Beauty Articles

It seems that a new diet book gets published every day, and that the talk show circuit is more in love with diet trends than ever. Given that one must assume that more people are trying to eat well, which in many cases means giving up some of the sauces and seasonings we like the most. In the absence of sweeteners and salt, which are leading poor-health culprits, some cider vinegar can go a long way to giving otherwise bland food a little bit of a kick.

Another advantage of cider is that it can be made at home without too much difficulty, and home-made food products are usually better for you than mass-produced food items that you buy at the grocery store. For the parents of school-aged children, making vinegar at home has a second advantage: it provides a great science experiment for your kids. And since it involves making alcohol first, it’s almost certain to be an experiment they’ll find interesting.

There are three fundamental steps to making cider vinegar. The first is to make the cider from apples. The second is to ferment the cider, turning the sugar into alcohol. The third is to ferment the alcohol, turning it into acetic acid. The final result is cider vinegar, which is both tangy and a little bit sweet.

Green apples and summer varieties don’t have enough sugar in them to make good cider or good vinegar, so it’s important to make sure that you use fall and winter varieties. If you’re picking them from a tree, the season will tell you what variety you’re using. But if you’re getting your apples from the store you might ask the produce manager to help you out. Seasons have little bearing on what stores carry.

Making cider vinegar is a straightforward process, but it requires careful execution of each of the steps. The first one is to crush the apples up into a nice, even pulp. A cider press does this on a large scale, but in the absence of a press you can use whatever is handy. Even a rolling pin will work, although it might take a while. Once you’ve made your pulp, you can use a cheese cloth to strain out the juice, being sure to end up with a nice, clear cider.

Once your cider is ready, you will need to start the fermentation process. Yeast fermentation works naturally as soon as it’s started, but it can be tricky to start, and not all yeasts are the same. Bread yeast, although certainly the easiest to find, is not a good choice for fermenting cider. A much better option is to go to a winemaking shop and use whatever fermentation kit the proprietor suggests. Later, when you’re more familiar with yeast fermentation, you can be more experimental.

Once you’ve gotten fermentation started, the rest of the process is passive. Put the fermenting cider into jars and keep them between 60 and 80 degrees F. The yeast will naturally ferment the sugar into alcohol and then it will ferment the alcohol into acetic acid. The whole process will take about 3 or 4 weeks, at which point you will begin to smell a distinctive vinegar scent. When you do, it’s time to start tasting the vinegar regularly until it reaches the strength you prefer.

Once you have it the way you like it, you have to strain it in order to stop the fermentation. This can be done using a cheese cloth or a coffee filter. After straining, you will be left with good cider vinegar, which can be used in a variety of ways to make your diet healthier and your meals more tangy.