Home-made apple cider vinegar. If you look closely, you can see the mother of vinegar (so called) in the bottom.
Time for a little more about fermentation. This is something I tell people about all the time. It’s easy to make your own vinegar, and so much more interesting than buying it from a store. I am entirely indebted to Sandor Katz’ work on fermentation for this knowledge, although I have adapted it to my own uses.
Vinegar is what happens when wine is exposed to the air and goes “bad.” Or, as I prefer to look at it, wine is an unfortunate by-product on the way to excellent vinegar. But vinegar is also just the result of a sweet fruit fermentation. All you need is fruit, water, and air. I also like to add sugar sometimes.
The easiest vinegar to make is apple cider vinegar. If you can acquire apple cider that is freshly made and contains no preservatives, you can make vinegar out of it. Organic is best, as it doesn’t have any chemicals that could slow or stop the fermentation process. Put the cider in a container that has an open top, cover it to keep flies out, and leave it on your counter. It helps to stir it for a minute once a day to make sure it is evenly exposed to the air. A few weeks later, it will be vinegar. (On the way to vinegar, it will also briefly be apple jack. If you like that sort of thing, now you know.)
I find that it usually takes four to five weeks to turn into a lovely vinegar, depending on how much fruit sugar is in the original cider. The more fruit there is, the longer it takes to ferment all the sugar into alcohol, and all the alcohol into vinegar. Once it is fully fermented into vinegar, put it into a jar with a tight lid and store it in your pantry.
I haven’t tried it myself, but I also understand that any fresh fruit juice can be made into vinegar, so if you own a juicer, you might want to experiment. The only drawback of fruit juice vinegar is that it requires a lot of fruit. That’s why I make other kinds of vinegar from the fruit, itself.
Small fruits–such as blueberries, grapes, strawberries, raspberries, and so on–also make wonderful vinegar. I’ve also used peaches and pears. All you need is about 1 pint of fruit, a quart of non-chlorinated water, 1/4 cup sugar, and an open container. The fruit is actually best for vinegar if it is starting to go a little soft and over-ripe. Both fresh and frozen fruit work well for this.
Put the fruit, either whole or cut into pieces, into the container. I use a half-gallon Mason jar. Dissolve the sugar in the water and add it to the fruit. Cover the container to keep flies out. If fruit flies get in (and they do love vinegar, despite what the proverb says), they will keep the fruit from fermenting properly, so be sure to cover your vinegar securely. My method is to put a piece of cheesecloth or a tea towel over the top of the jar and secure it with a rubber band.
Once a day, check the vinegar, stir it for a minute, and re-cover it. After a week, strain out the spent fruit, mashing it to get all the juice from it. Put the vinegar back in the container and keep it covered. Stir it once a day for about another two weeks. You might want to taste it along the way to see how it is. After a total of about three weeks of fermentation, it will start to get sour. Once it tastes like vinegar, it is done, and ready to be stored in a tight container in your pantry.
When you are making vinegar, you want to expose as much of it as possible to the air. When you are storing it, you want to keep it from the air as much as possible so that it lasts longer. I like to transfer it to smaller containers as I use it up so there is less air in the jar. But most vinegars will last 6 months to a year on the shelf. If they started out with a lot of sugar, they will last almost forever. The ones with less sugar (either fruit sugar or added sugar) might lose their savor after a few months.
Ready to give it a try? It’s easy and fun, and you’ll never find anything like it in a store.
I’ll be doing a Zoom workshop on this subject for Wild Onion Market, my local food co-op start-up, on Tuesday, September 29 at 7:00 pm CDT. You’re invited to join in: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89593190791.
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