Recipe for Making Vinegar
Ingredients
Directions
Combine rainwater, yeast, and molasses in a large container.
Cover the container and place it in a sunny spot.
Let the mixture stand for 4 to 6 weeks.
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
- Rainwater
- Forms the liquid base in which the yeast and sugars ferment.
- Yeast
- Starts the fermentation that converts sugars into alcohol.
- Molasses
- Supplies sugars that the yeast ferments, providing food for the process.
The step that matters
Cover the container while it stands. A cover keeps dust, insects and stray microbes out while still allowing air exchange. Alcohol made by yeast is then oxidised by acetic acid bacteria into vinegar, so the vessel must stay open to air but protected from contaminants.
“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.
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