How to Make Homemade Vinegar

Homemade vinegar will add a whole new taste to your salad dressings. After you make apple jelly from "How to Make Apple Jelly," you can use the remaining peelings and pulp to make vinegar. Fall apples make the best cider for vinegar. This recipe yields 5 gallons.

Things You'll Need

• Apples
• Cheesecloth
• Wines Yeast

Instructions

1. Wash and core apples. 20 pounds of apple pulp will equal roughly 1 gallon of juice. You can also use fresh apple cider.

2. Crush apples and press through cheesecloth for juice. You can use a cider press to crush the apples and squeeze the juice in larger quantities.

3. Make starter by adding 1 package of wine yeast to 1 quart of juice.

4. Pour starter into a stone crock or a food-grade plastic bucket and add enough cider to make 5 gallons.

5. Cover with cheesecloth or lay lid lightly on bucket.

6. Stir mixture daily and keep at around 60-80 F degrees, and avoid exposing to direct sunlight. After a few weeks, the mix should start to smell like vinegar.

7. Taste vinegar periodically until a desired flavor is reached.

8. Filter vinegar through several layers of cheesecloth or a coffee filter.

9. Pasteurize vinegar by heating it to 140 F degrees, but do not exceed 160 degrees.

10. Pour hot vinegar into hot sterilized bottles.

11. Cool vinegar and store at room temperature out of direct sunlight.

Tips & Warnings

• You can learn to flavor your homemade vinegar by reading "How to Make Herbal Vinegar."

• If you don't have a cider press you can place the apples in a clean pillow case, crush the apples with a mallet, and squeeze the juice through the cotton pillowcase.

• Call your local orchard and see if they make a fresh apple cider. This will save you the step of making your own juice.

• Homemade vinegar is not good for canning because of its varied acidity.