vinegar, is carried out in large cylindrical vats, known as
acetifiers.
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These are constructed
usually of oak
or pitch pine, in a similar
way to the storage vats, except that each has slatted staging built
into the
top half, on which bundles of birch twigs are stacked. The lower half
of the
vat serves as a reservoir for the gyle, which is
constantly sprayed or
sparged over the birch twigs in a current of air
drawn upwards through the
acetifier. The twigs serve as a host for the bacteria mycoderma
aceti,
which convert the alcohol into acetic acid, and at the same time
present as
large a surface as possible for the necessary atmospheric oxygen. The
complete
fermentation to vinegar takes about 5 days.
From the acetifiers
the rough vinegar is pumped into huge storage vats, holding many
thousands of litres, and is there allowed to remain for nine months to
a year until
the
flavour and aroma characteristic of malt vinegar develop. Before being
released
for sale, the matured vinegar is filtered and pasteurised and diluted
to the
required acidity with water. The spent grain is disposed of to dealers
as
cattle food, while the surplus yeast left over after the fermentation
process
is sold as a by-product for use as gravy salt.
In 1960 Mr. Ellsey’s nephew, John Williams joined the company after serving 12 years at sea and gaining his Master’s Ticket. He eventually took over the company running after Walter retired. Vinegar brewing continued at Ellseys until 1966, when a compulsory purchase order, imposed so that Warrington Road could be turned into a dual carriageway, robbed the firm of its brewing tower. From then on the direction of the company changed. It stopped brewing and instead concentrated on processing vinegar and diversified into supplying the other types of vinegar coming into the market from Europe. These included wine vinegar and spirit vinegar, which it bought in road tankers from the continent. The malt vinegar and distilled malt vinegar is now sourced from other brewers in the UK |
 
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Tel :
+44 (0) 1942 211990 Fax : +44 (0) 1942 211650 Email: info@ellsey.co.uk |