How do you make your own ACV?

[Dace]

I think Bee did and I have heard so much talk about it and yet I haven;t seen it in any store....I keep thinking that someday I'll find it.
Then today I was reading NT and found a recipe for pineapple vinegar and thought, HEY, I bet I can make my ow ACV!

So.......?

 

[abifae]

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[chipmunk]

I asked about this back in the recent ACV thread. Anybody have the answer?

 

[Bettacreek]

If I remember correctly, we would press the apples (err, well, take them to the amish press), then put the juice in an old broken down freezer with a lock on it in the woods (lock was to keep bears and such out). It just sat there for, well, forever. It'd turn to cider, then vinegar.

 

[FarmerDenise]

I made my own acv this fall. I got a bunch of apples from my friend's tree. I cored them and then chopped them up in a blender adding water to make it work. I poured the resulting liquidy mess through a sieve and then a cloth to strain out the solids. I used a 5 gallon bucket. Then I covered the bucket with an old tshirt and let it sit for about a week until I could find some large glass bottles to pour the fermenting mess into. I stirred it once a day. It turned into hard cider and then into vinegar. This took about 2-3 months. I strained it once more and bottled it. At first I covered the bottles with a piece of cloth and a rubber band until I was sure the frementation process had stopped. Then I screwed on the bottle caps.

Considering the price I have to pay for organic unpasturized unfiltered acv, if I can find it, I think this was well worth the effort.

Apples have a naturally occuring yeast on their skins, which enables them to ferment.

 

[ORChick]

Bettacreek!

Here's what I did:

Find some unpasteurized apple juice - either at the local farm stand or somewhere like that in Autumn (too late now), or make some. I have a juicer, but a food processor or blender would also work. You don't need a lot for the first batch. If unfiltered pour it through a jelly bag/old pillowcase/something like that. It doesn't need to be crystal clear,but it should at least be mostly liquid .

Put the filtered juice into a wide mouthed jar, and cover with cheesecloth/muslin/tea towel. The idea is to let air in but keep dust and critters out.

Put the covered jar in a corner of the kitchen (not too cold) and leave it alone for several months. If you think about it give it a stir occasionally, to oxygenize it a bit.

After a while it will start to smell like vinegar. Leave it until it smells and tastes strong enough for you. It may develop an acetone sort of smell (nail polish remover); no problem, just stir it more often and/or pour it back and forth from one container to another a few times to get more oxygen in. The acetone smell will dissipate.

When it smells right to you pour it into a jar or jug, cap it, and keep it in a cool pantry. Vinegar is the end product; it may get more sour, but it shouldn't go bad.

Now, if you were lucky, you will have found a "mother" floating in your vinegar. I have never found one, so I won't describe what I haven't seen. Look it up. If you find one, skim it off, and put it in some more apple juice - this lot doesn't have to unpasteurized as the "mother" will kick start it with all the proper aceto-bacteria. Leave it alone again, and you'll have more vinegar (and, maybe, more "mother"). This one should develop more quickly.

If you did not find a "mother" don't worry. If your vinegar smells and tastes like vinegar then that is sufficient. For the next lot just mix a cup of your vinegar into the apple juice and let it get on with business. You have a perpetual source of ACV as long as you have apple juice.

Now, if you are a cook who wishes more variety in your vinegars, take some of the "mother" (or a cup of the finished ACV), and add it too a jar of red wine (not expensive, but not the cheapest either ). Put the jar aside as before, and soon you should have some red wine vinegar (with a bit of apple). Next time, use some of this to start the next lot; eventually it will be essentially all wine, and no more apple. White wine vinegar is made the same way, though the apple or red wine is more noticeable for the first few batches.

The reason I suggest you start the whole process with ACV is because unpasteurized apple juice will turn to vinegar eventually whether you want it to or not - unless you do something to stop it. Wine, on the other hand, has sulfites in it specifically to stop this from happening, so it needs the kick start of some finished, raw vinegar.

Sorry for the novel, but I hope the information is useful to somebody.

 

[PunkinPeep]

This is awesome information.

Thanks both of you for sharing!

 

[abifae]

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[Bettacreek]

*Chuckles* A little comment on the vinegar "mother"... I had three vinegar eel cultures going at one point in time for fish food. The v. eel mother culture had actually began to develop a vinegar culture mother. I assume that to make a vinegar mother, you simply need to set some aside for long enough to let one grow. Don't toss that jug/jar until you get a mother. Just don't do it in a vinegar eel culture, I'm assuming that you don't want the eels!

 

[Dace]

Thanks for all the great info!
Bettacreek..no extra freezer or woods laying around

I was hoping I could speed things along with whey. Anyone know?

Any types of apples better than another or just any organic apple?