apple cider vinegar?

[pinkfox]

i currently have a bottle of brags, theres not much left...
i want more ACV but cant affor to buy brags every month...
can i buy a big bottle of cheap ACV and add it to the Brags bottle with some of the brags and the brags mother left in it and get "good" ACV from it?

 

[Beekissed]

Yep! I've made one jug of Braggs into 4 jugs of mother vinegar in just that way. I just split them off, rubber banded a paper towel over the top and set them in a dark, warm place for a week. Each one had a nice mother swirled through the middle when the week was over.

 

[ORChick]

i currently have a bottle of brags, theres not much left...
i want more ACV but cant affor to buy brags every month...
can i buy a big bottle of cheap ACV and add it to the Brags bottle with some of the brags and the brags mother left in it and get "good" ACV from it?

The problem is that "cheap ACV" is generally not ACV at all. Check the label; most often it is apple cider flavored vinegar. What I would do is buy a bottle of apple juice (pasteurized is fine, as you will be adding the good bacteria) and add the Braggs to it. It will take more than Beekissed's week, but you will still end up with ACV - the real stuff. Do it in just the way she described, but with real apple juice/cider.

 

[Beekissed]

I don't know what brands you've been buying but I've never in my life seen apple cider flavored vinegar...even the cheap Great Value brands are just apple cider vinegar diluted to 5%, which is standard for vinegars sold for consumption.

 

[ORChick]

Beekissed, it has been my experience over the last 15 years or so that "apple cider vinegar" sold in plastic gallon jugs (i.e. the cheap stuff) is invariably "apple cider flavored vinegar", even Heinz, and certainly the store brands. The quarts are often the real thing - even, strangely enough, from the same brands that sell the fake stuff in gallons. Perhaps it is a west coast thing, I don't know. This is the reason I started making my own.

 

[pinkfox]

ORchick, ill definatly check the label, might try both apple juice and "cheap acv" and see which turns out better. right now i only have abotu 1/4 cup of the brags left so its officially "on reserve" untill i can afford to go buy a either a jug or some apple juice to start my own with

 

[Beekissed]

After doing research there are many brands out there that are offering distilled white vinegar that has been flavored with apple juice or even colored with caramel coloring! Who knew? OB knew!!!

I can honestly say I've never bought such vinegar before...I'm a big label checker and I always go for the cheapest brand, so I've been lucky over the years I guess. No fake vinegar for me but they are definitely out there...apple juice wearing vinegar clothing... How dare they taint the good name of vinegar?

 

[ORChick]

After doing research there are many brands out there that are offering distilled white vinegar that has been flavored with apple juice or even colored with caramel coloring! Who knew? OB knew!!!

I can honestly say I've never bought such vinegar before...I'm a big label checker and I always go for the cheapest brand, so I've been lucky over the years I guess. No fake vinegar for me but they are definitely out there...apple juice wearing vinegar clothing... How dare they taint the good name of vinegar?

It is worse than you think. The thing is (if this of importance to you; it is to me) that not only is apple cider flavored vinegar offered instead of the real *apple cider* version, but also even regular white distilled vinegar is not always made from grain alcohol, but rather from some form of petroleum distillate - I'm not even quite sure how that is possible, but apparently it is. So the *cheap stuff* of distilled vinegar is made from oil (???) rather than grain. And then this oil based vinegar is flavored with apple cider (or something similar) and colored, and sold to the non label reading public as ACV. Now, I seldom, if ever, use distilled vinegar for anything but cleaning, but still I look for the one that says that it is made from grain (that is Heinz where I live). I just have a problem with petroleum based substances as food stuff.

 

[Denim Deb]

Same here.

 

[hqueen13]

You just can't win.

I'll have to see about "making" our own Bragg's...

We go through a LOT of vinegar here... now I"ll have to go back and check the labels!