Apple Cider Vinegar Recipe
Making Apple Cider Vinegar From Scraps
Like apple juice, the best apple cider vinegars are organic, unfiltered and raw (unpasteurized). Depending on where you live it may be hard to find really good apple cider vinegar.
Fortunately, it’s easy and very inexpensive to make. It just takes some time, naturally, to ferment. This varies depending on which of the two methods below you choose to use. This article will show you how to make apple cider vinegar using two different methods.
Method One – Make Apple Cider Vinegar From Scraps
This method uses scraps, like the peels and cores. I like this method because I get to eat my apples and make vinegar too. It’s also faster, taking around two months to complete the process.
You’ll need:
a large bowl or wide-mouth jar
apple scraps, preferably from organic apples
a piece of cheesecloth for covering the jar to keep out flies and debris
Leave the scraps to air. They’ll turn brown, which is exactly what you want. Add the apple scraps to the jar and top it up with water.
You can continue to add scraps for a few more days if you want. If you’re going to do this though, be sure don’t top the jar right up, leave some room for the new scraps.
Cover with the cheesecloth and put it in a warm, dark place. A water cylinder cupboard is perfect.
You’ll notice the contents of the jar starts to thicken after a few days and a grayish scum forms on top. When this happens, stop adding scraps and leave the jar for a month or so to ferment.
After about a month you can start taste-testing it. When it’s just strong enough for you, strain out the apple scraps and bottle the vinegar.
It’s ok if your vinegar is cloudy, there will be some sediment from the apples and what’s known as “the mother”. It’s all good. If you don’t like the cloudiness though, straining it through a paper coffee filter will remove most of the sediment.
Method Two – Make Apple Cider Vinegar From Whole Apples
This method uses whole, organic apples and takes about 7 months to ferment into vinegar.
You’ll need:
10 Whole organically-grown apples
a glass bowl, and later a larger glass bowl
a piece of cheesecloth to cover the bowls
Wash the apples and cut into quarters. You can optionally core and peel them. If you do the scraps can be used to make apple cider vinegar by method one, above.
Let the apples air and turn brown. Then put them into the smaller bowl and cover with water.
Cover the bowl with the cheesecloth and leave in a warm, dark place for 6 months. Again, a hot water cupboard is ideal.
After the 6 months is up, you’ll notice a grayish scum on the surface of the liquid. This is normal. Strain the liquid through a coffee filter into the larger bowl, and leave it for another 4-6 weeks, covered with the cheesecloth.
And there you have it, your own homemade apple cider vinegar
How to use Apple Cider Vinegar
Homemade Apple Cider Vinegar
There are lots of ways to use apple cider vinegar. It can be used diluted with water as a hair rinse (don’t worry – the smell disappears quickly), you can also mix with water or fruit juice and drink it. Find out more about the benefits of using apple cider vinegar, and here’s a recipe for an apple cider vinegar tonic that works especially well if you have nocturnal leg cramps:
A simple tonic can be made from 1-2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar, 1 teaspoon honey in a cup of warm water.
What’s the best apple cider vinegar to buy?
The next best thing to your own homemade cider vinegar is Bragg’s Apple Cider Vinegar Raw, Organic, Unfiltered, with the ‘mother’. You can order it online in 16 fl oz size and 32 fl oz size. If it’s your first order with them use the discount code WEZ300 to get a bit of a discount off their already great prices.
Want to learn more about the benefits of apple cider vinegar?
Related posts:
26 Responses to “Apple Cider Vinegar Recipe”
Comments
Read below or add a comment...
Leave A Comment...
Probiotics for Health
Healing With The Masters Free Teleseminar
Green Smoothies – Free Course
You only want Apple Cider Vinegar with the mother in.
That is too cool – I have a apple cider vinegar I just started and I guess I cheated! I juiced the apples then added champagne vinegar to it. That is so smart to use just the scraps though – I am going to try that next time. It seems much more traditional (and frugal lol).
Great site Donna!
Why is there such a difference in time for fermentation? It seems like it should be about the same since you are using the same ingredients…
I’ve wondered the same thing myself Jenn. The only reason I can think of, now that I have more experience with fermentation processes, is that using the whole apples you get more sugar, so the micro-organisms have more work to do and will take longer to metabolize that amount of sugar. With just the peels and cores, a much higher proportion of the brew is water, so the overall sugar content is going to be much lower. I’ve only actually made and tasted the peels and core version of this cider vinegar recipe, but I imagine the whole apple version has a stronger flavor.
is it okay to not use cider vinegar??
Hi joie. I’m not sure what you’re asking exactly… not use cider vinegar for the tonic? Use a different type vinegar, maybe? I’d say, no. Although other vinegars have other uses, the apple cider vinegar is the most beneficial and I wouldn’t recommend using, say white vinegar, for anything where you take it internally. I use it for cleaning purposes, great for that. Although white vinegar may not harm you, I really don’t know about the long term effects, but it’s not going to be beneficial in the ways apple cider vinegar is. I don’t use much apple cider vinegar now, because I make and drink a lot of kombucha which has really similar benefits, but I find it much tastier. I use kombucha in recipes too, salad dressings and the like, very much like I would use cider vinegar.
Are you having trouble find good quality apple cider vinegar? I may be able to help with some links to where you can buy it online, just let me know.
this site is so wonderfully helpful. i live in the Bahamas and recently opened a living food eatery… please always provide links for resources. thanks so much and if you are ever in this part of the world…please reach out!
its very good for weight loss
@fatima: thanks for commenting! I have read that ACV is good for weight loss, a lot of people actually rave about it.
ACV is the bomb! I discovered it last month when my BF was sick. I gave him 2T ACV and 6oz OJ. Right away it reduced fever aches and caughing. Since then I have been taking daily for my own health and detox. I have experienced many benefits to include sinuses clearing, body pain relieved, no heart burn in the last month, regular digestive system just to name a few. I started using the regular store brand ACV but they say to use the stuff with “the mother in it” which is the organic stuff. I have experienced great results off the store brand but will one day try the organic stuff. I have even lost a few pounds but at 120 already I need to watch it.
@Megan wow, thanks for taking the time to comment and report on those awesome results! And all from store bought ACV too, that’s great news because I’d never used the regular store bought kind I wasn’t sure how beneficial it really was. I’m sure you’ll notice even more benefits when you get raw (unpasteurized), organic, unfiltered (with the mother still in) ACV. Do try making some of your own too, if you can get hold of organic apples especially, but even if not it should still be better than the store bought kind. It’s really easy to do. I’ve just made my first batch of sauerkraut, which I love and it’s so good for you (I’ll be writing an article about it soon) and it was so easy. I had always had this idea that it was really hard to do. I thought you needed to have a special container and you needed juniper berries, and had to do it just right or it would go off. What I found is that it couldn’t be easier! Really it was just so simple I wish I’d started sooner! And all modesty aside, I must say it’s the best sauerkraut I’ve ever had! The ACV is just as simple.
thank you very much, a very good post, looking forward for your next article
is a brownish-gray scum at the top okay? It almost looks like mold! I’ve had mine sitting in a cabinet (dark) covered with a cloth secured with a rubberband and actually forgot about it the last few weeks – it had this grayish-brownish scum on top so I stirred it all up with a spoon, recovered it and put it back. Smells vinegary – yeasty –
thanks!
Hi Ronna, thanks for you question. It’s hard to tell for sure without seeing it, but it sounds like the natural scum that forms sometimes. I think it’s either the pectin and fiber in the apples and/or the mother of vinegar. Usually molds will be quite dry looking and furry, like the kind you find on bread or rice. After inspecting visually, I usually go with the sniff test to make the final decision if something is okay or not. If the vinegar had already developed, usually it has such a strong pH and that harmful molds and bacteria cannot live in that environment. The same thing applies to Kombucha, which is basically on it’s way to becoming a vinegar, and will do if you let it brew too long (it’s a really nice vinegar though). That’s also why vinegar is such a power cleaner and antiseptic (usually the white vinegar is used for cleaning and disinfectant purposes, because it’s cheap and not so beneficial to consume).
My son and I are trying to make ACV a la the Little House on the Prairie cookbook. I found your method since I was a bit unsure of some of the steps they recommended. Do you use purified water, distilled water, tap water? Also how long do you let the scraps brown before adding water? Thank you…we’re looking forward to seeing what develops!
Hi Ann & Julian. It’s great you’re making your own ACV! To answer your questions, we are on tank water, rain water so that’s what I use. It’s what comes out of our taps, but it’s not tap water. I would avoid tap water, it has chemicals designed to kill micro-organisms, and it will kill the good fermentations micro-organisms too. Purified water that has the chlorine, fluorine and other nasty chemicals removed would be my first choice of the ones you mention. I think distilled water would work as well. I’ve not tried it and I know there is a long-standing debate as to whether it’s really good for you (because it’s so purely H20) or not good for you (because it’s so devoid of any trace minerals, or life-force). But I have heard that if you ‘liven up’ distilled water by putting lemon or lime or orange slices in it, or wheat grass (or any clean grass), or strawberries that it becomes good for you. So I imagine the apples would work on the same principle.
As for how long we let the scraps brown for… you want to spread them out so they dry out a bit, and they will brown in that process. They just brown to an extent and then stop. You want to make sure they dry, rather than turn a wet brown, if you know what I mean. It’s a bit hard to explain, but if you could see it you’d ‘get it’ immediately. So you let them dry so the surface doesn’t appear or feel wet anymore. What that does I think is make sure they don’t turn ‘wet brown’ and start turning the fermentation alcoholic. I think different varieties of apples are going to turn a different shade of brown, and depending on how quickly they dry it’s going to affect the shade as well. So the color is not so important as the fact that they have dried on the surface. They don’t have to be crispy dry, just not wet like a fresh apple peel.
I hope that helps. Have fun! What a great thing to do with your son!
Plain vinegar from the store is just as safe to ingest as “apple cider” vinegar to use. In fact, if you read the label on your store purchased ACV, it will most likely state: “Apple cider FLAVORED distilled vinegar” Furthermore, if you read the ingredients: Distilled vinegar (diluted with water to 5% acidity), natural flavor, caramel coloring. It is made with plain vinegar and has apple cider flavor added. So, if you can make ACV yourself, IMHO, it would be much better, as in “the real thing baby”. Plus, you can make it a little stronger acidicly which is necessary for some pickling items.
It’s a good distinction you make Sophia, between real apple cider vinegar and the cheap commercial substitute that is just flavored white vinegar. But I still don’t think that white vinegar is that good to ingest (and neither is the cheap commercial “flavored” apple cider vinegar. I only recommend a high quality, raw, organic, unpasteurized, unfiltered apple cider vinegar, if you’re going to buy it, otherwise homemade is the way to go.
p.s. – a note about vinegars: do not store even temporarily in any type of metal. The acid leaches out metal particles and can be fatal or damaging if ingested. I.e. for chicken watering cans, you cannot add vinegar to the metal cans as it can kill your animals. They even found back in the 80′s that crystal decanters with wine stored in, had leached some of the lead into it the wine. Although vinegar is some great stuff, be careful how you store it. It is used a lot with livestock because it helps keep them free from worms and the like. I use it to water my rabbits as well, just a tsp. in a gallon of water does it!
Really good advice Sophia, and a good point you bring up. Plastic containers used for storage will also leach toxic chemicals into the vinegar. As we know many plastic containers will leach toxic chemicals into something as non-acidic as water. What you say about the lead crystal decanters can also apply to certain types of ceramics, depending on the glazes used.
I use apple cider vinegar daily in the mornings for my acid reflux, it helps tremendously! I would use it three times a day if I could! I’m curious as to the concentration others have it at. I use 1tsp organic ACV (with mother) or 1Tsp store bought ACV with a glass of water.
I want to try my hand at making some homemade ACV to cut down costs, seeing as my medical aid won’t cover it, even though I replace all my medication with it! Was also wondering- will this homemade ACV be as good as the organic I get from the health shop and will using non-organic apples make a difference?