To Make Vinegar in Three Weeks
Ingredients
Directions
Combine molasses, yeast, and warm rain water in a jug or keg.
Cover the opening with gauze to keep out flies while allowing air in.
In hot weather, place the jug in the sun.
In cold weather, set it by the store or in a chimney corner.
After three weeks, your vinegar will be ready for use.
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 sugars that yeast ferments into alcohol, which then becomes acetic acid.
- Yeast
- Ferments the sugars in the molasses and water into alcohol to start the vinegar.
- Warm rain water
- Dissolves the molasses and carries the yeast, creating the liquid that ferments.
The step that matters
Covering the opening with gauze. Acetic acid bacteria need air to turn alcohol into vinegar, so the opening must allow airflow while gauze keeps flies and debris out.
“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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