Name: Recipe for Making Vinegar
Ingredients: 3 gallons rainwater; 1 pint yeast; 1 quart molasses

Recipe for Making Vinegar

Ingredients

3 gallons rainwater
1 pint yeast
1 quart molasses

Directions

Combine rainwater, yeast, and molasses in a large container.
Cover the container and place it in direct sunlight.
Let the mixture stand for 4 to 6 weeks.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Yeast: Starts fermentation, converting the sugars in the molasses into alcohol that vinegar bacteria later turn into acetic acid.
Molasses: Supplies sugars that the yeast ferments first and then the acetic acid bacteria oxidise into vinegar.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.