How to Make Fruit Vinegar

[Music] hello friends heidi here from rain country god is good all the time and today i'm going to be making some fruit vinegar because i realized recently that i do not have a single video that's just all by itself about how to make a fruit vinegar such as apple or peach lots more people coming in lots more questions and so i'm also hoping to answer a few more questions yet again in this video as well let me start off by saying usually when i make apple vinegar notice i'm saying apple vinegar not apple cider vinegar people make the common mistake of calling every every homemade vinegar whether it be apple or some kind of herbal vinegar or whatever it is acv well i don't know if they just don't realize that acv actually stands for apple cider vinegar and the way i'm going to be making this apple vinegar is not apple cider vinegar so let me explain the difference when you're making a fruit vinegar like apple vinegar that i'm going to be making today i'm going to be using apple pieces normally when i make apple vinegar i'm using apple peels and cores so let's say i'm cutting up a bunch of apples because i'm dehydrating them like i did here these ones go clear back to 2015 or like when i'm doing peaches i take the peels and the pits and i throw them in a jar and i make vinegar out of those i'm just making the most out of the fruit by using up the scraps that way today because we got a lot of these kind of punky apples they're real good sweet apples uh but they're from the the neighbors and they're kind of a little old so they're getting that punky and they get kind of that grainy mushy feel to them and so i'm gonna be turning some of these into vinegar the difference between that and then an apple cider vinegar is what you're doing with apple cider vinegar is you're making your apple cider first then taking that juice and turning that into a vinegar so that's the main difference between what i'm going to show you here now if i'm going to go through all the trouble to make apple cider like i did last year i made lots and lots of apple cider i'm either going to ferment it and turn it into wine or i'm going to can it or i'm going to freeze it if i want to keep it raw because apple cider fresh from the apples especially your own home-grown apples is way too good to turn around and make it into vinegar so i'm going to stick with using scraps or some fruit that has gone old now here's another question i'm going to answer before i get started on this and then i'll answer a few more after i'm done is that yes you can blend fruits or fruits and herbs or blend different herbs you can come up with whatever blend you want so if you have maybe just a couple of apples that are getting old and you want to get rid of those and like these i have a couple of limes that i forgot i had and they're just getting a little too old so i'm going to be actually making an apple lime vinegar today so yes you can blend your different fruits especially if you don't have enough of one kind to get all the fruit in there that you want you can blend five six ten different fruits into your vinegar it's all and totally up to you and it's that's what makes it so beautiful is it is a really good way to get rid of some aging fruits herbs or even vegetables out of your refrigerator if you're just not working through them fast enough so let me go ahead and get started on this vinegar so you can see how simple it is to do so i'm going to go ahead and start off with about a half cup of sugar in this so a lot of people ask me can i use monk fruit extract or can i use stevia well you can use those but you still will need to add sugar a lot of people are diabetic or they're keto or whatever but you have to realize you need sugar to make vinegar you have to have sugar you can't have a sugar substitute and uh monk when you bit by the monk fruit sugar it's not sugar actually it's it's a sweetener and it's an extract and so it doesn't have the carbohydrates in it needed in order to create vinegar so how it works is the sugars in your fruits your fruit juice and the sugars that you add get converted into alcohol which then through the exposure to oxygen gets converted into vinegar so if you have a really sweet juice like a really sweet apple cider and you want to make true apple cider vinegar you might still need to add a little bit of sugar but for a half gallon which is what i'm doing here i would recommend if you're using a juice maybe only about a quarter cup because if you put too much sugar at the start of a ferment whether it be wine or vinegar it can actually prevent it from starting to ferment or cause it to start very very slowly so what you want is to see a bubbliness within about three to four days once you've started it so i'm just gonna go ahead and chop these up you can cut them however you want i'm gonna cut these into eights well i changed my mind and decided to cut them into more pieces than that the more that is exposed to the liquid in there the more it's going to infuse better into the vinegar all right that's our ended up being a lot more full than i thought it would be and i still didn't cut up that last apple but i'm just going to stick one of the lines in this one i may just have to start another vinegar but the problem with that is i have so much vinegar as you can see just some of it back here that i'm running out of space to store it so i'm just going to go ahead and eighth up this lime now if you're curious to how i use all my different vinegars i will link to a video down below of the many uses for homemade vinegars and i think even since then i've been using them for more things so anyway now that i've got my sugar and my fruit in there you can see how full it is now the more fruit and stuff you have in there the more flavor and you can you can usually just get a better vinegar however you're going to have less room for water which means your finished product there's going to be a lot less in there i'm going to pour my filtered rain water over that and i recommend whatever water you choose to use try to stay away from your city tap water mostly it's the chlorine in the water that can affect the ferment so it's really easy to dechlorinate your water if that's all you have the fluoride isn't good for you either but the fluoride won't cause a problem with your ferment it's the only the chlorine so if you want to know how to dechlorinate your water i have several options that i laid out in the video that i'll go ahead and link to down below but this is why we like our collecting and filtering our own rainwater because we're getting away from both the fluoride and the chlorine and the chloramine because that one's a little harder to get out but i'll i explain that in that video so what i used to like to use to stir it with is a chopstick so i'm going to get down there and kind of stir up some of that sugar and it's going to be fine it's it's going to leave a layer down there but here's what's going to happen is every day for at least the first week to two weeks i'm going to be stirring this down and trying and that sugar will be dissolving and blending in with the liquid that's in here don't worry about the fruit sitting up sticking out of the top of the liquid because if you're stirring it daily it's not going to mold but if you're concerned about time your time and remembering to stir it daily or you're just concerned you're going to forget anyway then there are different ways you can weight it down now if you've been doing vinegar for a while and you already have some old ones i have several here that have scoby's that formed after being strained out and put into storage and there's this one there's a scoby you've got your sediment layer but then there's also the scoby usually what happens is the scoby is at the top but as soon as you go to move the jar the scoby will sink down to the bottom so if you have a scoby like i can strain this out take that scoby and i can lay it right over the top and then that will keep the things under the liquid or at least keep it covered so it's not going to mold and that scoby's not going to mold either and that scoby can also help get your vinegar started and so if you feel like you need to have a starter a scoby is a good way to get it going and ensure that you're going to have a good healthy vinegar you can even just pour a little vinegar from a previous batch in there or you can even add some of your own homemade fermentation starter other than doing it once for the sake of an experiment i've never added any starters to my vinegars it's just the sugar the fruit the water or the sugar the herbs and the water is all i add and but if you just are a little concerned if you already have a fermentation starter going like i have here this is red clover and dandelions and the flowers have all faded in color here's what it looked like when i first made it you can add as much as a half cup to your half gallon jar if you want and that will also just ensure that it gets going and it's going to ferment real good for you now the next thing is you can see back here i have two vinegars that are done and i have them covered with a cloth you do not want to put a tight fitting lid on your vinegar or you don't want to put any kind of airlock or you're not going to get vinegar it's only going to turn to wine you need that oxygen exposure in order for it to turn to vinegar this is why you either use a cloth with a rubber band a coffee filter with a rubber band or just a dish rag just anything that's going to allow the oxygen to be able to get in there while also releasing the gases while it's brewing now i recently had a lady who made me a bunch of these little jar covers normally i just use a piece of scrap fabric and i just reuse them i wash them and reuse them again and again so to me that's the more frugal way than using coffee filters or paper towels that you're going to need to throw away but since this lady made me these cute little jar covers with the elastic i can just do that and i don't have to bother messing around with the rubber band so that makes it that also looks really cute and so you can do this you can make yourself some little covers like this and with the elastic built-in that's just it's just super simple so then when i go to stir it so tomorrow i'll stir it or at least push it down it's like this and it's kind of hard to stir at least take your chopstick or whatever it is you have and just push that fruit down there in there and then cover it right back up now i'm going to talk about these finished vinegars here in a minute but before i do i want to answer a couple of their questions before i forget even though i have several vinegar q a videos one question i always forget to answer in those is can i make my vinegars out of dehydrated things such as dehydrated apples dehydrated strawberries or dehydrated herbs of any kind like i've got pansies here and calendula and i've made calendula and pansy and rose vinegars yes you can just keep in mind that they're dehydrated so you don't need to fill the jar up near as full with these things as you would when you're using the fresh herbs fruits and so on yes you can use cucumbers and tomatoes and whatever it is you want you can even mix your dried goods with your fresh goods just whatever it is you want to do now i don't use my dried goods for making vinegar for the same reason why i'm not going to use apple cider to make my vinegar because i have other uses for those and i'm not going to basically waste it making vinegar when i can use scraps for that just like with the citrus vinegar i always make that with citrus peels this is going to cover another question so let's say this is a jar of citrus vinegar i just got started now let's say you just have one orange peel or like right here this banana vinegar that was made only with banana peels well you might be like well who's eats that many bananas in a day that they're going to be able to start that much because you can fit quite a few whole banana peels in here when you're making this when we've got a lot of bananas patrick might eat as much as two a day usually one and what i'll do is i'll go ahead and start the vinegar with a little sugar and water and put maybe the water up about three quarters of the way and put that single banana peel in there and then what i do is just keep adding to it as he peels more bananas same thing goes with your oranges you can just peel the oranges even if you only have the peel from one orange or lemon or lime and just go ahead and get it started you already have your sugar in there which when you're talking about uh peels usually you want to add a little more sugar so i'd say at least a half cup to those or with your herbs i always use a half cup of sugar now when i'm doing herbs and banana peels actually have quite a bit of sugar in them but not all your peels do but you know like orange citrus peels don't have a lot of sugar in them so just you got your sugar water and then you just keep adding your peels to it until the jar is full and then if you feel like you got plenty of peels in there and you still have room for liquid then go ahead and top it off with more water and then let it finish its firm fermenting process yes you can do that i've done it many times now i do have a video where uh i talk about a lot of the different things that you can make vinegar out of and i did cut some juniper here i've made juniper vinegar before out of from the juniper in our front yard i've made peppermint vinegar i've made cedar vinegar now this vinegar right here this apple this one is from last year and it is still good this one was made using the pulp after i made the apple cider so here's a picture of some of the jars of vinegar i got started when i was doing all that apple cider last year i didn't turn it all into vinegar just some of the pulp some of the pulp i turned into apple butter so that's what this jar here is i have several of these from last year because i've got so much vinegar all the time now that it takes me a long time to work through what i have so it is still good it's been over a year i don't know if you can see that but my peach scobies always get the biggest this is not even near i have one in another jar sitting over there i'll take a picture of it and set it right put it right here that's twice the size of that one and i'm showing some of these just to give you some more ideas this here is a mango apple now i've done just mango and i use again the peels from the mangoes and the pits and those i know some people are concerned some people are allergic to mango peels some people can actually have a bad reaction to it but that can apply to anything so just know your limits i've actually eaten pieces of mango peels no problem we don't have any reactions to mangoes or the peels and i know many people that grew up actually eating the whole mango peel and all and never were affected by it so it's going to be dependent on your own allergies now let's get over here to this red one this is the only one out of my finished ones i'm showing you that is not a fruit vinegar this is the one i like to use to wash my hair with this one is mostly rose petals nasturtiums and marshmallow leaves now it's getting most of its color from the deep red nasturtium flowers and the rose petals and i love using that to wash my hair with that is actually the same vinegar that i used to wash my hair with today i got to come back to this because i forgot one thing so your vinegar is going to take an average of 30 days before it is done now you got to remember vinegar it's just like any ferment it's it's alive so it's going to have its own characteristics it can be done in as little as three weeks which doesn't happen to me that often but does happen sometimes or it can take five to six weeks just like so many other things in nature so just remember that remember this is this is something that's alive so don't freak out if it's done too soon or if it's taking too long to be done and how do you know it's done well one good way to tell is when it's completely done bubbling there's no fizzing no fizzy action going on at all i usually will leave mine for another week after it does that after it quits but you can also at that time strain out your fruit your herbs whatever it is and then either allow it to sit for another week or you can just jar it up or bottle it up however you want to keep it but you don't want to bottle it up tightly if it's fizzy it's if it's still working through those sugars because you could end up blowing up your bottle or losing the top so the other thing i want to mention is during this process not every vinegar will form a scoby while it's brewing i have like my i don't think i've ever got a scoby on my floral vinegars until after they've sat in storage now this one has a very thin scoby in there but uh my again my peach ones always get the biggest my apple ones sometimes get a scoby and sometimes not it's just that coming back to that uniqueness so what's important is you want to test for the flavor and the aroma and you you'll know it's vinegar because it should be tastes like very strong vinegar when it's done you can also use ph strips i would say take a little bit of your vinegar put it in a small glass run your ph strip in there and then test it to see what the ph level is you want it 3.5 no higher than 4.0 ph and that's going to give you a good acidic vinegar and then you can tell by the smell it should have that kind of um real astringent smell that kind of burns your nostrils a little bit and then you'll know it's done and it is ready like this vinegar right here this one is done this is the floral vinegar and like the other one i have there it's not as strong in color but it is done it's no longer bubbling i smell it it has that vinegar smell plus the flowers and then go ahead and taste it and see if it tastes like vinegar if it has that good tart flavor you know it's done this is the easiest way to do it there's there are several different ways you can strain it out you can simply lay a cloth over this like cheesecloth or just a clean cotton cloth and use some clothes pins to hold it in place if you don't have a nice little strainer with a handle like this i love these things and i really recommend these so they're very fine mesh you just lay that over whatever receptacle you're gonna catch your vinegar in since this is a half gallon then i have an eight cup batter bowl or measuring cup here so i know i'm not going to actually fill that up because of the herbs in there but the floral ones do tend to give me more liquid so i just strain it right through there and then to answer the next question what do i do with my fruit my herbs my whatever i just compost them especially the vinegar i've made from raisins the chickens love those even though the raisins and your apples and your fruit they're just gonna taste like vinegar they're not gonna have that strong fruit flavor and so if you can find another way to use them fine i personally have not found anything i think they would actually taste good in because there's no sweetness left all the sugar is gone because it's been turned into vinegar but the chickens still like to eat it so i just throw it out there and it's going to be good for them it's vinegar vinegar is very good for your chickens and so whatever they don't eat that just gets broken down and feeds my garden so that's what i'll be doing with this i'll just be throwing this out there to compost the chickens won't eat this they just like the fruit pieces and then i'll clean my jar up and i'll just pour it back in here and then right here i have another one of my banana mint vinegars and this is the interesting thing about these these ones the banana it's the banana peels and the mint from my garden and i just tried it on a whim thinking i would make because i was trying to use up some of the mojito mint because i get tons out of my garden plus using up the banana peels i just thought i'd throw it in there so two batches ago i did that and the surprising result was i ended up with a vinegar that though i'd planned on using it for cleaning because i didn't think it would taste very good it actually ended up tasting and smelling just like lemon juice which surprised the heck out of me i did not expect that and so those vinegars that and just like this one here it tastes and smells just like lemon juice so my third batch that i've made like this and every time i've got that lemon juice flavor and smell just like the kind you would buy in the bottle at the store so now i can save money i don't have to buy here lemons and lemon juice are expensive so i don't have to buy those things for making my sauces or adding more flavor to my jams and things i'm going to be straining that out here shortly after i finish with this later but by the way if you see a little gelatinous layer forming on the top of your vinegar while it's brewing that is just the mother if you see kind of a pale sort of almost a powdery surface that's the cam yeast it's totally safe but it can alter the flavor of your vinegar now you can try straining it out through a fine cloth and see if that helps but my guess is it's still going to just form more cam yeast if you're just going to use it for cleaning rather than using and making salad dressings and stuff then i wouldn't worry about it but none of these ended up getting the camis these ones are all good but i do get that from the time time to time but anyway the the other question is sometimes for whatever reason yes i get a vinegar that never actually finishes it starts to bubble it does does great let's just say let's say it was this one and it doesn't look real pretty right now but it will look better once it's strained it started out great it was bubbling and maybe even when you strain it out it seems like it has a good flavor and a good smell but you go back a few months later and it's it doesn't have any flavor or smell dump it out especially if you see mold growing on top dump it out that means it somewhere along the way it didn't get acidic enough and so now it's spoiled so you can have your vinegar seem like it's doing good but if it doesn't have enough sugar at least a quarter cup to a half cup some people even use a whole cup i don't never do that because it can stop or prevent the ferment but if you don't have enough sugar it might bubble and start to turn into wine and then vinegar but then it will come to a stop because it's worked through all the sugars and then it and if it's not acidic enough to prevent any kind of bacteria growth or mold growth at that point then it's it's no good and so you just got to start again it happens it happens to me too it could be and i haven't figured out why other than the fact that maybe i thought i added sugar to that vinegar and i probably just forgot all about it so all the sugar had to work on was the sugar that was in the fruit and it wasn't quite enough so just keep those things in mind and don't get discouraged if your first or second batch doesn't turn out it could just be a step that you missed or it could just be the fact that for whatever reason that vinegar the the microbes in there just didn't have what it took to get going again it's a living thing when it's fermenting and it's always and each vinegar can act very different just like the size of the scobys i either get none i get little skinny ones or i get big huge fat ones and it doesn't mean one is more healthy than the other it's all good as long as you've got that tartness and a five percent acidity you're good to go this is roughly the color your apple vinegar will be but even that can change i've got peach vinegars that look very very peachy and some that look more yellow i mean they all are different don't let that disturb you either if your vinegar's not the same exact color besides apples you might be using apples with red peels on them and so that's going to give it a deeper color than these ones here that have the very light color just like this all right well i hope you're able to glean some valuable information from this video i'll go ahead and link down below my playlist to the very many other vinegars and q a videos that i have if you're just wanting to learn more about vinegars and what all types you can make and why all right well thanks for watching take care and god bless you

Channel: Rain Country

Views: 52,167

Rating: 4.9567256 out of 5

Keywords: traditional, old-ways, Health, Garden, Frugal, Homesteading, Self-Sustainability, Cooking, DIY, Homemade, natural-living, herbs, prepping, preparedness, food storage, preserving

Id: depySASTPrw

Length: 25min 6sec (1506 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 03 2020