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Apple Vinegar

A fermented apple liquid made by boiling apple cores and parings with salt water, sugar or molasses, yeast, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Apple Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Save the parings and cores from cooking apples, ensuring they are sound.

  2. Place them in a large crock and add enough salt water to cover them.

Ferment

  1. When the crock is nearly full, add 1 cup of brown sugar or molasses and 1 cup of yeast for every 6 to 8 quarts of water.

  2. Stir well and keep the crock in a warm place, covering it with cheesecloth to keep out insects.

Strain and store

  1. After about two weeks, strain the mixture and transfer it to glass vessels.

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

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apple parings and cores
Provide the fruit flavor and the natural sugars that start the fermentation.
Brown sugar or molasses
Feeds the yeast, supplying the sugar that ferments into alcohol and then vinegar.
Yeast
Converts the sugars into alcohol, which the vinegar bacteria later turn into acetic acid.

The step that matters

Covering the crock with cheesecloth. Cheesecloth keeps insects and dust out while still letting air reach the mixture. Vinegar-making bacteria need oxygen to turn the alcohol into acetic acid, so a sealed lid can stall or spoil the batch.

“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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