more info in the comments!

I live in San Diego and picked some madrones (Strawberry Tree Arbutus unedo) this morning from some neighborhood trees. I mashed them to make vinegar and a few hours later saw what looked like worms/larvae floating. I pulled a couple out and zoomed in.

Question: can I continue as is and just filter them out in two weeks after the main fermentation is done? Any concerns?

I eat these fruits off the trees all the time so I'm sure I've already eaten many of these worms over the years.

This all started a couple of years ago when I made 10# of black garlic to use for black garlic salt for a giveaway item at an event. The black garlic was made by bagging whole heads of garlic that I grew and holding them above 140f for about 7 weeks. I made way too much for my garlic salt, so I started the black garlic balsamic recipe from the noma book. I fermented a black garlic wine that I then pasteurized, and oxidized using an aquarium pump. Then moved it into an oak barrel to age for a year. This week I emptied the barrel and bottled the goods. My favorite vinegar I’ve made to date.

I just started it because I had a few apples about to go bad but imnot sure what to use it for, any suggestions?

Hi all, I did an experiment this spring with my first ever ferment. I used this sub a lot to guide me through the process and thought I owed you all a summary of my results and figured while I was at it, I may as well ask any additional questions I might have.

This is my wisteria flower* vinegar, a 100% wild ferment with 3 whole ingredients, made in a ½gal mason jar with not a shred of any specialized equipment. My method was harvesting wisteria flowers, giving them a good thorough rinse, and transferring them to my sterilized jar (about half full, unpacked). I used a cup of sugar and topped it off with warm (not hot) water. I either stirred, swirled, or shook the jar every day for about 1.5 months until activity stopped and then strained the bits and let it mellow with a loose lid for another month or 2. I then seeded with ACV after losing all patience with my flower liquor crisping my nose hairs every week, and then finally filtering and transferring to a bottle a couple weeks ago.

There was never any mold, funky films, or weird growths at any point and the end product turned out tasting like a sour candy, no liquor taste at all (thank GOD).

My questions now that I've done the thing, start to finish:

-How lucky was I? Could this have gone terribly wrong?

-Is there a good way to make sure future bottles are actually ready except tasting and smelling (turning from alcohol to vinegar)?

-Since I didn't have any measuring equipment during the process, is there a way to tell how strong it is or how much sugar is left now that it's complete?

-Are there any other not-so-obvious risks to wild fermenting otherwise safe foods, aside from things like mold or e. Coli

I'd like to do more in the realm of fermentation, so would love any input, advice, well-wishes, etc. Currently have a hot sauce and pear cider vinegar attempt going as well, but with more equipment this time lol

I made apple cider vinegar and it smells super good but I noticed some presumebly (/s) dead ants in it! I’m assuming they’re harmless and going ahead with taking a sip… Any objections?

I got this so that I could have a vinegar mother to make vinegar with, however, upon closer inspection it has a vinegar "mother" - literally with the quotation marks on the lable. Will this work? Or have I been had? There is alittle bit of brown wispy stuff on the bottom of the jar, but it doesn't seem like what a vinegar mother looks like (I've never seen one irl tho, so...)

I recently got these bottles for free. I was told they went bad, and the person who had them got fed up. They were stored at room temperature, most are French and Italian from the 90s to early 2000s. Is it possible that some of them are good enough for vinegar? And can I use 2, 3, or 5 gallon carboys, filled so that there's a large surface area on the wine, with a cloth lid? Or should I use a wide mouth fermenter, possibly food-grade plastic buckets? I understand that it has to be racked into an air-tight container with no air space in order to age properly, if it's outside of a refrigerated environment.

My plan currently is to get everything ready, and open them up, deciding as I go if they're tasty enough. If they taste OK, I would pour them into a fermenter, mixing them, but keeping red and white separate. Then mix in some water and live vinegar. What flavors should I look out for? Should I pasteurize it? Thanks in advance!

My friend got me into Fire cider. Currently finishing the mast gallon with hibiscus. The newer one (jarred and in ACV container) has an excellent amount of cayenne (what you see at the bottom of the jar.) I have to say my favorite batch was for sure hibiscus one and I’m going to miss it so much once it’s finally gone. Happy fermenting!

*NOTE* ALL Ingredients I use are organic, always.

Ingredients:
Organic Apple cider vinegar, Lemon Grass, Garlic, ginger, horseradish, red onion, oregano, rosemary, lemon, black peppercorn, tumeric, cayenne, blueberries (last batch was hibiscus), cinnamon, oranges, limes, lemons. After fermented we add honey for sweetness.

No scraps left behind. Everything in fermentation is then moved to a dehydrator and turned into seasoning for anything you desire 🤪😊❤️‍🔥

I know it is safe, but will it affect flavor in vinegar? Is there a way to reduce it if I want to?

Recipe: Apple scraps + liquid to top. Liquid ratio was 1 tbsp sugar + 1 tbsp braggs apple cider vinegar "with the mother" per cup of water. Apples are golden delicious from a backyard tree.

The fermet is actively bubbling, smells slightly alcoholic, tastes like a light apple juice with a hint of vinegar.

So I'm trying to make a homemade vinegar for cleaning. To start here are my ingredients and process:

8 Orange Peels Diced
4 Lime Peels Diced
1/2 Cup Chopped Lemon Basil
1/2 Cup Cane Sugar
1/8 tsp Active Dry Yeast
In a 4L Water Bottle

So I got a TON of activity at the start. Had to burp this baby constantly. I waited 3 weeks and it had died down substantially.

Then I cracked it, strained it, and put it in a big glass jar. Cloth to cover. It's been 8 days since I did that and I see what I think is a mother on the bottom so I'm very excited. However... I flipped back the cloth to find some mold growing on the top.

Keeping in mind I'm not eating this, I'm just using it as a cleaner, what should I do? Can I just scoop it out and let it continue? Also why did this happen? Is there something wrong with my process? Accepting all helpful advice please!

I’m new to quick pickling but made these a few days ago. I used 1:1 vinegar to water with 2 tablespoons each of sugar and salt. I water bathed them for about 15 mins in a rolling boil. Is this bubbling to be expected, or is there too much activity in there?

Edit: I misidentified this as quick pickling…I just meant pickling in vinegar. I’m just wanting to make sure these are shelf stable at room temp as I intended them to be.

I plan to stir every day for 1-2(?) weeks before the vinegar phase? Yes? First time doing this! Are my recipe and method okay? I forgot to mention also the fruit pulp is cooked!

I expect the raisin to go crazy because I didn’t add ACV to start (also didn’t add sugar, I felt like they had enough on their own). Made the mistake of adding ACV at the start with the peach and apple, and the first tomato.

The first tomato gets strained on the 28th. The 2nd tomato once it seems fully settled for a while, plus some ACV starter will be added. Raisin same thing.

The newest tomato scrap vinegar is 3 days old now and does smell like a gross fart! Trying to push past that.

What am I doing wrong? Second batch I've tried, first a preferment with fruit-wine yeast under an airlock, then after it stopped bubbleing innoculate with two tablespoons of unpasturized vinegar. And left it for ~6-7 weeks under a cheescloth, ocassionally stirring. Maybe midway through put it in another jar and discarded the sediment.

Only pineapple and sugar, no skin,. In the first ferment i added sugar in the beggining and let it ferment, in the second i added sugar in weekly periods letting the yeast work its way through it first, (add sugar, bubbling, wait for the bubbles to slowly go down, repeat, until no more new bubbles after a 2 tablespoon sugar)

Before the innoculation with the vinegar it was distinctively boozy, especially the second batch

It has not gone bad, but it is not particularly pleasant either. The PH is around 2.9- 3. I feel like it should be lower.
I have kept all equipment reasonably clean but as i've said it has not gone bad there is no foul smell, but its just not good. Also I have never tasted pineapple vinegar before but i have a strong feeling that its not like this.

(In an act of desperation i tried to boil it off and concentrate it, it somehow made it worse and also slightly less acidic surprisingly.)

I was loosely following Sandor Katz, and Glen and Friends' pineapple vinger video

Thanks

First attempt at making vinegar. Using the one stage method from Noma.

1571 g strained watermelon puree
315 g apple cider vinegar
147 g Everclear
Aerator stone in the bottom.

See you in a couple of weeks.

sorry for the poor-quality picture the airstone in question was one of the small blue ones for betta fish I got at the pet store Kind of like this one

Hi everyone!

I decided to create a new thread since I haven't seen anyone use added alcohol with homemade vinegar.

I found a recipe online that said to use the following:

1 c sugar

1 gallon water

6 c fruit

3 tbsp apple cider vinegar with the mother

*use vodka for a stronger vinegar

I saw that vodka could be added to make the vinegar stronger, so I thought I'd do that. I swapped one cup of water for vodka in each recipe.

I'm trying my hand at vinegar and wanted to know if what I currently have is any good or not. I added everything to a glass jar (except for 6 cups of fruit, I accidentally used 6 whole fruits, so 6 pears and 6 oranges) and stirred twice daily for 2 weeks before straining the fruit. It has been sitting ever since. I used an old t-shirt to cover the top. I started this on 7-21-26. One batch is orange and the other batch is pear. The pear one had a very strong vinegar smell after 1 week or so, but then turned into a sweeter alcohol smell.

Should I stir this up on the occasion, or just let it do what it wants to do? Any overall opinions are also gladly welcomed! 🩵🩵

The photos included are:

1 : orange vinegar 8-10-26

2: \\

3: pear vinegar 8-10-26

4: \\

5: orange vinegar 08-07-26

6: pear vinegar 07-29-26

From left to right: Maple Vinegar, Celery Vinegar, Turmeric Vinegar, Pineapple Vinegar, Hibiscus Vinegar and Shallot Vinegar.

I have fermented these batches back from January and have used each vinegar for different recipes!

Got some more current batches being fermented but I am really happy with how they turned out!

I filtered a vinegar today that I made four years ago. Four years back, I diluted cheongju (korean rice wine) with water to make a wine of about 10% alcohol, then inoculated it with a vinegar mother from another vinegar. After it was mostly converted into vinegar, I sealed it with only minimal air exchange and let it age for four years.

When I tasted it, it was very different from a young vinegars. The fruity aromas had almost disappeared, and instead an earthy character dominated. The acidity wasn’t sharp or piercing but soft and rounded, and above all, the umami was remarkably deep. I made only a small batch since it was just an experiment, and now I really regret that I wish I had made much more, knowing it would turn out this well.

Need some help, I tried searching through the sub about this but turned up nothing.

I'm trying to make mulberry vinegar but because the mulberries float to the top no matter what, they get moldy and then the batch is ruined.

Do I need something to stop them from rising to the top for this to succeed?

Would really like some tips since I'm a beginner at this 😭

TL;DR: I'm brewing white vinegar from ACV with the addition of distilled water and raw sugar. It's been going for about 7 weeks. The pH has lowered from about 3.75 at the start to about 2.75, but it's still very sweet, and it doesn't seem to be active anymore.

Details:

I've been pretty successful brewing apple cider vinegar, but I wanted to try white vinegar. I've read that I can brew white vinegar by fermenting raw sugar in distilled water, and backslopping with my active ACV.

I started a brew with 1/2C of ACV, 1+1/2C of distilled water, and 1/4C raw sugar, which has a starting pH of about 3.5 to 4. I kept it open to the air in a one-quart wide mouth jar, and stirred it (nearly) every day. After about four weeks, I have a note that I added more raw sugar, between 1/2C and 3/4C, but I don't recall why.

After a total of seven weeks, it seemed pretty idle, but still tasted very sweet. I measured the pH with a test strip and got between 2.5 and 3. I moved it into a narrow-necked bottle and topped with a latex balloon, which is not filling to any noticeable degree after a week. There are a few bubbles on the surface, but no growth forming, and very little sediment.

Can anyone help me understand why this may have stalled, and how I can rescue this brew?

Thanks!