She Makes Her Own Grape Vinegar

She Makes Her Own Grape Vinegar FARM HOME Food Making grape vinegar seemed like a natural thing for Rose Shelton to try She likes experimenting with fruits grapes and other produce grown on her family’s 3-acre homestead in North Dakota And she doesn’t like to be wasteful So when she had a quart of soft Concord grapes left after canning juice she used a similar technique to make apple cider vinegar She added 4 1/2 cups of water and 1/4 cup sugar to the mashed grapes in a half-gallon glass jar and covered it with a cotton cloth secured with a rubber band It sat on the counter for a couple of months before she tasted it “It tasted kind of winey ” she says “So I strained out the fruit and let the liquid set a couple more months ” She removed the fruit because she had experienced mold in apple vinegar when the fruit was left in too long “I was rewarded with about 1 quart of very clear dark purple grape vinegar quite similar in flavor to commercial red wine vinegar ” she wrote in an article for Backwoods Home magazine She also saved the grape vinegar mother made during fermentation Later she used it to speed up the process to about half the time with table grapes from her freezer “I gained almost half a gallon of grape wine vinegar for almost no work and the cost of 1/2 cup of sugar ” she wrote Plus two additional mothers formed in the process that she put in a separate jar for future vinegar-making “I use the vinegar in salad dressings mix it with balsamic vinegar and substitute it for rice vinegar in Asian dishes ” Shelton says Her success led her to make peach vinegar with peach peelings She uses the basic formula of 1 tablespoon of sugar per cup of water or 1 cup of sugar per gallon of water She suggests always using glass and checking the fermenting fruit for white flecks resembling snow indicating contamination It won’t hurt you but the flavor will be off and the vinegar won’t be good With very little work and sugar required she says it’s worth experimenting to make vinegars with all kinds of fruit Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Rose Shelton prairiekeet@hotmail com

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