When you make your own fruit vinegar, you get to control the ingredients, and you will get the benefits of all the natural enzymes and probiotics. When vinegar is made commercially they add bacteria and yeast (produced in a lab) to get it started, and this allows for a very consistent product. They also use white sugar to feed the bacteria, something we avoid. Since the vinegar needs to sit on the shelf for years, producers will add something to slow down the fermentation process in the end so that it will have a consistent taste. When we make our own, we get to use naturally occurring yeast and bacteria and do not need to add unnatural ingredients at the end, or sugar. Many recipes say you have to add sugar, but I along with many other natural-minded people have done this without sugar and had great success. I almost always get a Scobey on the top, and it always tastes like vinegar (just not as sweet as the store-bought).

One of my favorite vinegars to make is apple cider vinegar. I add a little of this every morning to my water, and my kids find it incredibly helpful for their stomach at times. We also give this to all of our animals. Apples are my favorite fruit to make vinegar, because we are usually blessed with a lot of apples during the summer and fall, but we have also used grapes, and pears. There are many other fruits that would work great too. The other thing I love about using apples, is the fact that I can use just the skins and cores to make this. When I’m making something with apples, I don’t have to waste anything. Last year we used a 50 gallon barrel and filled it up 2/3 of the way with apples that had fallen on the ground or weren’t as nice, added water, and made our own apple cider vinegar for the animals. I have discovered that the animals will only eat so many apples, so this way none of the apples went to waste. I also loved knowing exactly what they were getting.

Have you tried making fruit vinegars? We would love to hear from you!