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Fermenting Vinegar
How to make vinegar at home? – A five Steps Beginner’s Guide
Making vinegar at home is a nice hobby. But if you want to make homemade vinegar in a high quality it is not done to put the apples, apple juice, cider or wine into a barrel and leave it. There is a certain quantum of basic skills necessary to make an alcoholic mash of fruit (= to mash fruits and ferment the fruit pulp) and to ferment it to vinegar (= ferment the mash, wine,..). Not till then you will rejoice in distilling alcohol at home.
Why home making vinegar?
There are a lot of vinegars found in the supermarkets. In specialist shops you can find nearly every kind of fruit, herb or spices made for vinegar. So why should you spend such a lot of work on making vinegar at home?
- Home making of vinegar is a good alternative to other uses of your own fruit or to waste it.
- By reason of the small scale of fermenting vinegar at home, it is possible to produce vinegars which are rarely available for purchase.
- If you make your own alcohol- and vinegar fermentation at home by preparing your own mash, it is possible to create top quality vinegar, because only by the use of small amounts of fruit it is possible to eliminate all rotten parts and stalks.
- Home producing of vinegar is a nice hobby, which results in a lot of experiments and therefore makes a lot of fun.
Make vinegar at home – a Five Steps Beginner’s Guide
How to ferment vinegar at home? Is making vinegar for everyone? What has to be done exactly to produce vinegar at home?
Note: At the most info sites about vinegar at the web, in books or courses you will always learn about the common method of vinegar fermentation. Hence it is sufficent to let the fruit pump, juice oder wine stand until there is vinegar. We can’t subscribe to that view, because it is unpossible to get quality vinegar with this method. You can use this kind of vinegar only for poultice, for cleaning,..Our goal is to prepare vinegar with high quality, an this is absolutely possible in the hobby scale.
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Basic material
For the vinegar fermentation you can use an alcoholic liquid (cider, wine, spirits) or you use the fruits from the garden and make a mash to produce alcohol. Do you use alcoholic liquids then attend to a good quality, don’t use waste material. Do you ferment fruits from the garden, then follow the introductions for the best alcoholic fermentation.
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To acidify
Also at a common vinegar fermentation it is necessary to acidify the used alcohol. Therefor you can avoid kahmhefe and other wrong fermenting products. To acidify you can use a good (!) vinegar or vinegaracid from the pharmacy, which is pure and clean so that no impurity cones into the fermentation. The necessary amount of alcohol and acid you can calculate.
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Adding the vinegar mother or the active vinegar
You have to inoculate the adiculated alcohol with a vinegar mother. The inoculation of the alcoholic liquid is essential! Add either acitve vinegar, this means vinegar which is still a little bit fermenting or buy a vinegar mother to start the fermentation. This you can breed furhter by your own easily.
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The vinegar fermentation
After you have acidified the alcoholic liquid and further added the vinegar mother or starter liquid (=active vinegar), stirr the mixture and cover it with a sheed of kitchen roll, which you fix with a rubber band. The fermenting pot should have a big surface, the height of the liquid should not exceed app. 5 cm. Put the pot on a warm place, about 25°C. After some days the fermentaiton will start, you notice it by the smell of aceton. After 3-6 weeks the fermentation is finish. Now you can remove app. the half of the volume to let it completely fermenting. To the other part you add a little bit new alcohol, so the liquid can ferment furhter or you can produce a vinegar mother.
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Apple vinegar homemade – the recipe for 1 litre
Take 1 liter applejuice and acidify ist with xx ml vinegar acid (96%vol) from the pharmacy. Stirr it, then add 100 ml vinegar mother or starter liquid. Stirr again and cover the pot.
Much Success!
DFS Schmickl – Supplier for Vinegar Equipment and Hoster of Fermenting Vinegar Courses
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Equipment for fermenting vinegar – all to make your own vinegar:
Vinegar reactor, vinegar plant, yeast, analytical items, books – all you need to do it yourself at home.
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Vinegar courses – ferment vinegar by your own:
hands-on Workshops and online-classes
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Know-How – How to make vinegar at home :
Calculations, book, fermenting techniques and forum to produce your own vinegar
Calculations Book – how to ferment vinegar at home Fermenting techniques Forums – Make your own vinegar
