Name: To Make Vinegar
Ingredients: 1 quart molasses; 1 pint yeast; 3 gallons warm rain water

To Make Vinegar

Ingredients

1 quart molasses
1 pint yeast
3 gallons warm rain water

Directions

Make the vinegar

Combine molasses, yeast, and warm rain water in a jug or crock.
Cover the opening with gauze to keep out insects while allowing air in.
In hot weather, place it in the sun; in cold weather, set it by the stove or in a warm corner.

Keep it going

After three weeks, you will have good vinegar.
When the vinegar is getting low, refill with the same proportions to maintain a steady supply.

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

Molasses: Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol, which later becomes vinegar.
Yeast: Starts the fermentation that converts the sweet liquid into alcohol.
Warm rain water: Dissolves the molasses and carries the yeast, creating the liquid base for fermentation.

“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.