Search any homesteader or natural remedy blog, and the search is bound to turn up at least one post on apple cider vinegar. It is so ubiquitous that it even has a hip nickname - ACV; not to be confused with Rachel Ray's EVOO (extra virgin olive oil). The uses of ACV are far-ranging, from medicinal to home cleaner. I am looking at the fall issue of edible-Madison, and it has an article on fire cider, made in part with ACV. I cannot speak to the effectiveness of ACV outside of an ingredient for cooking, but I do know it is easy to make.
The compound that makes ACV, well, vinegar, is acetic acid. This compound, an organic acid, is formed through the aerobic (in the presence of oxygen) transformation of ethanol. And that is the key to understanding how to make ACV. There are many routes to ACV, and it all begins with apples. In fact, apples are the starting point for a host of beverages.
Apples are pressed to release their juice, creating apple cider. One can stop here and simply enjoy the cider. Pasteurize the cider by heating it to 190 F for 10 minutes, transfer to canning jars, and process using the water bath canning method - most Ball canning books have a recipe for apple juice.
Pressing on (pun intended), one can make ACV two ways. The first is starting with apple cider (the AC in ACV). Apple cider is placed in a glass or food-safe plastic container, and sealed with an airlock. The cider is allowed to ferment naturally through an anaerobic process (no oxygen) using yeasts that are present on the apples and thus in the cider. A more controlled method is to purchase yeast from a homebrewer store or website specifically for making wine or hard cider. The yeast converts the sugars in the cider to ethanol. One can ditch the ACV, and drink the product at this point as a still (uncarbonated) apple wine. Bottle the fermented cider with some priming sugar, and the residual yeast will form a bit more ethanol and, more importantly, carbon dioxide, to create a carbonated hard apple cider.
If you are still intent on making ACV, transfer your apple wine to a large jar and cover with cheesecloth. This allows air (and oxygen) to reach the liquid. Over time, microorganisms will convert the ethanol to acetic acid. A SCOBY (symbiotic community of bacteria and yeast) may form. Many recipes call for adding an unpasteurized ACV (such as Bragg's) to seed your solution and hasten fermentation.
The second method to make ACV is to use apple scraps from piemaking, canning, or juicing, or simply cutting up a bunch of apples. The apple pieces are placed in a clean glass jar, filling the jar about 3/4-full. Add unchlorinated water and sugar at the ratio of 1 cup water and 1 tablespoon sugar to the jar until full. Cover with an airlock or cheesecloth for a couple of weeks to allow conversion of the sugars to ethanol. The solids are then strained and the liquid placed in a clean jar and covered with cheesecloth. As with the previous method, the liquid can be seeded with unpasteurized ACV. This method technically produces apple scrap vinegar, since you are not starting with cider. Because the sugars in the apple solids are less accessible to the microorganisms than in a liquid cider, you may end up with a weaker solution. A weak vinegar is essentially kombucha, so here is yet another beverage you can make with your apples.
We were late in picking apples this year, but I still have a 1-gallon batch of hard cider in process, along with a 1/2-gallon of cider that I will use to make ACV, and a 1/2-gallon jar of apple scraps. I am using Lalvin D-47 wine yeast for my hard cider. Since I am only making a gallon of hard cider, I only used half the yeast packet, and then added some of the leftover yeast to my other jars to kickstart the ethanol production. At the moment, all three containers are on the same anaerobic patch. Soon, I will need to keep the containers separate and maintain good sanitation as I do not want to ruin my hard cider by introducing vinegar bacteria.
Confused? Apples are the basis of many farm products. It all depends on whether you want no fermentation (apple cider), an alcoholic beverage (still wine, hard cider), a mildly fermented beverage (kombucha), or a cure-all (ACV). Here are a few tips, based on my research, chemistry background, and homebrewing experience:
Sanitation is essential. While you may want to use natural microorganisms, that is not a license to be sloppy. Wash and sterilize your glassware and equipment. I used a dilute bleach solution when I started homebrewing, but now use homebrewing sanitizers such as EasyClean or Star San. This gives you more control over the microbial community and better odds of success.
You can use an airlock to first create anaerobic conditions and then switch to cheesecloth to let air in and encourage conversion of ethanol to acetic acid. or simply use cheesecloth. I suspect the cheesecloth method will allow facultative microorganisms (ones that live in both aerobic and anaerobic conditions) to convert the sugars to ethanol and then to acetic acid. There are plenty of recipes that follow this approach, especially for apple scrap vinegar. In my opinion, it is more efficient to first use anaerobic conditions to create the ethanol, and then aerobic conditions to create the acetic acid. This approach also allows you to filter the solids (racking, in homebrewing terms) between steps and remove the dead yeast cells that accumulate at the bottom of your container.
Glass or plastic containers only - acetic acid will react with metals.
The more exposed surface area, the better to allow oxygen to reach the surface of the liquid for aerobic respiration. For anaerobic fermentation, a narrow opening is usually preferred. I have a 1-gallon carboy with a homebrewing airlock on my hard cider. I currently have a wide-mouth fermentation airlock on my ACV cider to try that out.
Do not use homemade ACV for canning or food preservation. Commercial ACV has 5% acetic acid; you do not have control over the amount of acetic acid in your homemade ACV nor can you measure it. Want an official warning? Read this pamphlet from the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Service.
Once your ethanol is fully converted to acetic acid (2 to 4 weeks), your ACV should be placed in a sealed container to inhibit the introduction of more oxygen. Sandor Katz's "The Art of Fermentation" indicates that continued exposure of oxygen will allow the Acetobacter to convert the acetic acid to water and carbon dioxide, weakening the solution. In past ACV efforts, I used porcelain bail-top beer bottles. These bottles are attractive, have a narrow neck to reduce surface area, and seal tightly. Katz's book includes a nice writeup on vinegar, if you have this book in you homesteader library.
Happy brewing!
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