ACV - Newbie

Mead, wine, beer, and any other form of alcoholic beverages, as well as vinegar.

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ACV - Newbie

Postby alisoncc on Sat Apr 23, 2016 11:31 pm

Been making Kefir and Sauerkraut for quite some time now - successfully todate. Now trying my hand at Apple Cider Vinegar.

Very little about it in Sandor's book "Art of Fermentation" so hit the Web. Bought a 1 gallon (3 ltr) jar, after washing and rinsing thoroughly carefully half filled with boiling water. Cooled boiled tap water is considered safe for sauerkraut, and it also sterilised the bottle. When cool, added a cup of raw sugar, washed and chopped up half a dozen largish green apples, which I added. Pushed down into the liquid, and covered with cloth secured by elastic band, giving it a good stir every day.

Some sites seem to feel that oxygen is necessary for the initial stages so apple above the liquid is beneficial (aerobic bacteria). Whilst others insist to treat it like sauerkraut with everything below the water level (anaerobic bacteria). Left mine above the liquid.

After 9 days with lots of fizzing on top, and the liquid at the bottom getting quite thick and opaque, tasted the liquid. It smelt good and tasted like fizzy apple juice. But it didn't taste like hard cider, a prerequisite for ACV.
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My question to those who frequent this site is: how long should it take to turn into cider? And is my current process acceptable?

Alison
Rev Mother Bene Gesserit.

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Re: ACV - Newbie

Postby Tibor on Sun Apr 24, 2016 12:38 pm

I tried making ACV by simply taking unfiltered apple juice not from concentrate, added some chopped fresh apples and some sugar and covered it with a cloth. Sandor wrote that it could be as simple as that. Well, it didn't work out. Reading up some more , it seemed that the best way to do it is to first make it alcoholic with an airlock and then put it into a wide jar with a cloth on it to turn it to vinegar. Sandor kind of covers it a bit in The Art of Fermentation.
So almost 3 months ago, I left the same kind of juice in a bottle with a very narrow top-nothing added- with a cloth on it for a few days to catch wild yeasts and then put on an airlock for 2 months. That smelled alcoholic as it progressed. Then on the 10th of this month I moved it into a wide half gallon sized jar and it's smelling like vinegar now. I was planning on leaving it for another week but just tried it so I can tell you how it's going.
Well it's definitely vinegar and not bad at all, but a bit bland. I'm pretty pleased. I'm going to let it continue and report back later.
Soon I'm going to try again and this time after I make hard cider and move it out of an airlock, I'm planning on adding Braggs raw vinegar to give it a kick start as Sandor suggests. Also I think I'm going to add sugar to the juice when I get started making the hard cider. I'm wondering if anyone has experience on which apples makes the best sweetest vinegar ?
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