If you’re looking for a fun winter project to whisk away those cold, dark nights, you can make your own super bougie vinegars!
While this post isn’t going to be the “be all, end all” of DIY vinegars, making your own vinegar is a rather simple process. Especially if you have basic fermentation equipment at the ready!
In our case, we made a pear based vinegar, using up various peels, cores and scraps from some pears we brought in awhile back. With a little bit of sugar and an inoculation from a biologically active (non-pasteurized) vinegar to establish a “mother”, we were able to kick off a nice fermentation. This process ferments for several weeks, after which point you can bottle up your very own gourmet vinegar.
This process is extremely similar to traditional fermentation of food. But, instead of aiming for lactobacillus and the creation of lactic acids, we’re promoting acetic acid producing bacteria and the production of acetic acids. So, it’s basically the same process, just different bacteria.
But, unlike with food fermentation, you will see what is called a “pellicle” develop in home made vinegars. This is an alien looking substance that rests on the water’s surface of the fermentation. You might think it looks like mold, but it’s really just proteins and cellulose created by the bacteria. This can put some people off, but this exact same thing makes any vinegar you would buy commercially. You often just don’t see it, since many store bought vinegars are highly filtered and also pasteurized.
As with all fermentations, it’s important to use both clean and sanitized equipment. Since we’re creating “ideal” conditions for bacterial growth in this process, we want to make sure the only bacteria that we’re growing are the ones we intend. That’s where sanitization (or sterilization) comes in, it’s a necessary step beyond typical cleaning.
Even if something like this scares you a bit, you can use this same process to make very inexpensive vinegar. This can be a base ingredient in things like weed killer, cleaning agents and other common ways to use vinegars. This can be a good way to practice fermentation to build your confidence in the process. You can also go through a DIY version of pasteurization, too, though this will eliminate the natural probiotics found in natural vinegars.
We just wrapped up bottling up this year’s vinegar and wow is it a tasty one! There’s lots of things you can do on the flavor front for various vinegars, but the pear is definitely a winner! We were able to pull a couple of quarts of vinegar and it was extremely inexpensive to make, mostly just scraps that we’d compost anyway.
