Your Guide For Making The Best Homemade Apple Cider Vinegar (2-Step Process)

This is the perfect guide for making the best homemade apple cider vinegar. The countless benefits of apple cider vinegar are already well-known, so there is no need to praise it and explain why it should be consumed on a regular basis. This article focuses on the actual preparing of homemade apple cider vinegar, presenting a simple 2-step process. Check it out!

Raw Organic Apple Cider Vinegar Recipe

Ingredients:

• 5 large organic apples, 3 sweet and 2 sour
• ¾ cup raw organic honey
• Freshly filtered water

Tools needed:

• 1 wide-mouth 1-gallon glass jar
• 4 wide-mouth 32-ounce glass jars
• 4 snap-top glass bottles
• Muslin or cheesecloth
• Large rubber band and 4 smaller rubber bands

Stage 1- The Primary Fermentation

Chop the previously washed apples into 1-inch pieces and let them sit on the cutting board for a while.  You want them to turn brown as they get in contact with the air, as this oxidization is needed to accelerate the fermentation.

Fill 1/3 of the jar with the chopped apple and then pour filtered water over them, making sure they are fully submerged.  Add the honey and stir until fully dissolved.

Cover the jar with a cloth and secure it with a large rubber band.  Keep the jar in a dark and warm place for a week, stirring it a few times daily.  As the sugar ferments into alcohol, the mixture will begin to bubble.  It will turn into a viscous liquid at this point!

After about a week, apple pieces will sink to the bottom and the apple cider is ready to be turned into vinegar.

Stage 2: From Apple Cider to Apple Cider Vinegar—the Secondary Fermentation

Pour the cider through a sieve to strain off the apple pieces.  Feel free to mash them up and press their juices, too.  Cover the jars with another piece of cloth and secure with a rubber band.

Store them in a dark and warm place for up to a month so that the acetic acid bacteria convert the alcohol into acetic acid. The odor will shift to tart vinegar at this point of the fermentation and a culture known as the mother will form at the base.

The mother is a living thing which is completely safe to consume and it is made up of enzymes, acetic acid bacteria, and apple residues.  Remove it once it has the right level of sourness.  Store the vinegar in clean glass jars, leaving the residue which can be composted.

Given that the vinegar is alive, another mother often develops as the fermentation process continues. However, this will soon stop in an airtight environment and the vinegar will become long lasting and stable.

Note: If the fermenting vinegar is exposed to the air for an extended period of time, the acetic acid bacteria will convert the acetic acid to water and carbon dioxide.

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