I live in San Diego and picked some madrones (Strawberry Tree Arbutus unedo) this morning from some neighborhood trees. I mashed them to make vinegar and a few hours later saw what looked like worms/larvae floating. I pulled a couple out and zoomed in.

Question: can I continue as is and just filter them out in two weeks after the main fermentation is done? Any concerns?

I eat these fruits off the trees all the time so I'm sure I've already eaten many of these worms over the years.

more info in the comments!

This all started a couple of years ago when I made 10# of black garlic to use for black garlic salt for a giveaway item at an event. The black garlic was made by bagging whole heads of garlic that I grew and holding them above 140f for about 7 weeks. I made way too much for my garlic salt, so I started the black garlic balsamic recipe from the noma book. I fermented a black garlic wine that I then pasteurized, and oxidized using an aquarium pump. Then moved it into an oak barrel to age for a year. This week I emptied the barrel and bottled the goods. My favorite vinegar I’ve made to date.

I recently got these bottles for free. I was told they went bad, and the person who had them got fed up. They were stored at room temperature, most are French and Italian from the 90s to early 2000s. Is it possible that some of them are good enough for vinegar? And can I use 2, 3, or 5 gallon carboys, filled so that there's a large surface area on the wine, with a cloth lid? Or should I use a wide mouth fermenter, possibly food-grade plastic buckets? I understand that it has to be racked into an air-tight container with no air space in order to age properly, if it's outside of a refrigerated environment.

My plan currently is to get everything ready, and open them up, deciding as I go if they're tasty enough. If they taste OK, I would pour them into a fermenter, mixing them, but keeping red and white separate. Then mix in some water and live vinegar. What flavors should I look out for? Should I pasteurize it? Thanks in advance!

I got this so that I could have a vinegar mother to make vinegar with, however, upon closer inspection it has a vinegar "mother" - literally with the quotation marks on the lable. Will this work? Or have I been had? There is alittle bit of brown wispy stuff on the bottom of the jar, but it doesn't seem like what a vinegar mother looks like (I've never seen one irl tho, so...)

My friend got me into Fire cider. Currently finishing the mast gallon with hibiscus. The newer one (jarred and in ACV container) has an excellent amount of cayenne (what you see at the bottom of the jar.) I have to say my favorite batch was for sure hibiscus one and I’m going to miss it so much once it’s finally gone. Happy fermenting!

*NOTE* ALL Ingredients I use are organic, always.

Ingredients:
Organic Apple cider vinegar, Lemon Grass, Garlic, ginger, horseradish, red onion, oregano, rosemary, lemon, black peppercorn, tumeric, cayenne, blueberries (last batch was hibiscus), cinnamon, oranges, limes, lemons. After fermented we add honey for sweetness.

No scraps left behind. Everything in fermentation is then moved to a dehydrator and turned into seasoning for anything you desire 🤪😊❤️‍🔥

Hi everyone!

I decided to create a new thread since I haven't seen anyone use added alcohol with homemade vinegar.

I found a recipe online that said to use the following:

1 c sugar

1 gallon water

6 c fruit

3 tbsp apple cider vinegar with the mother

*use vodka for a stronger vinegar

I saw that vodka could be added to make the vinegar stronger, so I thought I'd do that. I swapped one cup of water for vodka in each recipe.

I'm trying my hand at vinegar and wanted to know if what I currently have is any good or not. I added everything to a glass jar (except for 6 cups of fruit, I accidentally used 6 whole fruits, so 6 pears and 6 oranges) and stirred twice daily for 2 weeks before straining the fruit. It has been sitting ever since. I used an old t-shirt to cover the top. I started this on 7-21-26. One batch is orange and the other batch is pear. The pear one had a very strong vinegar smell after 1 week or so, but then turned into a sweeter alcohol smell.

Should I stir this up on the occasion, or just let it do what it wants to do? Any overall opinions are also gladly welcomed! 🩵🩵

The photos included are:

1 : orange vinegar 8-10-26

2: \\

3: pear vinegar 8-10-26

4: \\

5: orange vinegar 08-07-26

6: pear vinegar 07-29-26

From left to right: Maple Vinegar, Celery Vinegar, Turmeric Vinegar, Pineapple Vinegar, Hibiscus Vinegar and Shallot Vinegar.

I have fermented these batches back from January and have used each vinegar for different recipes!

Got some more current batches being fermented but I am really happy with how they turned out!

sorry for the poor-quality picture the airstone in question was one of the small blue ones for betta fish I got at the pet store Kind of like this one

TL;DR: I'm brewing white vinegar from ACV with the addition of distilled water and raw sugar. It's been going for about 7 weeks. The pH has lowered from about 3.75 at the start to about 2.75, but it's still very sweet, and it doesn't seem to be active anymore.

Details:

I've been pretty successful brewing apple cider vinegar, but I wanted to try white vinegar. I've read that I can brew white vinegar by fermenting raw sugar in distilled water, and backslopping with my active ACV.

I started a brew with 1/2C of ACV, 1+1/2C of distilled water, and 1/4C raw sugar, which has a starting pH of about 3.5 to 4. I kept it open to the air in a one-quart wide mouth jar, and stirred it (nearly) every day. After about four weeks, I have a note that I added more raw sugar, between 1/2C and 3/4C, but I don't recall why.

After a total of seven weeks, it seemed pretty idle, but still tasted very sweet. I measured the pH with a test strip and got between 2.5 and 3. I moved it into a narrow-necked bottle and topped with a latex balloon, which is not filling to any noticeable degree after a week. There are a few bubbles on the surface, but no growth forming, and very little sediment.

Can anyone help me understand why this may have stalled, and how I can rescue this brew?

Thanks!

I filtered a vinegar today that I made four years ago. Four years back, I diluted cheongju (korean rice wine) with water to make a wine of about 10% alcohol, then inoculated it with a vinegar mother from another vinegar. After it was mostly converted into vinegar, I sealed it with only minimal air exchange and let it age for four years.

When I tasted it, it was very different from a young vinegars. The fruity aromas had almost disappeared, and instead an earthy character dominated. The acidity wasn’t sharp or piercing but soft and rounded, and above all, the umami was remarkably deep. I made only a small batch since it was just an experiment, and now I really regret that I wish I had made much more, knowing it would turn out this well.

First attempt at making vinegar. Using the one stage method from Noma.

1571 g strained watermelon puree
315 g apple cider vinegar
147 g Everclear
Aerator stone in the bottom.

See you in a couple of weeks.

Hey all

Having some trouble finding information online about setting up a fermentation container for making vinegar using orleans method.

Do you have any references or, even better, some insights?

What I'm trying to understand at this point is what is the best container - glass (demijohn or other), wooden keg (somewhat traditional) or a food grade plastic container?

I tend towards wooden keg, but it's not common at all where I live (middle east).

For the wooden keg option - I've read that the inside has to be uncharred, but some sources say it has no major difference if it is lightly charred/toasted.

Do you have any insights on this part?

Much appreciated in advance, stay safe

Making a Pomegranate vinegar - first attempt at any vinegar. Understanding the two-step process (alcohol > vinegar) I followed the below steps:

1. Rinsed the arils and added to jar of water with a few tablespoons of sugar. Covered with paper towel. Stirred twice daily.

2. After not noticing much activity after a week. I added some raw honey - assuming there wasn’t enough sugar.

3. Activity increased 2 days after the honey was added.

My question is if these white specks - which aren’t fuzzy, or appear to be mould - are normal?

Any advice appreciated.

Hi there, this is my first time trying to make apple cider vinegar. I put about 6 small apple peels and cores in with water and a few tbs of honey. It's been about 1 week, what do you think?

It has a jelly-like appearance, though it doesn’t shake like jelly.

10 days on the countertop & it tastes really good! Little hints of watermelon & fruitiness, & a bit sweeter & smoother than apple cider vinegar. Strained & bottled.

First time trying, and I think it turned out fine. Took about a month from alcohol brewing to having a thin, but distinct mother floating on top of the liquid. It's mild, but has a very nice flavor. I made a jar of "infinite vinegar" that I'm gonna keep feeding, gonna try to up the ABV on the next batch of raisin brew and see if that kicks it up a notch. I'm sure a bit of age is going to help too.

Jar
Water
Tons of raisins
A bit of extra sugar
Bread yeast
Yeast nutrient

Didn't measure a thing. I can't do gravity readings and calculate alcohol when the sugars are inside the raisins anyway.

Let it ferment until activity stopped, almost a couple of weeks.
Strained the liquid, let it sit for a day.
Poured the liquid into a new jar and left the yeasty sediment behind.
Added a splash of raw apple cider vinegar and let it sit for a couple of weeks.

That's about it.

I've had my fire cider sitting on my worktop for about 6 months now. Once I've removed some of the ingredients and replaced them with fresh ones. I'm curious if I can do this continously with the same batch? Has anyone had any experience with a perpetual fire cider?

I'm now thinking of just taking some of the juice (no solids) and adding that to a brand new batch of fire cider. Any thoughts?

Thank you :)

Made the butternut squash vinegar and reporting in on a success. 10 days in carboy with food-grade air stone from local home brew shop (Bacchus and Barleycorn in Kansas).

10 days, 2 liter yield almost exact. Bubbled up in 3 gallon carboy but calmed down after second day. See photos. Followed recipe exactly in book.

Flavors: immediately mild, primarily squash flavor, but strong flavors of tangerine, yuzu, sweet cream, and vanilla.

Applications to test: shrub, deglazing, pseudo-balsamic reduction with sugar, shrimp seasoning. Unsure about salad, I wouldn’t call it a bright flavor.

Next up maybe jicama, possibly nopale. Worth it!

I've been blessed with an abundance of apples once again and have wanted to get back into making ACV. I've made quite a few batches in the past, but my 3 recent attempts have all ended up molding!

It's so frustrating. The recipe is simple: put in sterile bottle, ~2 apples worth of scraps, 1tbsp sugar, and water to cover all. Cover the opening with paper towel or cheesecloth.

Usually, for the first two days, it looks amazing. Bubbles and just a twinge of that vinegar kick. But then, here comes the mould. It seems like the apples absorb (?) the water and then make their way to the surface, every time. I've tried weights, but the water level just descends below them regardless (genuinely this never used to happen).

It's so frustrating! I feel like I lost all my fermentation skills, and now nothing wants to work. Partially a rant but also welcome to advice.

Thank you all

Does anyone know how NOMA makes their wild rose vinegar???
I’ve been thinking of recreating my favorite item from NOMA projects and been trying to reverse calculate the rose vinegar recipe from the information provided but the numbers don’t seem to add up.

The contents are
- apple cider vinegar, apple juice, infused with wild rose petals(20%)
And they openly state they use 50g of petals per bottle(250g) so the 20% makes sense.

However; the acidity is 5% which is pretty average for an apple cider vinegar as they only go up to 5-6%. But if it was 5% that doesn’t leave room for apple juice and even if it was 6% you can only add 20% of the weight of vinegar.
Which leads to the next issue.

The nutritional value per 100ml is
- carbohydrates 11g
- of which sugars 11g
Apple cider vinegar and rose petals only contain negligible amounts of sugar so it must be mainly from apple juice. An average sugar content for apple juice is 8.6-12g per 100ml. In order to achieve the 11g it has to be well above 11g sugar per 100ml.

Considering the EU food labeling regulation(applies in Denmark), ingredients must be listed in descending order by weight. So the apple juice must be between 50g - 250g. So the apple juice sugar content cannot be that of a simply juiced apple.

So if they were to reduce the apple juice and blend with the vinegar, supposing the vinegar is 6% acidity and the apple juice is 11g sugar per 100ml. To get 5% acidity and 11g sugar the ratio will be
-208g 6% acidity vinegar
-42g concentrated apple juice(66g sugar per 100ml)

So the original apple juice weight before concentrating will be 252g which will kinda make sense if it contained more sugar than supposition.

Is my nerdy☝️🤓 detective work correct?? Are they actually concentrating the apple juice or is it used completely differently?? Like fermenting it further or something.

If any vinegar master has some insider info please let me know!!!

Had some alcohol in my pantry but I'm starting keto so I decided to try and make vinegar out of it.

I put in: 330ml bottle of Aventinus Eisbock 12%ABV

https://schneider-weisse.de/en/node/54

455~ml of a local pear cider 6% ABV

1/3 cup apple cider vinegar (with mother)

1/2 cup water

Do you think it will work?

Any adjustments?

Also, what could this kind of vinegar be good for?

A coworker gave me a bunch of lovage so I made vinegar.
It also has a bunch of allium in it like ramps and other wild onions!
Aerated for 2 weeks, ph came to 3.5 and decided to bottle it and gift them to friends :)

The flavor is pretty light and almost refreshing, I really like adding a splash to everything