To Make Vinegar in Three Weeks
Ingredients
Directions
Combine molasses, yeast, and rainwater in a jug or keg.
Cover the opening with a piece of gauze to keep out flies and allow air in.
In hot weather, place the jug in the sun; in cold weather, set it by the stove or in a chimney corner.
After three weeks, your vinegar will be ready.
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
- Molasses
- Provides sugar that the yeast ferments into alcohol, which then becomes acetic acid.
- Yeast
- Starts the fermentation that converts the sugars into alcohol.
- Rainwater
- Dilutes the molasses to a liquid volume where fermentation can proceed.
The step that matters
Covering the opening with gauze. Gauze keeps insects out while still letting air reach the liquid. Acetic acid bacteria need oxygen to turn the alcohol into vinegar, so a sealed container would stall the process.
“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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