Making vinegar from scratch

The Mr can run it through one time and get 190 proof.
I run it three times and get rotgut. The only thing it's good for is stripping the chicken coop with.

 

and gun solvent..

 

Another killer thread DW, Thanks for sharing.

 

if u want a cheaper weed killer get 2,4 d and ereaser and mix them together .... untill u get ur vinegeret together

 

Rather use a weed burner. More fun and terrifies the neighbors to see me using it.
It's the avoidance of glyphosate moreso than the cost I'm eyeballing.

 

I pulled my fermenting jars out this morning to stir and possibly go ahead and strain off. The bubbling action had died off in 2 and I only saw a few bubbles around the edges of the pickle jar.


Took a pic, popped off the covers, stirred, and oh $(@!
That's not just bubbles in the pickle jar, that's a mother!

And another, thinner one forming in the flip top jar. I tore that one with the spoon before I realized what it was.


There's a hint of one starting in the spaghetti jar too. So this is not how I was expecting this to go at all. For starters I thought I'd be straining all the fruit muck out, then letting the brew rest while hoping for a mother to form. This leaves me unsure of what I need to do. I guess I should just leave them alone for a while, let them get fully formed until they sink to the bottom, and then try to filter all the peach gunk out. Or I could pull some liquid out and put in a bowl, and put the mothers in there long enough to strain, though they're rather fragile ATM and I may screw them up. Or CAN I screw them up at this point?

Started Aug 18. Got mothers on Sept 3d. That's WAY faster than I expected. I wonder if the fact that I stirred it had anything to do with it? Nothing I read said to, but that's what we do with the wine brew in the early stages so I figured I would with this as well. I posted to a Wild Fermentation group on FB asking if I should go ahead and strain off or wait, will see what they advise.

 

When we made vinegar in the plant, it was never distilled. It was made from distilled spirits, we used Canadian grain alcohol that was about 180 or so proof. It was made as strong as we could get it and then cut with water to the required percentage and sold as "distilled vinegar" which mostly indicated it had no flavor. Apple, wine, etc all were made from the juice to alcohol, to vinegar and then filtered but still had the base flavor

 

On advice, I went ahead and carefully pulled the mothers out and then filtered the jars to get all the peels out. The liquid from the pickle jar could best be described as boozy snot, very thick and gross. The spaghetti jar was more like water. I transferred it to a mason jar. Mothers back in, and new gauze covers on all, then back to the cabinet. I am told what I did won't hurt them and that more will form anyway. Now we wait a while longer.... possibly up to 6 months but who knows?

 

Nice post and good job!

How To Make Your Own Medicinal Vinegars - Herbs Info

 

Update with pics. Started August 28, today is Sept 19. The mothers in all three jars are getting thick. Still smells boozy but everything I've read said it'll take a few months to convert the wine to vinegar.


The pickle jar mother is the thickest so far. They're really white, more than I expected. I wonder if that's because they were... well born for the lack of a better word... in a peach ferment?


If I touch it, the whole thing moves as one piece now, whereas before it tore up if I messed with it. Feels weird, kinda gelatinous but firm too.

The one in the Mason jar was the slowest to develop but it looks as good as the other two now.

 

That looks interesting. I thought it was only a few weeks that it was suppose to work/sit/ferment.

 

Everything I've read gave me the idea I'd be sitting on my hands for months and months. It's gone way faster than I'd imagined. Supposedly when the brew is turned to vinegar, the mothers will sink to the bottom. At that point you pull off what you need and add more wine. I'm still not entirely sure if I need to feed them though, you know like you would a sourdough starter.

 

I can't wait to see what happens. I've never made vinegar.

Love the new shoes

 

I don't know what ereaser is, but 2,4 d is much better than glyphosate... Otherwise know as the second ingredient in Agent Orange, still available, kills all the broad leaf plants (weeds) and not the grass, and you want the grass so the weeds don't grow next year.

Rancher

 

The grass is exactly what I'm trying to kill. It's not cute fescue or fluffy bluegrass. It's wire grass, and it's in everything it's not supposed to be in. It takes 2-3 hits with Roundup to even make it sick. 2,4-D is good for killing goatheads, MSMA takes out the grassburs. Killing wiregrass involves chemicals, black candles, and assorted prayers to Santa Muerte.

 

I GOTS VINEGAR!

Checked the mason jar on the counter and saw the mother had sunk to the bottom. There's a new one, thinner, forming on top, but everything I read said it would sink when it was done. So I tasted it, yep it's vinegar! Stout stuff too. Makes sense it was the first one to turn, since it was sort of the skimmings of the other two and was the weakest batch

The larger jars are still brewing. I tasted the pickle jar one and it's still a little peachy boozy flavored. The mother in it is pretty thick. This was the strongest batch by far to begin with and the one that was positively snotty when I skimmed out the peach peels.

Now for the ew part. The third jar, the gnats got in it and started raising a family. About a dozen gnat maggots on the inside of the glass. Which, ew gross but I was just going to use this stuff for weed killer and chicken coop cleaner anyway so I wiped them all out and put a new, thicker gauze lid on it.

So my understanding is I can pull off the vinegar from the mason jar, and just add some more DIY wine to it and it'll just keep on chugging along. What I don't know is, do I HAVE to feed it like you would a sourdough starter? Or can a vinegar mother just chill out in vinegar for a while until I get another batch of wine brewing? I'm inclined to think it can since that Braggs ACV comes with a mother in the jar at the store.

 

@ditch witch
Motomom requesting an up-date on this thread. Did you have to feed it or is it just fine as you left the thread? Have you used any since the last post?

 

I've used a lot, actually. I need to clean the jars out and redo them because there's a lot of sludge at the bottom. So it seems that if I just leave it be, the mother sinks when it's turned, but just sorta hangs out at the bottom. I added the dregs off a carboy when we were bottling, and within a few days a new one had formed on top.

 

Any mor vinegar experimental updates? @ditch witch

 

Question?
What would happen if one merely added apple juice to cider vinegar ? or vise versa .