Sunday, August 29, 2010

My 5 Gallon Vinegar Experiment - Part 1

Today I started a new experiment. I'm going to attempt to make vinegar. Now, most recipes I've found online only recommend making either red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar. That's all well and good, they are all focused on vinegar as a culinary treat. I don't need some fancy vinegar. I just need a vinegar with 5% acidity that I can use to can with. So I came across some info that said I could make it from a sugar solution. Perfect! I don't want the flavors that fruit can add to the vinegar so sugar it is.
The first step in making vinegar is you have to make alcohol. Easy enough, I've got lots of practice at that. Here's what I started with:

8 cups of granulated sugar
4 1/2 gallons water
Yeast Nutrient
Bread Yeast

I decided to go with the bread yeast because I'm not interested in the yeast creating certain flavors, and well, I have TONS of bread yeast on hand so it's just less money I had to spend. So I set everything up much like when I make hard cider.

So that's what I've done so far. In about 2 weeks I'll start the actual vinegar.

1 comment:

  1. Ooh this sounds interesting. I can't wait to see what happens.

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