How to Make Apple Cider Vinegar at Home
If you live in a country where apple cider vinegar is difficult to find, try making it at home. Here's a recipe we found on the web to make apple cider vinegar to do just that! If you have different instructions, please send them our way!
This information comes from the following website:
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/5000/5346.html
The Ohio State University
ExtensionHuman Nutrition
1787 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43212
Making Cider Vinegar at Home
Two factors require special attention when making vinegar at home: oxygen supply and temperature. Oxygen is spread throughout the mixture by stirring it daily and by letting air reach the fluid through a cheesecloth filter, which is used in place of a regular lid. The temperature of fermenting cider should be kept between 60 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit (F). Lower temperatures do not always produce a usable vinegar, and higher ones interfere with the formation of the "mother of vinegar." Mother of vinegar is a mat that forms on the bottom of fermenting wine that has gone bad.
Do not use a metal container when making vinegar; acid in the mixture will corrode metal or aluminum objects. Glass, plastic, wood, enamel, or stainless steel containers should be used for making or storing vinegar. The same holds true for making or storing foods that have more than 1 Tablespoon of vinegar in the recipe.
Steps for Making Cider Vinegar
The following steps must be followed to make a high-quality cider vinegar:
- Make a clean cider from ripe apples.
- Change all of the fruit sugar to alcohol. This is called "yeast fermentation."
- Change all of the alcohol to acetic acid. This is called "acetic acid fermentation."
- Clarify the acetic acid to prevent further fermentation and decomposition.
Step 1--Making Cider
Cider is made from the winter and fall varieties of apples (summer and green apples do not contain enough sugar). Fruit should be gathered, then washed well to remove debris. Crush the fruit to produce apple pulp and strain off the juice. Use a press or cheesecloth for straining.
Adding yeast to activate fermentation is not essential, but will speed up the process. Special cultivated yeasts are available for this purpose at wine-making shops and biological labs--bread yeasts are not recommended. To make a starter, crumble one cake of yeast into one quart of cider. This makes enough starter for 5 gallons of cider; double the recipe proportionately when making more.
Steps 2 and 3--Making Alcohol and Acetic Acid
Pour all of the liquid into one or more containers to about three-quarters capacity; do not close the lids on the containers. Stir the mixtures daily. Keep the containers away from direct sunlight and maintain the temperature at 60 to 80 degrees F. Full fermentation will take about 3 to 4 weeks. Near the end of this period, you should notice a vinegar-like smell. Taste samples daily until the desired strength is reached.
Step 4--Filtering
When the vinegar is fully fermented, filter the liquid through several layers of fine cheesecloth or filter paper--a coffee filter works well for this. This removes the mother of vinegar, preventing further fermentation or spoilage of the product.
Storing Your Vinegar
The vinegar is now ready for storage in separate, capped containers. Stored vinegar will stay in excellent condition almost indefinitely if it is pasteurized. To pasteurize, heat the vinegar before pouring it into sterilized bottles, or bottle, then place in a hot water bath. In both cases, the temperature of the vinegar must reach at least 140 degrees F to sterilize the product, and should not exceed 160 degrees F. Use a cooking thermometer to ensure the correct temperature is met. Cool the containers and store at room temperature out of direct sunlight.
Flavored Vinegar
Flavoring can be added to homemade vinegar just before bottling. Good examples of additives include green onion, garlic, ginger, or any combination of dried or fresh herbs. To make flavoring, place material in a small cheesecloth bag and suspend in the vinegar until desired strength is reached. This will take about 4 days, except for garlic, which takes only 1 day. For every 2 cups of vinegar, use one of the following: 1/2 cup crushed fresh herbs, 1 tablespoon of dried herbs, 2 large cloves of garlic, or 8 small green onions. Other good flavorings include tarragon, basil, nasturtium, chives, mint, chervil, borage, hot chilies, and raspberries. Adjust the amounts to taste, but be careful not to overload the vinegar. Too much vegetable matter can destroy the acid and ruin the preservative quality of the vinegar.
Some flavorings may not go well with cider vinegar's distinct taste and color. When flavoring store-bought vinegar, use more delicate or decorative flavors. When flavoring store-bought vinegar, you will still need to pasteurize it and use sterile bottles.
Flavored vinegars taste great and have a beautiful color, making them excellent for use in salads. You will be tempted to display flavored vinegar; however, be sure to keep your bottles out of direct sunlight, which will destroy the flavor, acidity, and color of the vinegar.
Uses for Homemade Cider Vinegar
Because the acidity of homemade vinegars will vary, do not use them in foods to be canned or stored at room temperature. Homemade vinegar is, however, excellent in salads, cooking, or freezer and refrigerator pickled products.
Prepared by Christine Nicholas, Intern Doris Herringshaw, Extension Agent, Family and Consumer Sciences
APPLE CIDER VINEGAR PROCEDURES
1 QUESTION
[YEA] 06/18/2007: Bill from Vernon, CT writes: "Apple Cider Vinegar Recipe
Procedure for Making Traditional Hard Apple Cider (Found at: http://www.apple-cider-vinegar-benefits.com/vinegar-making.html)
1) Use one gallon (3.8 Liters) of freshly pressed apple juice from your local apple orchard. The juice should be unfiltered, additive free, and non-pasteurized for maximum nutrition and flavor and to allow the natural yeasts in the juice to ferment the sugar to alcohol.
2) Determine the amount of sugar in the apple juice by measuring its specific gravity or density with a simple hydrometer. The more sugar contained in the apple juice, the higher its density. Juice made from North American dessert apples will have a specific gravity between 1.040 and 1.050 and if allowed to ferment fully, will result in a hard cider with around 5.5 to 6.5 percent alcohol content. If, on the off chance you find the apple juice specific gravity less than 1.040, then add some plain old granulated white sugar (sucrose) directly to the juice as follows: Add 2.25 ounces (67.5 grams) of sugar to raise the specific gravity of one gallon of juice by 5 points (for example from 1.035 to 1.040).
3) Unscrew the top of the one gallon juice container, screw on a fermentation air lock, and allow the container to stand at room temperature for 6 to 8 weeks. The air lock will allow the carbon dioxide gas, produced during the fermentation, to escape while at the same time preventing the oxygen in the air from getting into the cider and interfering with the reaction.
4) After 6 to 8 weeks the fermentation will be complete. There will be no more carbon dioxide gas escaping through the air lock and there will be a thick deposit of lees at the bottom of the container. To make sure all the sugar has been converted to alcohol, check the cider's specific gravity, which should be less than 1.005. If the reading is still to high, wait another week and test again. To compute the alcohol content of the completed apple cider, take a hydrometer reading (using the potential alcohol scale) after fermentation and subtract it from the value you obtained before fermentation.
5) Separate the cider from the lees by siphoning the liquid into clean storage bottles using a section of plastic tubing. (Tubing with a 0.5 inch inside diameter will do fine.) You are now ready to make your own homemade apple cider vinegar, just follow the procedure outlined in Vinegar Making Starting from Hard Apple Cider.
Vinegar Making Starting from Hard Apple Cider
1. Fill a thoroughly cleaned wide-mouthed glass jar (a 700 ml mason jar will due fine) with about 500 ml of 5 to 6% hard apple cider.
2. Add 50 ml of unpasteurized and unfiltered organic apple cider vinegar which contains some mother of vinegar (Available at most health food stores).This will quick-start the vinegar making process.
3. Cover the jar top with two layers of cheesecloth, this will allow vinegar bacteria and oxygen from the air to get to the surface of the cider without being contaminated with fruit flies and other pests.
4. Place the jar in a warm room but in a dark place away from sunlight, which will interfere with the action of the bacteria. The optimum temperature for vinegar making is about 29 degrees C (85 F). o After about 2 weeks there will be a gelatinous white film floating on top of the liquid, this is the mother of vinegar, which is produced by the vinegar bacteria as it converts the alcohol into vinegar (acetic acid). o Allow the reaction to proceed for at least 4 to 8 weeks, then, if you started with a hard cider with 6% alcohol content, you should have a vinegar with about 5% acetic acid.
The age-old method for determining if the vinegar is complete is to simply smell and taste it. No odor or flavor of alcohol should be present.
A far more accurate way is to measure the acid content by titration. Inexpensive titration kits can be found at your local wine and beer making shop and are easy to use.
Once completed, store the apple cider vinegar into clean long necked glass containers equipped with plastic screw-type caps, and discard the thick mother of vinegar film or reuse it to start-up a new batch."
[QUESTION] 01/14/2009: Barbara from St Helena, CA replies: "to make cider first, can I use a juicer???"
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1 YEA
1 QUESTION
[QUESTION] 04/10/2009: Malcolm (malcolm88m@gmali.com) from Metcalfe, Ontario, Canada writes: "How do I make more vinegar using natural vinegar starter?
I am presently taking two TSP's shortly before meals to suposedly promote the flow of digestive juices to aid the takeup of nutrients: ie. the breakdown of foodstuff into juices my gut can absorb easily.
At home in the 'thirty's', I recall cloudy slimey stuff forming in the vinegar jug that was called
[YEA] 04/12/2009: Karl from St. Louis, MS replies: "The slimy stuff, actually milky/slimy is the “mother”. Just add more water and let it sit. Then strain the clear vinegar off, save the mother to use again, and enjoy!!"
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