6 Reason to Make Your Own Fruit Vinegar

Here are 4 reasons you should learn how to make vinegar at home. If you cook from scratch and are concerned about gut health, homemade vinegar has lots of offer your kitchen and family!

Overview: How to Make Vinegar from Scratch

In centuries past, women knew how to make vinegar at home. They used juice from apples, other pome fruits, stone fruits or even berries.

After extracting juice from fruit or berries, it was left to ferment at room temperature. Natural yeasts would feed on the juice sugars, converting the natural sugar to alcohol. Shortly after, a group of air borne bacteria would convert the alcohol content to acetic acid, creating a shelf-stable, homemade vinegar.

Women would use this vinegar to create refreshing summer drinks, homemade condiments, herbal remedies and of course, in her baking or cooking!

So let's take a deeper look at why a modern homemaker might want to make her own fruit vinegar. Shall we?

Reasons to Make Vinegar from Scratch

Reason 1: You'll Have Access to Flavors That Are Hard to Find

If you live in a small town or in the countryside, you probably don't have access to an artisan vinegar shop!

Here where I live, my local grocery store carries white vinegar and one or two types of apple cider vinegar. You won't find strawberry, cherry, grape or huckleberry vinegar in the shelves of any store in my community!

And this is true of most places.

By making vinegar yourself, you'll have access to unique and bold flavors you can't find anywhere else.

Reason 2: Homemade Vinegar Adds Fermented Food to Your Diet

If you are interested in gut health, homemade vinegar is a great way to add more fermented food products to your kitchen.

Why can't you just buy vinegar at the grocery store?

It isn't easy to find slow fermented vinegar at the grocery store. Apart from Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar, most available options aren't that healthy.

Store bought fruit vinegars are often made with a base of white vinegar (which isn't a true, fermented product), and can contain artificial flavors or even food coloring.

Making vinegar yourself ensures you're getting the good bacteria that promotes gut health.

Reason 3: Raw Vinegar is the Healthiest Form of Vinegar

Homemade vinegar is made with raw fruit juices, and finished vinegar not only has good bacteria strains, but it also holds whatever vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants were found in the fruit.

Vinegar contains acetic acid and can be used to create a powerful, natural electrolyte drink.

Reason 4: You Don't Need Special Equipment

You don't need special tools to make homemade vinegar from scratch. Most home cooks already have everything on hand.

The list includes:

• a glass jar and lid
• rubber band
• cotton cloth

See? I told you it was simple!

Reason 5: It's Easy to Make Homemade Vinegar

If you have access to fresh, sun ripened fruit, you can create fruit vinegar in your kitchen, just like folks did centuries ago!

Helpful tip: Don't have access to fresh fruit? You can buy and ferment pure, 100% fruit juice into vinegar as well. Just make sure the juice doesn't have additives (like lots of sugar) or stabilizers.

It's not hard to learn how to make vinegar at home.

In the link above, I teach you how.

Reason 6: Homemade Vinegar Will Improve Your Culinary Efforts

Whether you're making quick breads, condiments, natural electrolyte drinks, meat marinades or even simple home remedies, fruit vinegar brings something special to the table.

I've made a list of the key ways you can use vinegar in your cooking, baking and home remedies.

Ways to Use Homemade Vinegar in Recipes

If you cook from scratch, you'll enjoy using homemade fruit vinegar in your favorite recipes! Here are some ways I use fruit vinegar in my kitchen.

1: Create a Refreshing Summer Drink

If you've ever read the “Little House on the Prairie” series, you may remember Laura and Pa consuming a special drink during hay season (The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder, pg 8), when the sun and sweat had sapped their energy.

It consisted of water, sugar, ginger and (you guessed it!) vinegar.

This old-timer's drink had different names (switchel or haymaker's punch). It was popular because it help revitalize the body after working hard in the summer heat.

Today, we know the vinegar acted as a natural electrolyte that helped rebalance the body, so folks could carry on.

2: Vinegar for a Red Meat Tenderizer

Fruit vinegar is an excellent, red meat tenderizer!

Take your favorite marinade recipe and add equal parts oil and vinegar (eg. if recipe calls for 1/3 C oil, also use 1/3 C vinegar).

Deep, bold flavors pair best with red meat. Plum is one of my personal favorites!

3: Vinegar Gives Quick Breads Extra Rise

When making quick breads like pancakes, biscuits, cornbread or muffins, add 1 tablespoon of vinegar to every 1 C milk in the recipe.

In doing so, you'll make a mock buttermilk!

The extra acidity will react with baking powder or baking soda, which will give you extra rise and fluffiness in your recipes.

4: Create Homemade Dips and Dressings with Homemade Vinegar

Fermented fruit vinegar adds excellent flavor to homemade condiments, dips, salad dressings and vinaigrettes. From healthy homemade mayonnaise to a basil spinach dip, or raspberry mint vinaigrette, the options and creation process are endless!

In my extensive book on "How to Make Fruit Vinegar for Beginners" I have an entire chapter dedicated to vinegar-based recipes!

5: Use Vinegar in Simple Home Remedies

Did you know vinegar is a natural preservative, and that it's safe to infuse fresh herbs, garlic and other plant matter in vinegar?

Vinegar is a natural preservative, so it's an easy place to begin if you want to make homemade remedies.

Infuse herbs, roots or bark in a jar of vinegar, and let it sit for 4-6 weeks. Strain out the solids and you'll have a simple home remedy next time cold or flu season comes 'round.

Once created, you don't have to take it like you would a cold or cough syrup! Infused vinegar is tasty when added to condiments, refreshing summer drinks and the like. No one needs to know you're doctoring them! Just slip it in there. 😉

Why You Should Start Making Vinegar Today

Fruit vinegar is easy to make at home, promotes good health and it has lots of benefits if you cook from scratch and want to feed your family healthy food.

Questions? Comments? Leave them below and I'll get  back to you!